7D2 performance with the Tamron 150-600 - Anyone try it yet?

I have a 7D, and with my 70-200mm 2/8 II + 2x TC I get fantastic pictures. However, I wanted more reach, so I bought the Tammy 150-600mm.

To be honest, I am not satisfied with the photos I get from that combination. Soft even when micro adjustment is done. I have heard that the 7D and the Tammy do not play well together, but that lens has good results from other cameras.

Has anyone tried the Tammy with the 7D2 yet? What results are you getting. I am considering the 7D2 and was curious if my lens would perform better with that camera than the 7D classic.

I've had good luck with my limited shooting of that combo (only got the 7d II less then a week ago). Some of my first shots I posted here https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17359311

I will say I also had good luck with it and my 7d as well though.

IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …johnw_trishw/12​892733145/

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IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …johnw_trishw/14​375629671/

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Thanks palmor,
Those are great shots and very encouraging for me. There still might be something wrong with the lens, but a friend of mine with a 60D shot using it today, and his pics are good too. So I still think my 7D and this lens have a basic dislike for each other. I have spend tons of time trying to micro adjust this baby. Still soft on my 7D. Lord willing, 7D2 is coming.

I have used the Tamron 150-600 on a 7D for some months, including a trip to South Africa. Though I was quite satisfied with the performance ( preferably at f8), my recent switch to the 7D mark II meant a considerable improvement. I still like to keep it at f8, but the IQ of the markII at higher iso's makes that a lot easier to maintain. Also the AF is a lot snappier, especially noticable in BIF photos. A few examples, the first one with the 7D and the lst two with the 7D mark II
Peter

PeterH50,
Very nice. Your 7D photo is great. I don't know why mine is acting like it is. I got my Tamron well after the initial release (months later), so that hic-up they were having on the initial release should have been totally out of the system by the time I bought mine.
Also, my lens is taking nice pics on a friend's 60D.

The Tamron you have may still be affected by the odd firmware issue.

I would talk to Tamron. I've seen good shots from the 7d and Tamron 150-600.
I'm considering one myself.

jhayesvw wrote in post #17361301
The Tamron you have may still be affected by the odd firmware issue.

I would talk to Tamron. I've seen good shots from the 7d and Tamron 150-600.
I'm considering one myself.

Thanks for the advice. I agree that that should be my next step.

Well, after the complaining I did about my 7D and the Tammy, I got this pic a couple of days ago. It surprised me. Not soft like some of my bird pics. I guess the problem isn't my 7D or lens, but it is with me and my technique:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qC4K​3A

Shooting with a 600mm lens on a crop body is tricky under certain conditions. In terms of IQ a lot depends on the conditions. IQ can go down the drain if you shoot at a longer distance AND over any sort of surface that radiates heat back into the air, e.g. asphalt on a sunny day.

This is nothing knew we all know that. What's more remarkable though how much it can affect image quality and how much it changes by the second. The other day I was testing my new 150-600 outside. I know it's a pretty good copy, shots indoor are phenomenal. But of course we shoot wildlife outdoors
Anyway, I tested that lens plus my Sigma 120-300 2.8 OS + 2x TC. Most targets I shot were so badly affected by the conditions that both lenses seemingly sucked big time, and it wasn't the lenses' fault.
I did an experiment by using a tripod, live view, manual focus and a remote trigger. I aimed the lens (Tamron) at a fence post, only about 40 feet away. It was a cold day with very bright sun that was heating up most solid surfaces.
I shot 10 photos at f/8 at 600mm manual focus through live view. I did not touch the camera/lens, I only snapped photos with the remote. There were pictures only 1 second apart where one was sharp, while the next one was unacceptably blurry.

When you shoot the Moon, you're aiming up, often close to 90 degrees. That makes a huge difference. There are still some heat currents impacting the image (the Earth radiating heat out to space) but it's much less severe than shooting something near the ground on a sunny day.

So basically the bottom line is that it's tricky to test long lenses under certain conditions. You may take a couple photos with your lens and think that it sucks, or your camera sucks. In fact it might just be the conditions that moment. A photo taken the next moment might be much better.

Here is my Moon photo from the other night. When I shoot the Moon I use live view, manual focus, manual mode, remote trigger (or timer), and I take a lot of photos since even the Moon is affected by the quickly changing heat currents. You can even see that on live view when using 10x magnification. So that's why it is important to take at least 5-10 photos to find a nice sharp one.

