DSLR
It has been a while since I last wrote for any Top 5 posts except “Top 5 travel attractions” on destination which are actually guest post by some experienced travel blogger around the world. When I was flipping through my photos taken in Europe last night, I could feel my excitement of visiting Europe still remained strong inside my mind. That was why I’ve booked another flight to Eastern Europe next year! 
But why is it so? Isn’t visiting Europe an expensive travel and always remained a dream to be realised by many avid travelers around the globe? Why I’m so eager to fly to Europe again next year?
These are 5 reasons why I should and all avid travelers should visit Europe now, I mean NOW!
- Euro currency had reached its new low level! Value of Euro has depreciated over 20% since January early this year, and it’s still dropping. What used to be expensive in Europe has now become reasonable! The cost of traveling to and visiting Europe is now 20% cheaper! Let’s do some calculation: If I were to visit Europe last Summer, my total traveling cost for 15 days was RM10,000.00 (USD3,200). If I’m traveling to Europe now for the same period, it would be RM8,000.00 (USD2,500) only!!
- Heritage sites in Europe are in danger of extinction! Major attractions in Europe are mostly inscribed as UNESCO Heritage sites. Over time, many of them are really run-down! European countries are spending huge amount of money restoring and maintaining those sites. You could see many of the restoration works being carried out everywhere in Europe heritage sites. What would happen to them in next few years?
- Global warming is causing more natural disasters! Pollutions caused by human are creating worse global warming and green house effect to our earth than ever before. This are causing more and more natural disasters happening each year. Global weather has also become unpredictable sometimes, it can snow in Spring or hit record high temperature in Summer. When I traveled to Europe last May, ash cloud was covering most parts of Western Europe. We had to play by ear when planning our itinerary. What would happen in future?
- Competitions among budget airlines has reached its new high! Budget airlines are ruling the air space nowadays where everyone is opting for cheap flight whenever they are flying. This uptrend has stimulated the booming of this sector of the aviation industry. Stiff competition among budget airlines helped in bringing the air fares down to even zero cost!
- Digital photography has reached its maturity! After 10 tens of its introduction to consumers level, digital cameras have now the ability of taking great photos that are comparable to films. Its advantage over the film is Digital cameras can take as many photos as you like, with just the matter of how many Gb of SDHC or Compact flash cards you are bringing along your travel. In my case, I brought 4 memory cards along my Europe travel and had taken over 4000 photos! In this matured market, we can now buy a DSLR system for as low as USD600 and still able to take awesome travel photos!
With the combination of above 5 top reasons, do you still sit back to think twice, or get up now and book your air ticket NOW? Read my recent Europe travel experience for more motivation! Or receive more of my upcoming Europe stories by subscribing my RSS feed or via email. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
I don’t usually write reviews of those latest travel photo gear such as camera or lens when they are just released. I only write something on my experience on using some of those equipment that I own for some period of time. So, you can only read reviews on stuffs like the Panasonic Fz28, Nikon D60, Nikkor 35mm f1.8, Lowepro Cirrus TLZ15 and others that I own and that’s all. There is no exception for this round. I own it, I used it for 90% of my time or nearly 4100 photos taken in Europe recently, and I love it. It is the Tamron AP10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II Ultra Wide Angle (UWA) lens with Nikon mounting. It was launched sometimes in 2008 and still the latest UWA lens for Tamron.
This is how it looks standing alone with the Tamron cover on in front and the mounting cap at the back. Filter size for this lens is pro-size 77mm which is not compatible with my Nikkor’s 52mm. I bought the Hoya HD UV filter to fit in for protection. Quite an expensive protective UV filter at RM250.00 (USD75) per piece though it is claimed to be the best filter around with HD clarity to the image.
I’m not an expert technically so I can comment much on its technical specification. Basically,
- Zoom range is from 10mm-24mm in small APS-C sensor / DX format (or 15mm-36mm at 35mm Full frame equivalent).
- Widest aperture range is from f3.5 to f4.5 along the zoom range. Not the fastest UWA lens around.
- It is much bigger than my Nikkor 18-55mm zoom and 55-200mm zoom, measuring 83mm diameter and 94mm overall length.
