I have started to go on a fair number of group shoots. Some photographers (myself included) will take strobe lights and reflectors to modify or add to the light that is there. Sometimes we will almost completely replace the existing light. Others will simply shoot what is there. No modification. Far be it that I will say one is right and one is wrong. But I do get questions at times asking why I would be willing to schlep around a bunch of additional equipment and take the time and effort to set it all up for my shots.

Well in my mind photography is basically about using light to "paint" the image. A painter uses paints, I use light. I recently did a themed shoot that was all horror and creepy stuff. The image here, Vampire Family Reunion, is one of the shots. This shot is basically "as shot". I did a dodge on a couple of faces because they were too light. But other than that I did not do any photoshop touch ups. It was shot in the afternoon about three hours before sunset. The red leaves are from a light with a red gel. The lighting from the two sides are from strobes, one with a softbox and one with an umbrella. There was one shot before the lights were set up and it was very flat and just not interesting at all. This photo took an honors rating at our local camera club judging. What I think really makes this photo is the intense colors and shadows that are created using the effects of the lights.

This shot was done this weekend. We were at an abandoned paper mill. First, it was very dark inside. So there was not even enough light initially to get anything in the way of a photo. Second, even the rooms with windows had lighting that was dull and lifeless. So with the strobes I was able to shape some shadows and to get some interesting lighting. I put a strobe in the stairwell up on the stairs a ways up. Then there was a light behind Kim lighting up the door behind her. It had a grid on it to restrict the light some. And then there was one more light to my right with a loose grid for a little wider light.

There are two ways to remotely trigger a strobe. One is optically. when the strobe sees another strobe going off it goes off. The other way is with radio triggers that use radio waves. OK, you can use cables too, but almost no one does that any more. For optically triggering the light the strobes have to "see" one another. The light behind Kim was optically triggered  from the one next to me. The one in the stairwell could not "see" either of the other two lights though. So I put a radio trigger on it, just like the light next to me. I would have had radio triggers on all the lights, but forgot one of the triggers. Silly me. But I always prefer radio triggers to optical when on location. FYI, speedlights that talk about remote triggering are always talking about optically triggering each other.

OK.. that was a bit of an off topic aside. Here is the on topic point though. With the strobes I was able to get some good keylight in Kim's hair. I was able to light up the stairway so that it was not just some dark bland hole. I was able to get good lighting on the shadow side of her. The light in the stairwell also helped to separate Kim from the background too.

If we were outside we could have used reflectors to shape the natural light in the photo too. This shot from a beach shoot a couple years ago used a reflector. Had we not used the reflector her face would have been totally in shadow. The reflector is very easy to use, very inexpensive, and very effective. A reflector will also work with a point and shoot camera or a smartphone camera too. It is inexpensive low tech that is simply awesome. You can get some very nice reflectors that fold up very small for well less than $50. The smaller ones run around $20. The larger ones will be a bit more expensive. But all of them will help you to shape the light nicely.

Written Review below the video review if you don't want to watch the video.

I had a shoot just this last weekend. I have not replaced my 50mm f/1.8D with the 50mm f/1.8G and was not wanting to manual focus the D. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I would rent a lens for the shoot and then at the same time I would do a review on it. So I went to lensrentals.com and looked around. I was thinking of renting either the 50-150mm f/2.8 or the 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. While I was looking at them I stumbled across the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. I had never seen it in all my browsing of lenses before for some reason. I went over and looked on B&H and discovered that the lens is only $499 brand new. That is why it was so inexpensive to rent compared to the 24-70mm or the 50-150mm lenses. It had great reviews on B&H so I decided to rent it. I also figured it would be interesting to take to the football stadium on Friday night and see how it would rock out for sports. It also happened to go with me to OctoberFest too. So I shot it a lot over the weekend.

Let's start with the price. Most of the time when you find a zoom lens that has a consistent fast aperture through the zoom range you will pay a lot of money for that feature. Most of the time you are looking at well over $1,000 for those lenses. So this lens selling for $499 US is just amazing. If you are not sure what that means, when you look at a zoom lens it will show the maximum aperture either as a single number, like this one at f/2.8, or as a range, like the kit lens at f/3.5-5.6. The kit lens can get to f/3.5 when at 18mm, but when you are zoomed all the way in the best it will do is f/5.6 for the aperture. That is a difference of one and a third stops of light. So this lens lets in a lot of light no matter what focal length you zoom to.

Next, how did it actually perform. Well it is basically very sharp. I am sure if you put it head to head with the Nikon or Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 and fully zoomed in you would be able to see the difference. But the lens was incredible. It was so very sharp. The images were stunning. I have used a number of sub $500 lenses, and it is almost impossible to get this sharp of an image in that price range. The things that are out of focus in this football image are either because of motion blur or they are outside of the depth of field area of sharp focus. I was shooting with my minimum shutter speed set to 1/320th of a second in auto ISO and the shot is at ISO 2,200. I could have gotten 1/500th of a second and gotten less motion blur and a sharper image.

Next, the lens focused very fast. It was incredibly responsive. I never had an issue with it struggling to find focus or hunting for the focus. And it grabbed the focus spot on so quick. When I set the focus mode to continuous the lens tracked the moving subject very well. I would not recommend this lens for football, only because the 75mm max focal length is just too short. But I can totally see using this lens for basketball if you are courtside. So that fast autofocus will be very handy shooting that quick action. The lens zoom action was also very smooth. The lens was very lightweight too.

So bottom line, this lens is half the price of the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. It is well worth the investment, and a great lens to shoot. I would recommend it for shooting portraits, taking out on family outings, a good general walk around lens, and sports where you are fairly close to the action. If you want something for shooting football or soccer then this is not really your lens, especially if you cannot get right on the sidelines. I would think that if you want to take a single lens for your camera on a day outing or vacation then the best two choices would be either this lens or an 18-200mm lens. This lens does not have the long reach of the 18-200mm lenses, but it has a very fast aperture, sharp images, and it is very lightweight. In my opinion I would recommend this lens to most shooters over the 50mm or 35mm f/1.8 prime lenses. A prime lens will always have a faster aperture and sharper image, but they lack the versatility of a zoom lens. And this one is basically the same cost as the 50mm and the 35mm and covers both focal lengths and more.

Feel free to add your opinions on this lens in the comments below.