70D, using a Sigma 1.4x TC:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qj1P​Sd

Gabe nailed it.

I live in AZ and in the warmer months I can't shoot past 9 am. Too much heat haze.
It ruins every shot.

Other times of the year I get intermittent heat haze depending on the surface I'm shooting above.

Long lenses complicate things.

As a matter of fact, about a year ago I shot some burrowing owls in Phoenix. It was hot as hell. My shots with the 100-400L were better than my shots with my fiends 500 f4L because the longer lens magnification picked up the heat mirage more.

jhayesvw wrote in post #17364882
Gabe nailed it.

I live in AZ and in the warmer months I can't shoot past 9 am. Too much heat haze.
It ruins every shot.

Other times of the year I get intermittent heat haze depending on the surface I'm shooting above.

Long lenses complicate things.

As a matter of fact, about a year ago I shot some burrowing owls in Phoenix. It was hot as hell. My shots with the 100-400L were better than my shots with my fiends 500 f4L because the longer lens magnification picked up the heat mirage more.

I would think that it was because he was using a wider physical aperture, not his focal length. The wider the aperture, the wider the angle of light coming off of the subject, and the more different paths through the turbulence it takes.

As well as being a photographer I also shoot, and am an NRA (GB) Rifle Instructor. I once did a coaching course with the GB Chief National Wind Coach. Who has coached a couple of winning GB Palma Match (AKA, World Long Range Championships) winning teams. His spotting scope was worth about five what my rifle is and was something else to behold. A nice big Zeiss spotting scope, the eyepiece cost over £1000. The day I tried it out it was about 8 degrees centigrade at Bisley, although there was some sun. There was no mirage noticeable through any of the lesser scopes that were being used that day, even stuff costing up near £1000. Then you looked through this Zeiss, and there it was, a good steady mirage running commensurate with a about an 8-9 MPH wind. It was only those exceptionally good lenses that could show the mirage effect in those cold spring conditions. That scope was comfortable resolving down to 3 arc seconds! Which is what a .30" bullet hole subtends at 600 yards.

The point of the above is that atmospheric distortions actually seem to affect better quality lenses MORE than cheaper ones.

Alan

I always thought it was more noticeable at higher powers. Was the power of that Zeiss spotting scope the same as the other scopes ?

Oh yes the effects are more noticeable with more magnification. The magnification was about the same as most of the other scopes, although the aperture will have been wider. I think the Zeiss was about a 100mm objective, compared to mostly 80's and 90's for the majority of scopes. It wasn't really a huge magnification, I think about 40×. It was a while ago now so I'm not too sure. As with most things optical of course, money buys you better resolution and/or more aperture, depending on how much you have to spend.

When I shoot smallbore Benchrest at 50m I use a couple of different scopes of essentially the same specification, 36× magnification and a 44mm objective lens. The main real difference being the quality of the lenses and internal components. The scopes, essentially identical in design, do show that the better quality lenses show more detail in the atmospheric distortions. The differences are slight by perceivable. This is important information to know for the shooter, as the mirage moves the location of the optical image, in relation to the object (target). It effectively moves the image down wind, so when shooting in a wind with mirage you need to add more windage correction to the shot than when there is no mirage effect present.

In photography I would not be at all surprised to see that the effects of lower levels of atmospheric distortions was more visibly pronounced when using say the 600mm f/4 L compared to the Tamron 150-600 at 600mm f/6.3. When shooting in really bad conditions, it's likely that NO lens would be able to produce a satisfactory result. For real world comparisons of two different long lenses ideally one would have them both mounted as close together as possible, using two identical bodies (which I would also rotate during the test) and set up so that both were triggered at the same time by a single release system. At least that way the two images are likely to be as close as possible as the conditions of any test could allow. Any other comparison of long lenses is otherwise not really an apples to apples comparison. As external influences are so much more pronounced when using really long lenses in the real world.

Alan

I was hitting issues with heat this summer it looks like.
I thought that was the cause, but wasn't sure. I was all of a sudden seeing really soft images, and it was very hot, so makes sense.

But back to the topic, yeah the Tamron seems to work better on the 7D2 than my 60D. Not drastically better, but it is faster I think in some cases.

I would update the firmware if any of you haven't. You have to send it in though.
The lens gets stuck much less often, focuses faster and hunts less imo.

Although, if you bought it recently, it might have the update.