- It has an internal focusing system which means when it focus, the external barrel would rotate. This is good when you fitted a graduated filter or polariser and your fingers would block its way when focusing.
- Same with Nikkor, it has a switch though to manually overwrite its autofocusing (same with the Nikkor’s MA switch).
- It weighs around 400g which is hefty in the travel photographer’s hand.
- Good thing is it has built-in focusing motor (though a bit slow) so it could be used with budget entry level camera such as my Nikon D60 or D3000.
- Since it was designed for APS-C format DSLR, the lens is not suitable for Full frame format DSLR which will have serious vignetting effect at all corners.
- Selling Price at the moment is RM1,950.00 or USD590.00 which is the cheapest Ultra Wide Angle lens in the market now.
How it performs in reality? Apart from Fish Eye, it is the widest lens available in the market now at 10mm (Though Sigma is coming out with 8mm very soon). I used it most of the time for 90% of all my 4500 shots on my Europe travel recently. After attaching it to my D60, the combo can still fit nicely into my tiny Lowepro waist bag which is good news. I can carry it easily along my travel. Operation side, Tamron SP10-24mm UWA lens is very easy to handle. Grip is firm with it rubber ring for both zooming and manual focusing rings. Resting it onto your palm and zoom it is easy. Only once a while you can mistakenly rotate the focusing ring which is further in front of the zooming ring. However, both rings are fairly tight but still smooth to be rotated. I found this better as it is more resistant to accidentally rotate and mess up the focusing which happened many times with my Nikkor 35mm which also features the internal focusing system with manual focus overwriting.
The images captured with this Tamron SP10-24mm are both bright and sharp. Personally I couldn’t differentiate the sharpness between it and my fixed 35mm f1.8 lens. Color rendering is also good to my expectation. Its zoom range is the widest in its class from 10mm to 24mm focal length in DX format or 15mm to 36mm in 35mm equivalent. If you are wondering how much the lens within its available zoom range can cover, look at both the above and below photo. The above photo was taken with the lens furthest focal length of 24mm while the photo below was shot with its widest 10mm wide angle.
Amazing right? I can either zoom out to capture the whole St. Paul Cathedral or zoom in to to focus on people. It was why I used it most of the time in Europe, except only when I wished to capture portrait or close-up’s.
How about its distortion control? Chromatic Aberration (CA) is very well controlled with it 12 element 9 group of high precision and low dispersion glass. Only very minimum CA was spotted in mostly the high contrast sections of the image. Moreover, barrel distortion is surprisingly low with this ultra wide angle lens especially when you are shooting tall buildings. Vignetting doesn’t exist in all my 4100 photos. Overall, Tamron SP10-24mm UWA lens is very good in handling image distortion.
All in all, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di-II is a very good Ultra Wide Angle lens which is best to use for shooting landscape and architecture with lots of straight lines, like the perfect example shown in the above photos.
What about the downside? Tamron SP10-24mm is not good for fast moving objects. Its built-in focusing motor is very slow if compared to other competitors like Sigma. On top of that, f3.5-4.5 maximum aperture is not the fastest around. Other competitors produce faster and fixed aperture UWA lens, though is more expensive.
The last complaint I have with this lens is its ultra wide coverage which could not be coped with most DSLRs’ built-in flash! If you are shooting night scene with this lens and built-in flash on, or if you are shooting close-up objects with flash on, the centre bottom part of your image will appear dark with shadow of the lens itself as the built-in flash light is partly blocked by the large lens! So if you are keen to use UWA lens for night shooting, remember to bring your external flash along which is taller.
Ultra Wide Angle lens is the essential piece of travel photo gear for Europe travel and Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di-II is doing a very good job as an Ultra Wide Angle lens. – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
I don’t own a D300s. My friend John who is flash-packing together with me to Europe next month does. My brother who offered to loan me his camera does. But I turned down his offer. John regretted of upgrading his D90 to D300s just before our trip. Nikon D300s is not for backpacking. D300s is not for budget travelers. Why?
