lmans wrote in post #16527320
I am not sure how well the Canon and Nikon's 600 and 800 are selling...maybe real well but I am guessing the sale quantities are bitterly low.

But, where are the numbers high? The Super Zooms...Canon's, Nikon's, Olympus, Sony etc....that is the market that is selling at a relatively cheap price. I see a ton of birders walking around with a bino on one shoulder and a superzoom on the other. Now, those might be pretty inexperienced birders and ones willing to sacrifice a bit of quality for 'zoom' but those cameras are the ones selling.

Maybe the Tamron 150-600 is geared to winning back some of the super-zoom market by offering a price point which is competitive to super-zooms? The Canon and Nikon's 600 and 800 will not be touched by anyone other than people who make a living taking nature shots-----period. THAT is their market.

But the Tamron can make some inroads back into the regular birding world that the super-zooms have attempted to take. I would guess that the Tamron 150-600 would be much better than any super-zoom at distances between 10 meters+ ...

May make great inroads...

Amazing what can be done in PP. I have seen images that were in need of some serious help turned into stellar images. I think that ultimate image quality is getting less important than ones computer skills. I think I will use the money saved to take some crash courses in PP. So if I can become truly proficient in the PP game may be that I can get by with a lens that cost less than a car and be a happy camper..

to me, this is a great range in a reasonably priced package that may be a great performer in bright sunny conditions, wont do a lot for Friday night football.

Need some hands on reviews please. The specs look awesome.

brianh4204 wrote in post #16527558
May make great inroads...

Amazing what can be done in PP. I have seen images that were in need of some serious help turned into stellar images. I think that ultimate image quality is getting less important than ones computer skills. I think I will use the money saved to take some crash courses in PP. So if I can become truly proficient in the PP game may be that I can get by with a lens that cost less than a car and be a happy camper..

to me, this is a great range in a reasonably priced package that may be a great performer in bright sunny conditions, wont do a lot for Friday night football.

Try some supertele and then say that. Honestly, lens makes a lot of difference IMHO. Of course those superteles are lot of $$$ and weigh more also. But one just can't pp a picture with normal lens to make it look like the one from $$$ lens.

bobbyz wrote in post #16528115
Try some supertele and then say that. Honestly, lens makes a lot of difference IMHO. Of course those superteles are lot of $$$ and weigh more also. But one just can't pp a picture with normal lens to make it look like the one from $$$ lens.

So, what is normal lens versus $$$ lens..

I believe there was a time that that would be a true statement. I don't believe that dollars are the absolute determining factor in performance anymore. The difference in performance between the best lenses from the big guys and the 3rd party lens has narrowed dramatically over the years. the difference between the big guys own product line has narrowed as well. The Canon 40 STM is about as cheap as you get and the IQ is excellent. Even the lowly 50 1.8 is capable of creating great images.

Point about PP is not that you can take a crappy image from a terrible lens and make it a work of art, but you can take a less than stellar image from any lens and with the correct PP make it an incredible image.

As far as super teles, you have to have something to start with, I believe that technique is a huge part of determining the results. Garbage in, garbage out. That cant be fixed with any amount of processing...

With all this talk about the "big guys" and the "3rd party guys" it brings to mind the concept that some of the 3rd party guys have collaborated with some of the big guys in the past to produce lenses sold under the big guys label(s). Is this not correct? I'm not talking specifics like long telephoto -

brianh4204 wrote in post #16527558
Amazing what can be done in PP.

Yep!

bobbyz wrote in post #16528115
But one just can't pp a picture with normal lens to make it look like the one from $$$ lens.

I beg to differ. I shot with a 40D and the Tamron 55-200mm for the first year and a half. A great little lens. It has its mechanical flaws but has surprisingly good optics, much better than you would expect from such a ridiculous lens. I learned how to be a photographer with that lens and because of its mechanical limitations I was forced to work very hard. SOOC the files were not clean and so I was forced to learn Photoshop and that has made a world of difference. In the end I made shots like this. Now I don't know what you think, but to me this looks very good in terms of IQ.

IMAGE IS A REDIRECT OR MISSING! HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

I thing the 3rd party guys are well on their way to being the big guys. Don't know anyone that shoots Sigma Merrill's but do know a lot of Canon, Nikon and even Sony peeps that shoot Sigma lens..

No first hand knowledge of a 3rd party company producing a labeled product. Wouldn't be surprised if it has happened, seen it in so many industries..

Hey I drive an Infinity, everything on the car can be replaced with Nissan parts at half the price..

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #16528190
Yep!

