2020 Virtual Product Showcase

Hello everybody, we are live. My name is Leah, and I'm here to welcome everybody to the OPG Live Product Showcase. My name is Leah as I said, I am going to be your host today, and with us we have David Johnston here, he's going to give us his review of all the products we've brought to the table today, our sponsors have so graciously sent these over to him to test out and share his review with all of you. The product links you can find in the video description, and our behind the scenes team is going to be sending the links into the chat box as we get to each. With that said, it's time to bring in David.

David, how are you doing today? I'm doing great, I'm excited to share all of these with you. These are products that I've used myself out in the field, and I've been really pleased with all of them. Not only on the field, but we also have one really good one that helps you in post-processing, that helps you get all of your colors correct, and not only lenses and cameras, but we're also dealing with back in the studio using your computer too. Oh, that is awesome, I can't wait to hear more about these products.

As a little reminder for some of you, we just had a great time today during our two day virtual post-processing workshop, some of our participants are here with us for this little bonus feature to tag onto that, and welcome to the rest of you as well, so we've got quite an audience here participating, hello and welcome. Without further ado, we are going to get into the products, we're going to go one at a time so you get a chance to see each one featured, and David it looks like we are going to be starting with our first review two products from Tamron. We have this 70-300 Di III RXD, and the 28-200 f/2.8-5.6, I'm going to have you tell us about them, and what was your experience testing them out? Yeah, I have them right here with me, first let's start with this 70-300. I was a little bit weary honestly when I first got this lens, but after I used it for several days even months in different techniques in outdoor photography, I was absolutely blown away.

The size and the weight of this, you know, this is the smallest and lightest telephoto zoom lens in the entire world on the market that you can get. And I hike, I backpack, I go to several locations that are far away for several days at a time, and I'm always just weary about packing too much photography gear into my bag. Using this lens of 70-300 has been an absolute godsend for me because I really lightened my bag overall. And not only the weight, but also the length of this lens is about an inch and a half smaller than a lot of the 70-200 lenses that you do get for your outdoor photography that are popular with that. So, when you are using a lens like this, you look for that size and weight, but you also look for it not to skimp on any quality that has with it.

So, when you talk about quality, what I look for in a long telephoto lens is all across the board I want my edges and my features to be as sharp as possible, and I've found that with this lens, this is Sony email lens, I use it with an a7R II from Sony, and I use it in different situations of like waterfall photography, I used it in misty conditions, cold, hot, and even time-lapse photography in capturing some really beautiful sunrises with time-lapse photography. So using this lens all across the board I tested it out in multiple different scenarios, and I was never disappointed with the quality of this lens and how it actually performed for me in the field. One of the things that I'll say about telephoto lenses is that they're very niche a lot of times in the types of photography that you can get. This one again, kind of outperformed that glass ceiling that a lot of the telephoto lenses have of being a niche lens of those close up nice detail shots, because this one does have that extra 100 milimeter of reach if you are comparing it to those 70-200 classic landscape style lenses for your outdoor photography. Getting that extra reach at 300 millimeters was huge for me, especially getting the compositions that I wanted to get without cropping later and post-processing, and removing a lot of those details that come into your imagery when you do crop an image out.

Now, the last thing really that I found with this is that I was worried having it zoomed in at 300 milimeters, any camera shake that may be occurring when I was hand holding it. And I tested this out with waterfall photography too, hand holding this at like 1/40 of a second to get a little bit of blur in water for waterfall photography at 300 millimeters not on a tripod, pairing this lens with the in-body image stabilization systems that are in the Sony bodies was incredible, I didn't get any image shake with it, and it probably saved me for about three to four stops down using the IVUS system that is in Sony lenses. So, this lens in particular was tremendous for me to use in the field. Oh, that's great. Were there two lenses that we're talking about here too?

Yeah, the second one was a 28-200 from Tamron, and this is a great lens too, you know. I always talked about like I did with the 70-300, with the 28-200 this lens really saves you a lot of space when you are going let's say traveling internationally, or even to the other side of the country. If you're flying on an aircraft and you don't have too much space to put into like a carry on luggage bag, a 28-200 is really kind of like your all in one lens that you can have when you do take out and go travel somewhere. So I always say, if you're worried about space, find one of these all-in-one lenses that goes from 28-200 that covers that kind of wide angle range with the 28, gets into the 35-50 for that mid range look, all the way to the compressed look to 200 millimeters, and has that coming in two. Honestly it's about the same way as the 70-300, but having so much range with this lens, and only having really to take one lens with you on an international trip, would be so beneficial if you were worried about space.