No doubt Nikon D300s is an excellent semi-pro DSLR. It is also Nikon’s current flagship camera for APS-C format or DX format sensor size with crop factor of 1.5. With an inclusion of new HD video shooting capability, improved 7fps continuous shooting burst mode, dual slots for both Compact flash and SDHC cards, D300s is a subtle but significant upgrade from its predecessor model D300. Other features brought forward unchanged are its 12MP resolutions, full customizable menus and controls, best ability so far in image quality and noise control for its sensor size, flash light commander and auto focus ability. Most attractively, with intense competition from newer technological Canon 7D, Nikon D300s selling price has dropped more than USD300 from its introduction price of USD1800 (this is what made my friend upgraded his D90 to this heavy body).
However, for budget traveling especially backpacking, with these 5 reasons, D300s sucks!
- TOO HEAVY! Weighing a KG for body only. Attaching a Tokina 16-50 f2.8 pro lens to it will load a whopping 1.7KG to your baggage! My Nikon D60 with kit lens weighs less than 1 KG! For backpacker who walks more than stay on travel, carrying 2KG on your neck for hours isn’t as easy as you think.
- TOO BIG! It is almost double the volume of a D60 which make it impossible to fit into any camera waist bag comfortably.
- TOO COMPLICATED TO GET USED TO! With such a short time from its introduction, John couldn’t get used to it easily in terms of its performances and all setting before our Europe trip next month. Though he has been using D90 before, D300s is a lot more difficult to master its operation.
- TOO DEMANDING FOR ACCESSORIES! Top notch DSLR require good accessories. Pro lens is much heavier. Solid tripod to support D300s and lens is much heavier. Both cost a lot more off course. How much is your budget?
- TOO RISKY! Wearing a D300s on your neck is too risky in tourist spots. It’s the same thing like wearing your money porch around your waist.
- BONUS** TOO EXPENSIVE FOR BUDGET TRAVELERS! All in all, from camera, backpack, lens to tripod, this combo weighs almost 5 KG! Apart from the owning cost, baggage cost is also increased! What’s the weight allowance of hand carry luggage for your budget airline? 5KG? 7KG?
After all these 6 reasons, there is still ONE reason why you could still carry a Nikon D300s on your travel…. THE PASSION IN PHOTOGRAPHY! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog.
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
Don’t waste your travel photos! Don’t undervalue your creation or arts! Share with the world and other travelers by either Flickr or on your own travel blog. It would be even better if you sell travel photos that captured during your travels and make some pennies for your next trip! I haven’t quite made enough [...]
My attention was caught along our way back to our Safari Beach resort by this lady in Thai costume. She was sitting along the Bangla Street at Patong and carving a melon with a short knife. You can see there were other fruits carving on display in front of her and lit up by a [...]
There are way more than 5 things every visitor can do in Rome. During my previous and first visit to Rome, I’ve done quite some exploration to the city. Sight seeing of those sculptures and statues, arts and architectures, eating the authentic Italian pizzas, trying out the original gelato, sitting on one of the Spanish [...]
What Patong Beach is first famous for? The beach off course! I’ve posted quite a number of Phuket travel stories so far but I still haven’t posted much things about the beach itself. This is it: The Patong Beach, the beach itself. We reached Phuket and Patong in the morning, had our first look at [...]
Sounds like a devotee? Yes. Temple after temple on the 5th Day of Chinese New Year (年初五). We went to TianHou Temple, the biggest temple in KL after brunch (Malaysian slang: Breakfast and Lunch together!), and visited the Taiwan’s FuoGuangShan (佛光山) initiated DongZen Temple after dinner. It was actually planned by me. If you have [...]
Happy Lunar New Year of Tiger again! Sorry if you think these are too much but I just couldn’t resist myself from posting more photos of this new year celebration. If you happened to be here in Malaysia as a visitor, you must have seen all these decorations in Kuala Lumpur during this festive season. [...]
Here are some photos I snapped on Chinese New Year biscuits, oranges and drinks. These are what we eat and drink during this festive seasons in Malaysia. Biscuits are home made, mandarin oranges are from China and drink is lemonade beer. Just a short update as I’m still celebrating Chinese New Year of Tiger. Hey [...]
Che-Cheh (2)
eunice (2)
ALY SHAIKH (1)
shasha (1)
Recent Comments