Behind The Scenes with the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 Capturing Memorable Proposal Moments

[00:00:00] All right, I am about to do a proposal session, and I’m at one of my favorite locations in New Jersey, local to me for any sort of family or engagement or proposal sessions, and I have cinematic mode on, but this is the view. That’s where he’s going to be proposing.

[00:00:21] ​

[00:00:21] I currently have my iPhone on top of…

[00:00:26] The hot true of my camera so that way I can get some video, , behind the themes , of the proposal. And what I’m going to be doing is putting my iPhone, the video, on, , what’s it called, sport mode. So that way it has this GoPro type stabilization to it. Even if I turn, which right now that won’t work, but if I turn now, it’s obviously going to look very strange on video.

[00:00:50] But in that mode, it doesn’t turn all the way.

[00:00:53] It should still be okay if I wind up going a portrait for a little bit , so with that said, I’ve got the Nikon Z7 [00:01:00] II and the new Tamron 35-150 F/2-2. 8 variable, so I’ll be at 2-2.8 most of the proposal itself, and then if we do some engagement photos after I’ll be

[00:01:17] obviously switching things up, but this is my first test with the Tamron 35-150. I’m very excited about this because this is a game changer lens. It solves all the in betweens of for people who either use the, the Golden Trio or people use primes. It solves everything in one lens.

[00:01:37] So I’m going to have a nice 35 view. I will also have a nice… 150 view if I need to with nice compression, stuff like that and yeah, it’s a beautiful day. The only problem is, as you can see, there’s a lot of shadows. There’s no, the leaves started falling already, even though it looks beautiful.

[00:01:54] The leaves started falling already and so with, because of that, there’s gonna be some weird [00:02:00] shadows on them on this path. It’s unavoidable, but I’m now on the lookout for them is the couple and their husky. As soon as he sees me and he passes me, that’s when he’s gonna do it, so I just stay on the lookout.

[00:02:14] It’s almost crunch time.

[00:02:15] So anyway this is a sort of a review of the Tamron 35-150 f2-2.8 for Nikon Z, combined with a behind the scenes look of a proposal session.

[00:02:25] The lens that I’ve got here on my Nikon, Z seven. And two is the Tamron 35-150 and it’s an f/2-2.8. The lens is pretty big. If you all things considered, it’s a pretty big lens.

[00:02:40] Especially if you compare it to the 24 to 70 F four.

[00:02:46] It’s a big lens now.

[00:02:48] It is a big zoom lens. So we got 35 millimeter all the way. I have it locked. There’s a lock. Now it’s unlocked. All the way to 150. [00:03:00] And it doesn’t have too much. It’s tight. It’s got a, it’s got a good zoom field too. It’s not too loose. And there is no lens creep, but I’m assuming they add to the lock because over time, lens gears start to wear out a little bit

[00:03:14] and at times they do start to have some lens creeps. So I’m assuming that’s why the lock is here for the future. Now the lens does have AF and MF. So I can quickly switch between manual focus and auto-focus it also has custom one, two and three. For the lens, you can configure all this using Tamron’s software. Now the interesting thing is there is a USB-C port here and they say it is sealed, meaning that it is weather resistant. I wish that there were still a cover for it instead of it being completely exposed

[00:03:45] and the funny thing is, if you look at the photos, on all the stores everywhere. That is never visible. You never see that it’s an uncovered USB-C port. So I do wish that was covered and I might just add some electrical tape or something over it. But. it’s [00:04:00] really for firmware. It’s for controlling, not only the custom here, but also the buttons.

[00:04:05] There’s a button here. There’s a button here and there’s a button on the bottom until we’re spot for a button on our money like that. But there’s buttons. To control that I probably won’t be doing that. I probably won’t be customizing the lens but I do the fact that I can update the firmware typically with a Nikon lens

[00:04:20] if you have a firmware, you are updating it through the camera itself, but because it’s a third party lens. I have to update it using the USB port and the software. That’s okay now.

[00:04:31] It is an 82 millimeter filter thread, which I am perfectly okay with, because that is a size round filters

[00:04:37] I get whenever any filters. Because that’s a pretty big lens size, and then I can always use scalers in order to make it for a smaller lens.

[00:04:45] Like for example, the 24 -70 I did bring this out for, I did a bunch of tests around the house, but then I did bring it out for this proposal session. And I have to say that I did a fantastic job.

[00:04:55] There were some times where it would not focus at f/2 and it could be [00:05:00] because I was so far away from the subject now. When I do a proposal session, I am far away. I’m basically starting at 150 and I am photographing the the subjects the person proposing to the other person from a distance and I’m slowly walking in and zooming out at the same time as they get closer and closer.

[00:05:19] So I did find that at f/2, it did not focus as well at the distance. And it makes sense because I was pretty far away so that I’m not faulting the lens, but I am saying that happened. But other than that, this lens is absolutely fantastic. I will say that it is really nice to have one lens that handles the majority of things that I would need on a day to day basis.

[00:05:46] It’s just a beautiful

[00:05:47] thing.

[00:05:47] I also want to point out that I actually use this simple rig here. This is a small rig hot shoe ball Mount. And then my peak design mount now on my iPhone 14 pro max, I do have the peak design [00:06:00] case. Once I upgrade to the probably whatever comes after the 15, if it’s the. I don’t know if it is a 16 or whatever it winds up being.

[00:06:07] I probably won’t do a peak design case anymore for a variety of reasons. But there’s other mounts that can hold a phone just as sturdy as this. But the fact that with a peak design case, I can just click this onto here and it is locked in. Not going anywhere. I can shake it all I want.

[00:06:22] So what I actually did for the footage I wanted to video the client to not ask for it. They did not pay for it, but I did put my my phone mounted. I actually mounted it.

[00:06:34] This way. On top of my camera. And I did that so that I could actually get some behind the scenes video of the proposal as well. And by doing that, what I actually did was I stuck my phone in action mode. And that way it was very smooth motion, like this GoPro esque feel of smooth motion. Even though I was walking, I was moving, they were walking, they were moving. [00:07:00] And there were. If, even if I flipped to vertical, that was it.

[00:07:03] That was a smooth. tiLt rather than a jerky motion that would have made the video look really weird. So I did do that as well. The one mistake that I made this was the first time I tried that. And the one mistake I made is I should have zoomed in, on the action mode and not kept it at the widest lens.

[00:07:21] When you zoom in on the video, it is a little bit pixelated. But it’s okay. Because again, they didn’t pay for it then and ask for it. It was just like a bonus thing that I just decided to do for them.

[00:07:30] this lens, the Tamron lens, going back to that, it is fantastic. I am very excited to put this to use on a regular basis and be able to travel with just the one lens and do a lot of this work with the one lens and then have a small prime as a backup.

[00:07:46] For example, if I needed or something like that, or even. Just the 24-70 as the backup for a zoom range, if needed, because this is very light. The 35-150. It’s probably the same weight [00:08:00] as the camera self, if not a little bit more. So I don’t know the exact specs. I’m not concerned about the specs. I was more concerned about, the 35-150, the 2.8, which is amazing, even when you zoom in and Just the fact that it just works. Also worth mentioning that the lens has VC vibration control from Tamron in it.

[00:08:18] So you combine that the image stabilizer of the VR built into the Nikon Z7II, and you’ve got some major vibration control, which is a beautiful thing as well. Lens is fantastic. It did the job that I needed to do. There were yes. As I said a few frames that was out of focus. But it’s okay because

[00:08:37] the other frames were fine.