Today on The Slanted Lens we’ve got the very talented model Breanna White helping us test out the Tamron 35mm 1.4 lens!
We are giving away this lens through the month of September, so CLICK HERE to enter!
This is the new SP lens from Tamron. It’s a 40 year anniversary lens because they’ve been making SP lenses for 40 years! It’s a great lens to shoot in context, especially with this kind of environment where we’ve got rocks and water. It’s a great lens to be able to take and shoot and see things in context.
We want to put this lens through our tests to really see how amazing it is!
Image Quality Test
We shot a lot of images out at the beach and a lot were at 1.4.
This was one of the few images we got that was really saturated. If you look at her face it is absolutely tact sharp at 1.4. It’s almost uncomfortably sharp on her skin!
There is a slight vignette in the corners at 1.4 2.0 but by 2.8 that clears right up.
As I jump to a backlight images, you’d expect to see some chromatic aberration, but I’m at 1.4 and have a ton of backlight yet I have really clean lines! This is pretty impressive for the 1.4 and the distance we have.
Look at this image! We’ve got her jumping, I’m shooting at 8000 sec, and it’s freezing the action no problem. Everything is frozen in place and the image is clean, sharp and really impressive.
I tried a few of these with the Godox V860IIC for some shots where she’s very backlit and it has a deep depth of field and we put the hight on her face and it looks really nice. We’re quite pleased with those!
I asked Bre for any tips for models, which can also be tips for photographers.
Bre: The best tips that were ever given to me were always find your light and elongate your body.
Edge-To-Edge Sharpness Test
Now I’m looking at these rocks and they’re all at different depths and I’ve got really nice sharpness edge to edge!
Bokeh Test
Now let’s take a look at my favorite part – the bokeh! With just twinkle lights behind me, this is giving me a beautiful round bokeh. Depending on how far away I am, the bokeh gets a little larger. So we just pulled the focus on the lens to make the bokeh larger and more concentric and it’s just beautiful.
I actually like the design inside the bokeh as well if you take it and just blow it up a little bit. It all looks fabulous on this lens!
Context Photography
I took this 35mm 1.4 to Africa with me because I wanted to get contextual images of people in the villages and their environments and this is what we got!
I love these two girls together and I see the world they live in around them. the ones that really illustrate the issue is when you look at the huts, the woman with the basket on her head and especially the woman with her child on her back. This really becomes a contextual portrait and is the perfect use of the 35mm lens.
I also used the 35mm lens for a timelapse while I was in Uganda. the reason I used this lens is it gives me a nice wide view. I was using it with the HeadONE from Edelkrone which is really easy to travel with and gives me a nice pan right through this intersection.
Final Thoughts
For me, this lens boiled down to a couple of things.
- It’s really tact sharp at 1.4
- Beautiful edge-to-edge sharpness all the way through
- I did see some vignetting at wide open 1.4, 2.0 but gone at 2.8
- I love the bokeh on the lens
- Love how flawlessly this worked with my EOS R
This is really a high end quality lens.I love this kind of lens for contextual portraiture and that’s definitely where I would use it the most! This is definitely a lens that I have to have in my bag because I want a good 35. Tamron had the 1.8, which is good but the 1.4 just gives me that extra stop and shallower depth of field, which I think, makes it worth the purchase!
Keep those cameras rolling. Keep on clickin!
GEAR USED:
Tamron 35mm 1.4 Lens
B&H: https://bhpho.to/31gV1j3
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QmVyPx
Canon EOS R
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2roExVE
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2O8v5m3
Blackrapid Strap
B&H: https://bhpho.to/2G06Y1T
Amazon: https://amzn.to/34FBCdr
