My Tamron 90 mm f/2.8 in action : Ethnic street portraits

Published at: 10:06 am - Monday June 15 2009

Cool old Tibetan monk. Boudha stupa reflecting in his shades. Canon 5D Mark II, Tamron 90 mm f/2.8, @ wide open aperture

Cool old Tibetan monk. Boudha stupa reflecting in his shades. Canon 5D Mark II, Tamron 90 mm f/2.8, @ wide open aperture

Thought it’d be a good time to show some street portrait photos I took last week, just strolling around in Kathmandu for a few hours. All shot with my Tamron SP DI 90 mm f/2.8 lens at wide open aperture, f/2.8. I’ll review the lens in some detail here.

Interestingly, it was the only non-Canon lens to make it onto the Top20 Canon (compatible) lenses in a recent photographer survey (Bob Atkins’), where it was rated “very good” to “outstanding. I’d have to agree! Here’s why:

Since I upgraded my camera from a crop version (the Canon 20D) to a full frame (the Canon 5D Mark II), I’ve become much more happy with the Tamron 90 mm lens. Honestly, it was a bit tricky to work with on the 20D. The 90 mm focal length, in effect, turned into a (90×1.6=) 144 mm lens. At that focal length, and without any image stabilization, I had to shoot at a shutter time of 1/180, 1/250 or even 1/350 sec. to avoid motion blur. And shooting at 144 mm f/2.8 gives you a very narrow focus are (DOF) so I was usually shooting at f/5.6 or so, just to make sure I got something in focus! On the 20D, I could reasonably go up to 400 or 800 ISO, which all meant that I needed daylight conditions to work – or a strobe or a tripod.

But, with the full frame 5D2 camera, it is much easier to work with! The 90 mm remains 90 mm, shutter speed of 1/125 is sufficient and if need be, I’ll crank the ISO up to 1000 ASA or above! What a dream! Dark alleys at dusk, no problem. Indoor low-light portraits, bring‘em on!

The narrow DOF is still something to consider. You’ll need to shoot your subjects fairly straight-on if you want both their eyes in focus. On the below shot of a smoking Nepalese man, you can see on the 100% crop of his eyes that only one of them is in focus. If you can’t get both eyes in focus, remember, always focus on the nearest eye.

The Smoking Man, Nepal

The Smoking Man, Nepal. Canon 5D Mark II, Tamron 90 mm f/2.8, @ wide open aperture

left-eye

Left eye in focus, 100% crop

Right eye out of focus, 100% crop

Right eye out of focus, 100% crop

On the next shot of the working ladies, you can get an impression of the bokeh of the Tamron 90 mm lens. (The out-of-focus points that become big circles in the back, upper-right corner.) Look at the 100% crop and tell me, isn’t it just a totally decent bokeh?

Nepalese lady carrying sand in a basket, strapped around her forehead. Canon 5D Mark II, Tamron 90 mm f/2.8, @ wide open aperture

Nepalese lady carrying sand in a basket, strapped around her forehead. Canon 5D Mark II, Tamron 90 mm f/2.8, @ wide open aperture

Corner bokeh on the Tamron 90 mm f/2.8 lens

Corner bokeh on the Tamron 90 mm f/2.8 lens

Bokeh is always a subject of heated debate among photographers. But to me it looks pretty good. On low-quality lenses you’ll often see hard rings around the edge of these out-of-focus circles. There’s still a bit of that here, but not much. And also, being in the corner of the frame, a lot of other lenses distort the circles into tear-drop shapes or so. Here, on the Tamron 90 mm lens, they remain nicely round!

So what’s the price of this lens and what are the alternatives? For Canon users like myself, there’s also the much acclaimed 85/1.2 lens and the 135/2 lens. Both ‘L’ lenses and both somewhat more expensive (especially considering I got my Tamron 90/2.8 for free!). They’re all good for shooting one thing: Portraits. Perhaps a few other niches, like food photography and macro photography. Some notable stock shooters tend to love these lenses. The two L-lenses are probably both a bit sharper and with a bit more contrast than the Tamron. But we’re really down in the nitty-gritty here. The Tamron performs excellent and personally I would probably find it hard to make good use of the more narrow DOF on these two alternative lenses, used wide open. I love the separation that the out-of-focus backgrounds give, but I still want the eyes to be in-focus. Both iris and eye-lashes, please. So the Tamron 90 mm f/2.8 is a pretty good fit for my needs. Here are the prices, served by Amazon:

Last photo here, a vertical half-body portrait of an old man in a temple. Not much to say. Just love his t-shirt!

Fancy t-shirt man

Cool T-shirt man. Canon 5D Mark II, Tamron 90 mm f/2.8, @ wide open aperture

16 Responses to “My Tamron 90 mm f/2.8 in action : Ethnic street portraits”

  1. Jonny, on June 22nd, 2009 at 1:11 PM Said:

    Breath-taking photos.
    You caught the emotions of the people you photographed very well!
    The only thing that bothered me was the cut on the top edges on the first two photos. Yet, the colors, sharpness, mood and facial impressions are so amazing - i can’t really say anything bad about this photo :)

    Well Done,
    Jonny.