Again, quality across the board. All the Tamron lenses that I've ever used have held up in the quality standpoint for me because of the glass that's used internally with them, very high quality glass, competes and even out performs a lot of like your brand name lenses too, Tamron is really coming into their own with a lot of those lenses that they're creating there. Now, I will say if you're worried about any quality in this, this is the only all in one lens on the market that that starts at F/2.8, which is huge for you if you are doing a lot of all in one photography with an all-in-one lens. This can perform at night photography, this can perform probably those macro look photographies, this can perform in travel photography, and getting a nice blurb poke up background for your photography too. So, very impressed with both of these lenses from Tamron, the 70-300 and also the 28-200 all-in-one lens.

Perfect, they sound fantastic. Before we move on to our next feature, we get have a question about these lenses here from Leslie. Leslie would like to have you specify for each lens if it's mirrorless or not, micro four three, or full frame. So, both of these lenses were designed for full frame cameras, they're both designed for Sony email mirrorless cameras. So if you're shooting with a Sony system, pairing it with that in-body image stabilization system that I talked about, both of these lenses are going to be go tos.

I should mention too, they're cheaper than your name brand like Sony lenses like the 70-200, and I've found performed just as well or a little bit better than those too, so I always highly recommend those. Great, and if you have any other questions as you're watching, feel free to drop them in the chat box, and we'll get to as many as we can as David goes through these reviews, I'll keep an eye on that. And then I'm going to bring in our next sponsor. So David, Fujifilm sent you something, they sent you an X-S10 with the 16th and I'd love for you to talk a little bit about how that went for you. Yeah, I've always said camera wise, I've told this to so many photographers lately who emailed me and said, "what should I buy for my first camera when I'm just starting out?" If I'm starting over right now, I'm seriously looking into Fujifilm to start out my camera journey on.

Because cameras like the X-S10 are right up your alley for an intro camera, even to like a mid-level camera for outdoor photography. They just updated the design of these cameras to have a new ergonomics feel, because a lot of the older ones if I turn it up on its end didn't have this notch, and they were really flat on the front and made it a little bit difficult to hold. With the Fuji cameras now though, they have this new grip on them that makes it really easy to hold and match a lot of the other camera companies that make similar cameras like this one. It also has the extra and CMOs sensor the fourth generation of that, that has extremely high quality. I used a couple other cameras in the past too and I've never been disappointed with the technology that goes into Fujifilm cameras.

Not only that, having all of my controls like accessible on the top and the front of the lens of my camera, adjusting the aperture on the actual lens has been fantastic for me to use, and I've really enjoyed that too. So I've always liked just the feel, the look, the control of these cameras too. And I do wanna mention the lens this 16-80, with this sensor, you know, it isn't a full frame sensor, but I've never seen any difference in quality in that when I am editing my images, the Fuji sensors versus something like a full frame sensor, obviously your file size is gonna be a little bit smaller, not having a full frame, but the quality is really what matters to me. I know a lot of photographers who are actually switching away from full frame and moving over into Fuji sensors now. Two, it's got this great screen that kind of flips out and goes all the way around which I love.

I'm constantly having my camera in the weirdest positions possible, and having a screen like this that I can maneuver around and just flip back in is tremendous too. The lens itself, Fuji lenses, my favorite lens I've ever used is a Fuji 35 millimeter F, I think it was a 1.8 lens. This lens there zoom lenses are just as good, I've always said the quality of Fuji lenses compared to other ones are top, top of the line, very crisp in everything that they shoot with, and I've always been really impressed, I was impressed with the 16-82. It's not gonna be like an all in one lens, but this is going to be a lens that's probably going to get you about 75% of the outdoor photography shots that you want to get having that range going from 16-80, having the max aperture of f/4 is really good too, that's gonna let in a lot of that light when you are shooting in dark situations. All right, so that's our Fujifilm feature here.

