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My new Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di LD Macro arrived a few days ago so I headed out this morning to snap a few shots and test 'er out.




I was quite pleased with most of the shots from it but a few in bright sunlight had some nasty purpleish flaring.
It's only noticable in the above shot in the glistening water but it pretty much ruins these two





I haven't got a UV filter for it yet, would that help at all or is this just one of its short comings being a cheap lens ?

Hyena wrote:I haven't got a UV filter for it yet, would that help at all or is this just one of its short comings being a cheap lens ?

The latter, I think.

But if you avoid blown-out areas in the frame, especially right next to darker areas, you will minimise this problem. Perhaps for the shots above, using some flash, and reducing your exposure would have helped a lot.

Cheers

The other thing to consider is that a new lens is like a new car - get used to its performance, relax and the best will come with usage

Jay

It's not all the fault of the lens, it's more a characteristic of digital sensors. The Sony sensors, particularly the earlier ones like the one in the D70, do have a bit of a name for this purple fringing.

Any high contrast scene, particularly one that's strongly backlit, is a candidate for this sort of result.

Doesn`t look good.
You`ve got some heavy duty purple fringing happening.
Definately looks like a lens not to shoot into the light with....

Jay, Termy,

Please read and understand Trevor's words regarding the purple fringing. It's an artefact related to the contrast range in the image. Digital sensor technology still has a long way to go in terms of trying to match the characteristics of film. That's something we need to accept. It's getting better, and we're seeing some amazing advances, but it still cannot match film in many areas.

If you look at the affected areas, you'll note that they're adjacent to seriously heavily blown areas in terms of the exposure, yet there's been no comment on the exposure issue.

The reality is that it's correct to not comment on those blown areas; they're basically unavoidable under some shooting conditions, and this is a case in point. The fringing, similarly, is something that is a minor blemish in what are otherwise very pleasant images: the fringing certainly does not spoil the images IMHO.

Perhaps you might have been able to reduce the contrast range by using fill flash, and in so doing, you may have addressed the blown areas and the fringing, but I am not aware of the shooting conditions you were exposed to in these instances, or whether this was a consideration or a practicality.

Or perhaps a different angle for your shot, but again, I'm unaware of the shooting conditions.

Dunno, but I would certainly not be concerned about the fringing, at least in terms of trying to suggest that there's some sort of technical issue with your equipment. What I'm seeing here is an expected result, given the contrast range evident in these images.

Gary/Trevor, thanks for those very informative comments
I'm glad in a way it's a known thing, so I can now avoid those situations. I put it down to the lens having not encountered it before but I guess I'm just shooting in different situations now that I have the capability.

Out of interest, do you know if the sensor in the D80 is much better ?
Since getting the D70 a few friends have started showing interest in DSLR's so I'm thinking if the opportunity presents itself I may palm it off and upgrade

gstark wrote:Perhaps you might have been able to reduce the contrast range by using fill flash, and in so doing, you may have addressed the blown areas and the fringing, but I am not aware of the shooting conditions you were exposed to in these instances, or whether this was a consideration or a practicality.

At the time I noticed there was very strong glare/shine off those points that are blown out and have the purple flare. I expected them to be blown, and as you say there's not much that can be done if that's where the shot is. Shiny black scales + the bright midday sun overhead doesn't make for the best of situations! I tried using the onboard flash in a few shots but the little critter was a good 5m away from me fairly high up a tree.

Hyena wrote:Shiny black scales + the bright midday sun overhead doesn't make for the best of situations! I tried using the onboard flash in a few shots but the little critter was a good 5m away from me fairly high up a tree.

And that's really the issue. If you know about it, then perhaps you can make some adjustments.

As you note, the distance was too great for the use of fill flash, so that wasn't really a practical option.

Don't know about the sensor of a D80. I can tell you that the D2X has better contrast range/performance, but even that sensor might see problems given the extreme conditions you were dealing with here.

There are also a few PS actions around for fixing that, or you can get into the detail work yourself and at least make them white blown highlights. Tools like Bibble make that easier with the "highlight recovery" tool (and I have no idea how that one works).