  2. Max, on August 31st, 2009 at 5:57 PM Said:

    Nice images, excellent work!
    Impressed by the quality of your lens. I bought a 5d mark II the past month. I went to Nepal in Nov 2008. I did many portraitures with a 350d and sigma 24-60 f2.8 and sigma 70-200 f2.8. Nepal people are Nice and kind!
    Best wishes!

  3. Dennis, on September 2nd, 2009 at 8:05 AM Said:

    Your pic is great.
    I also got this lens. The quality is great especially for portrait. The only bad thing that I can say for this lens is the focusing speed. The focus motor will keep moving in darkness.

  4. Rom, on December 12th, 2009 at 4:19 PM Said:

    There is also a non-DI version of this lens. Is it compatible with full-frame body?

  5. clippo, on January 19th, 2010 at 2:07 AM Said:

    impressive images. I already have this lens and am hoping to upgrade to a 5D so this piece is very useful to me.

  6. Balkrishna Malla, on January 27th, 2010 at 5:18 AM Said:

    Hi Morten,

    you have a wonderful blog and looking at your pictures from Nepal makes me want to be back there.(currently in US) I am a nepali and seeing a non nepali catch the essence of our people is wonderful. i am a photo enthusiast myself. thanks again for posting such extraordinarily wonderful images of Nepal. Hope I can hear from you.
    Bal

  7. Sanj, on June 14th, 2010 at 8:37 PM Said:

    Great pics and nice little review…just one thing, is this the 90mm Macro? In which case I’m off to the shops as I want a macro and a portrait lens, just never thought the portraits would come out so well!

  8. Morten Svenningsen, on June 15th, 2010 at 1:15 AM Said:

    yes, it’s a 1:1 macro as well. Nice little thingy!

  9. David, on September 15th, 2010 at 10:37 PM Said:

    Yo Morten, love the site and the images. I’m travelling in Nepal at the moment, and stumbled across your work while googling around for a place to get a lens serviced in Kathmandu. I’d like to give an honorable mention to Canon’s f/1.8 85mm prime. It’s super sharp, and runs in at around the same price as the tamron lens. No macro, but a bit more light-grabbing in those darkest of dark alleyways.

  10. addy, on September 28th, 2010 at 11:27 PM Said:

    just switch to 5d mark 2 from 50d what is the best ulta wide angle lens for my 5D mark2, since my 10-20 sigma is not a full frame lens anyway very nice pic.

  11. Morten Svenningsen, on September 29th, 2010 at 12:04 AM Said:

    First one that comes to mind is the 17-40 mm from Canon. I used to own it and it did a really good job. And it’s not too expensive either, since it’s ‘only’ f/4… But it’s an L-lens with superb qualities solid build. After it was stolen from me (F…!), I later replaced it with a Sigma prime to get the faster aperture at the expence of the zoom. The new 14 mm f/2.8L also comes to mind, it’s a fantastic lens…

  12. Aayush, on November 6th, 2010 at 9:18 AM Said:

    Great photography man, the tibetan monk was marvellous just loved it.. keep visiting Nepal and taking more breath taking photographs…

  13. jj, on November 13th, 2010 at 12:52 AM Said:

    oh my good the sunglass man is so awesome !

  14. Leo, on February 3rd, 2011 at 12:13 AM Said:

    Interesting review and great photo’s. I love this lens and also use it on a 5D mark II. There is one thing where you make a mistake: You wrote”Since I upgraded my camera from a crop version (the Canon 20D) to a full frame (the Canon 5D Mark II), I’ve become much more happy with the Tamron 90 mm lens. Honestly, it was a bit tricky to work with on the 20D. The 90 mm focal length, in effect, turned into a (90×1.6=) 144 mm lens. At that focal length, and without any image stabilization, I had to shoot at a shutter time of 1/180, 1/250 or even 1/350 sec. to avoid motion blur. And shooting at 144 mm f/2.8 gives you a very narrow focus are (DOF) so I was usually shooting at f/5.6 or so, just to make sure I got something in focus! On the 20D, I could reasonably go up to 400 or 800 ISO, which all meant that I needed daylight conditions to work – or a strobe or a tripod.”

    The fact that 90mm on a 1.6 crop factor camera becomes a 144mm is only the crop, the lens still behaves as a 90 mm. The distance between your sensor stays the same, still 90 mm, and that distance will give you an indication of the time of handholding the lens. If you can hold it 1/90 second on a Full Frame camera, you could hold it with the same time on a crop camera. The DOF will become even bigger, for example F2.8 x the crop factor (1.6) will be F4,5. This is one of the reasons why macro photographers often chose a crop factor camera. It is a common mistake and very often made.

  15. Albert, on March 2nd, 2011 at 9:29 PM Said:

    Been thinking of getting this lens for a while and you made up my mine!
    Pics convey what the photographer wants to.
    @leo thanks for the clarification. I also made that mistake in the past

  16. Morten Svenningsen, on March 3rd, 2011 at 5:19 PM Said:

    @Albert, Happy shooting then!

    @Leo, yes thanks for the clarification. I’m sure you’re right. However, it doesn’t change my point, my experience was that I needed shutter time of ~ 1/250s on a crop cam, and could manage fine with 1/100 on full-frame cam. Maybe due to other issues, how it balances with the body etc…