my tammy:)

I got it I got it! I finally got it!!! my very own zoom lens, the Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical IF Macro Zoom Lens. ok ok so the name's a little long, but after mulling over whether or not to get one of these zooms for the past 5 mths, I finally got it!



was at DCIM fair last wkend and Tamron had a good deal. so went for it:)

had the op to test it out the next day at the zoo.

I straightaway played with the zoom and was quite happy with the results I got. in this instance, the pony's details came out quite nicely:


next was to the giraffe enclosure. I find that my shots tended to be overexposed and the images appeared slightly whitewashed as compared to when I used my kit lens. not sure if it's the lens' IQ at work or the discrepancy between the body and the lens? but stepped the white balance down and had to do some minimal editing in order to lower the blownout look. details captured were still nice tho. and I do like the bokeh it gives:) rather different, kinda mushy kinda feel. haha... :


birds are really difficult to get close to as they tend to fly away as soon as u approach them. so it was really really nice to be able to catch these painted storks without them being spooked and cabut-ing:


the Malayan tiger was a bit difficult to shoot. he was showing stereotypical behaviour by pacing around the enclosure. it was quite pitiful actually to see him do that:( but other than that, his movement really challenged my lens especially since I maxed it out at the 270mm focal length. put it on servo (continuous) focusing mode and it did help a bit:


this was one very very difficult shot to take. the lens' AF kept focusing on the foliage in front of the lioness and refused to lock onto her. was super frustrating. in the end I switched to manual focus and it was also a challenge as the lens' fine tuning focus ring was kinda lax and very loose feeling. meaning that I had to hold the ring in place in order to maintain the focus for fear when I let it go it would lose its focus:


next up were the flamingoes. always wanted to photograph them up close and finally managed to do that that day:) their colours were really nice and they displayed such vibrant behaviour (if behvr can be vibrant:P):


next up was the savannah enclosure. spotted these few rhinos munching away. took this shot at 18mm:


then this was at 100mm. the middle focal lengths proved to be a little difficult to manouvre cos at this focal length, turning the zoom ring gets really tight. I guess it could be a manufacturer's way of minimising the zoom creep?:


this was at 270mm. the details were preserved quite nicely - which is excellent! I really think the VC (vibration control) that comes with the lens is totally important!:


some other shots that I took- busy body ostriches:


tortoise that had really good poses!:


herd of seladang/ gaur:


All in all, the lens is pretty neat with a few shortcomings (nothing's perfect I guess... well till they come up with 18-2XXmm f/2.8 that is:P) and it was pretty heavy to lug around too... needs more getting used to:)