No questions have come through on that, but feel free if you think of anything as we continue to drop any questions you have in the chat box. And I'm going to move on to the next product feature that we have. So, David we have a Datacolor SpyderX Photo Kit that was sent for you to try out, it's time to talk about that. Yeah, I'm kind of a sucker in gear for packaging, and this is like the coolest little box that they sent me, it's feels indestructible, it's a really cool way to package your gear. But Datacolor makes a lot of great gear for actually the editing process for your photography, and not just that, but getting the color right before you actually start.

I'm gonna de-box this just as we talk about it. In this box you get the Datacolor SpyderX, and I believe it's the SpyderX Elite that you can plug into your camera and into your computer and calibrate your screen right off the bat. I've used one of these for years, not only the SpyderX Elite, but also previous models. But I use this exact screen calibrator for my post-processing and my image editing, and it is probably the fastest and easiest screen calibrator that I've ever used. And honestly I always got like a different hint or hue to my colors that I would always have to go back with my printers services that I use and correct those colors after several tests prints, with this my color has been spot on.

It was always kind of like a greenish tint to a lot of my images, but after using this SpyderX Elite I've been amazed. You just strap it on to the front of your screen, and basically download the software that it has to come with it, and it's going to quickly run through a calibration process on your screen to get your colors very, very accurate. Now, you also wanna get the colors accurate in the field before you start and get going, things like this Spyder X cube is going to go a long way with that too, because it allows you to get your gray scale exactly as you want it to be, it helps you with metering, and not only that, but it's extremely small, easy to like put on your key chain for your car, and have a nice little key chain that goes along with it. But very easy to take everywhere, it gets your blacks perfect, it gets your whites perfect, and also your grays, and getting that gray scale down exactly as you want it is what you want as a photographer. You can also use this that comes in the kit too to get your colors exactly right.

This is a color swatch or a color panel, and as you look through the white balance on your camera, you just wanna make sure that all of these colors are coming up as you want them to be, not only that but we talked about gray scale with this little cube here, you can also flip this around and get the gray scale exactly as you want it. Fixing it from your white balance if you are using something like Kelvin temperatures as your white balance on your cameras, if you're getting really nerdy with photographer and we're talking Kelvin temperatures there, you can match the gray tones exactly as how you want them to be so they're not too blue or too purple, and they're not too yellow or too orange, you can really dial them in with that. So I really like Datacolor products, and I really like how they help you get your color exactly as you want it to be in your photographs both before you take the photos, and afterwards, and post-process using the Spyder X Elite. Okay, thank you. Before we move on to the last product that you have at physically with you that you can tell us on camera, we have a couple of questions that have come in on some of the products you've already featured, so I'm going to take a little break and adjust these questions.

First we're talking about the Fujifilm. So we have a question about when do you use full frame, and when do you use crop sensor? It's kind of just based on your style, and for a long time for years in fact, about eight years, I used a crop sensor for my outdoor photography. And basically what crop sensor is, it's a little bit smaller IR sensor, it reduces the size and weight inside of your camera, this does have one of those it's not full frame, but it is a much smaller camera body than a lot of your full frame cameras are, and it is a mirrorless system too. So, when you pair those together, you do get a smaller sensor, but Fuji sensors particular do very well with quality.

So while you are getting something like, I don't know, 24-28 megapixel sensor, versus something like a 35-45, you're still getting really high quality and very large file sizes that you can use to edit your images. And honestly I've been using some of the best full frame cameras on the market, and I tested a lot of Fujifilm cameras, I would not hesitate switching over to that technology, and atleast one of my best friends in photography actually switched over from his Canon gear over to Fuji and said he would never go back. Well, that's a glowing endorsement . Well, we have another question coming in, this one's for the Tamron. So this is specific to the Tamron 28-200 f/2.8, is it available for a Nikon D600 mount?

They don't have a Nikon mount for this in particular one, however they do have similar lenses that are like this that aren't necessarily 28-200, but they do have a lot of similar sizes and ranges that you can get for different mounts like your Nikons, your Cannons, your Sonys, anything that you shoot with. So, well, this is a Sony email lens, you can find very comparable lenses across the board from Tamron for those different mounts and different camera mix. Okay, perfect, thank you for sending those questions in. We've gotten to the end of the questions that I can see here, so I'm going to move into our next product. David you were sent something from MPB.com, and it was a Nikon D850, would love to hear you talk about that one next.