I beg to differ. I shot with a 40D and the Tamron 55-200mm for the first year and a half. A great little lens. It has its mechanical flaws but has surprisingly good optics, much better than you would expect from such a ridiculous lens. I learned how to be a photographer with that lens and because of its mechanical limitations I was forced to work very hard. SOOC the files were not clean and so I was forced to learn Photoshop and that has made a world of difference. In the end I made shots like this. Now I don't know what you think, but to me this looks very good in terms of IQ.

IMAGE IS A REDIRECT OR MISSING! HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

For me the main difference between L-glass and the cheaper lenses is that the files from L-glass are much cleaner SOOC and need a lot less work in post. But if you get it right in camera and you know your way around Photoshop, the end result from a cheaper telelens can most definitely come very close to what you would get with the $$$ lenses.

It all depends on your level of tolerance for IQ. The image you posted shows more softness than I would be okay with at web viewing size, much less print sizes. Not to say that it isn't a great photo, and most people would be okay with it, but some of us just have a different level of tolerance as to what we consider "good enough" image quality. If you're just tooling around or shooting for fun, the image quality of cheap zooms + photoshop might be enough for you, but if you're selling your prints or working for pay, shelling out the dough for a lens with excellent IQ is worth it.

You can get a much cleaner, sharper, nicer looking image with an expensive lens and photoshop than you can with a cheap lens and photoshop.

drzenitram wrote in post #16528235
It all depends on your level of tolerance for IQ. The image you posted shows more softness than I would be okay with at web viewing size, much less print sizes. Not to say that it isn't a great photo, and most people would be okay with it, but some of us just have a different level of tolerance as to what we consider "good enough" image quality. If you're just tooling around or shooting for fun, the image quality of cheap zooms + photoshop might be enough for you, but if you're selling your prints or working for pay, shelling out the dough for a lens with excellent IQ is worth it.

You can get a much cleaner, sharper, nicer looking image with an expensive lens and photoshop than you can with a cheap lens and photoshop.

What????

What about this image is not printable???

Based on your listed equipment what long lens would you have used???

I could print this all day long on my lowly canon Pixma pro 9000 M2 at 13x19 and produce an image that would be worthy of hanging on the wall.

Come on people, get over yourselves, your big glass egos and get real. Big expensive glass does not make for a good photog...

Really, look at some of the best images posted here and other forums and I think you will find that bigger, more expensive glass does not equate to a 1 to 1 increase in image quality.

brianh4204 wrote in post #16528257
What????
Come on people, get over yourselves, your big glass egos and get real. Big expensive glass does not make for a good photog...

That's sort of beside the original point though. Also, being good at PS doesn't make for a good photographer either.

drzenitram wrote in post #16528235
It all depends on your level of tolerance for IQ. The image you posted shows more softness than I would be okay with at web viewing size, much less print sizes.

It's true that I sharpen my bird images conservatively as I am not a fan of the overly sharp birds that I so often see posted here and elsewhere where the feathers look like steel cords. This is the level of sharpness that I like with this gull in this image: with the bird in focus and sharp yet still showing the softness of the feathers just the way birds do in real life.
I also think you are confusing sharpness with IQ. Sharpness is part of it but there is much more to IQ than that.

Also keep in mind that this particular shot was taken with the cheapest of telezooms around. My point is that you can't tell from this shot that it was taken with a less than $ 100 lens. You may think it's not sharpened enough, but that is something else entirely as that depends on personal taste because clearly there is room to sharpen more.

And obviously, if I were to print this I would sharpen quite differently.

jaspa wrote in post #16528279
Also, being good at PS doesn't make for a good photographer either.

No, to be sure. If you start shooting birds at noon with the sun at 2 o'clock, no Photoshop is going to save your images! Of course it starts in camera, with a good, properly exposed shot. That is a sine qua non!

jaspa wrote in post #16528279
That's sort of beside the original point though. Also, being good at PS doesn't make for a good photographer either.

Agree completely with the statement "being good at PS doesn't make for a good photographer either". But as Levina de Ruijter stated it is more about composition and the original image produced than the lens that produced the image. A decent image can become a great image in the processing of the image.

So back to the 150-600. Point is that if it does not match absolute sharpness of the canon offerings, say 100-400, post will create images that are very close and in the long end I think the Tamron will produce sharper images than the Canon @ 400 and cropped to match the 600 of the Tamron.

Yep, good PS doesn't make a good photog but can make a good photogs images great..

brianh4204 wrote in post #16528257
Really, look at some of the best images posted here and other forums and I think you will find that bigger, more expensive glass does not equate to a 1 to 1 increase in image quality.

Now you have to start by defining what you would mean with 1 to 1 increase in image quality.

Especially since there aren't a single metric to measure IQ...

It would be sad if Tamron's market was vs the Sigma 150-500 rather than the big boys of 100-400, 50-500 or even 120-300. That's what the price seems to indicate anyway ...