Yeah, let me drag this camera over here, this is like the workhorse beast camera that you can get for outdoor photography. I've been looking at MPB for a long time, I haven't sold any of my gear through there but I have bought used equipment, and MPB is like the world's largest platform for buying and selling used camera equipment. And the great thing about buying used equipment, you're always a little bit nervous about what that's going to come in as, like what are you going to see when you open the box. I was thrilled whenever I did open the box and see all the camera manuals, all labels, the camera straps included. And you have different condition ratings for your cameras when you do buy used from MPB.

And really buying used camera equipment, and selling your old camera equipment, or trading those and getting discounts on the camera equipment that you're buying through MPB is a great option because you usually save money in the long run. Let's say a Nikon, they sent me a Nikon D850 camera, which is again a beast of a camera, but let's say they came out with a newer version of this camera and I wanted to trade in this one. I would really only be paying, let's say a few hundred dollars for that new version when I traded this one in if it was in excellent condition, versus having this camera sit on my shelf for years and years, and paying thousands of dollars for the new camera that would come out. So it's always a good option, it's great for the environment when you're not constantly just throwing out old cameras, and it's great to just trade those in and keep that going. MPB really impressed me when I did open the box and see the condition.

This is a Nikon D850 like I said, it has the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 G lens, which is just a master lens for landscape and outdoor photographers. I have several friends who shoot with this lens and camera, and they absolutely love it. And the condition that this came in rated as excellent, was very, very high quality, you know, basically practically out of the box if I were to buy it new. So, very good job by them, they do a great job cleaning all the equipment before it gets to you, and everything along those lines. This camera in particular though is again a work horse, it is weather sealed, you can shoot in all types of weather, hot, cold, rain, snow, in the desert and blowing sand, it shoots in 8 K time-lapse so you don't have to worry about having compressed time-lapses come out, has a 45 megapixel sensor, I could literally go on, and on, and on about this camera and all the features that has.

It focus stacks straight out of the box, so you don't have to go into post-processing, and go through all the loops and bounds of focus stacking an image. And if you bought this in excellent condition from MPB, it's like $2,259, which is a great deal on a camera this good in excellent condition. So, I was really impressed with what they sent over, not to mention the dynamic range on that camera is fantastic. So, if you buy something new from MPB, I do want to say you also have a six month warranty when you do buy that product, that they do a very good job of holding up on it. Good to know.

We have a question about that very camera that came in from Jenna, and Jenna would like to know, "When would I use this camera, in what setting, it looks intense?" This camera is very intense, like just holding up these two side by side you can see the size difference and the weight, like my right arm is going to be a lot more sore than my left arm is from just holding those up. This camera would be used for anything from like desert photography, to rainy rain-forest photography, a lot of professionals use this. So maybe if you're a hobbyist something like this might not be the best fit, but if you are getting really, really serious into photography, and you care about your megapixel count, you care about a full frame sensor and getting all of those features straight out of the box in a camera body, then this may be a great fit for you, especially if you are buying it used from MPB and getting that discount on what you're buying and the excellent condition of your gear. I would say this is not a mirrorless camera, this is still a DSLR, so you do have a mirror and the body, which does make it a little bit heavier and a little bit bulkier than some of your mirrorless options, so that's something to consider too when you are buying. All right, we have a shout out from Rick, "Just started shooting with a Tamron at 70-300 that you showed us first, loves that lightweight, how sharp it is, Tamron lenses are great." so we've got a Tamron and fan out there watching today.

So we also have a couple of different tripods here sent over from Gitzo. And I really like Gitzo tripods because they are like very high quality for outdoor photography. They sent over two options, this is the systematic tripod, we also have a Traveler tripod kit, which I'm gonna get to in just a second. This tripod here, the Systematic tripod is really good, I was testing it out just the other day, and it's great for a couple of different reasons. Number one is it's a really light.

This tripod is made out of carbon fiber material that makes it very lightweight. We talked about the reasons that you don't want a heavy camera bag when we were talking about the Tamron 70-300. Having a light telephoto in your bag is extremely beneficial when you are going long distances or anything like that. This is the same thing, this is not aluminum, it's not heavy, this whole tripod probably around five pounds, maybe a little bit less, even if I'm just holding it up and judging it that way. Has really easy ways of just adjusting these legs with these little clips, you can adjust them out and get your tripod really low to the ground.

It's a four section tripod that's carbon fiber, what does that even mean for photographers shooting in the outdoors? It means you can collapse this to a very small height, you know, off of my desk up to the top, this is maybe 2', 21/2' something like that extended. I'm 6' 5 and I've always looked for a tripod that can match my heights so I don't have to constantly like bend over and see whatever I'm seeing through my camera. And this is completely tall enough when you put a ball head on here, with me being six, five, I don't have to bend over or anything like that. So, huge kudos Gitzo for a lot of versatility with this tripod.

Cameras and lenses get all the glitz and glamor of gearheads and gear talk when we do talk photography, but tripods are probably the most important thing that you need to have in your camera bag. Why is that? Because you can have the most expensive camera, you can have the most expensive and best lenses that are on the market, and you can still have cameras shake. So camera shake can ruin any photograph that you can take, so, having a tripod and a steady and reliable one like this, that's so well built, you know, I don't have to worry about this in wet weather, in windy conditions, in sand, and cold, and heat, and anything, this is a steady well-built tripod that's gonna last you a long time. So, I know I'm going to get good quality out of the build of this, but I also know I'm going to get sturdy, really tack sharp images when I do get the focus on point, because of a steady tripod like this.

Also a very large base at the bottom, helps me know that this is going to be very steady in windy conditions especially when I'm photographing a lot of things like time-lapse photography or anything like that. So this is going to be your big boy, this is going to be your workhorse of a tripod. But let's say you're traveling and you want to just pack everything in a carry on on the airplane, what do you do then? Well, then you can bring in this other tripod, that's the Traveler's kit that's much, much smaller. I mean, in comparison and size you can see the difference here, but this one is justice sturdy, probably weighs about the same as the systematic tripod, but the Traveler's kit is a much smaller body, it looks like it's three sections, but it also folds up in a really interesting and unique way.

So when you unfold this, and you can keep this in your bag just like it is right now folded and collapsed up, when you unfold it you bring the legs around to the bottom, and have them set up as tripod legs like so. And then you have a column coming up at the top with the built-in ball head on it as well that you can use to keep your camera really steady. So when you have something like this, really easy to just throw in your bag maybe as a secondary tripod option, maybe for like it's touted as the Traveler kit, if you're traveling internationally, this would be a really easy tripod to take with you. And I was worried honestly about how good locking system was on the legs since they do fold out and come underneath the tripod column, but I was pleasantly surprised that they have this really unique locking system to where you can pull this clip over and then bring the legs back up. So it's really easy and fast to unpack, pack back up, get back into your camera bag, and put it in the overhead compartment, put it back in your bag and hike long distances.

We have a question coming in from a Robert. Robert just purchased the Sony a7ri with the Tamron on 29-200, Robert's looking for a recommendation in the 10-24 millimeter range. Yeah, that's a great question. Tamron does make some ultra wide angle lenses, you're going to find a lot of those, I would say 12 millimeters to 14 is going to be very, very wide for a full frame camera like that, look for something more like a 17 millimeter lens. I have back here 17-28 from Tamron that I've used for several years, and I really enjoy the quality that that has.

Having something like a 70-28, and then maybe something like this a 28-200, and then a 70-300 is gonna cover all the range that you would ever need and outdoor photography. But I would definitely say, you know, it's back here on my shelf, I would say look at the Tamron 17-28, I use it with the exact same camera that you're using, and I have not been disappointed in how wide it is, especially with a full frame I've never really thought, "Well, I wish I could go wider here," that's gonna give you all the reach you want on the edges of your frame. Great, perfect. Thank you for those clarifications and recommendations David. We are at the end of our questions that I can see, and we are nearing the end of our time together for this review session.

I would like to say thank you to David for all of these wonderful reviews, we have some really great products to look into, and it always helps to get another photographer's opinion before purchasing these products for yourself. So I really hope that you found these reviews helpful. Thank you to all of you out there for watching and participating in this. And I'm going to open the floor up back to David for any last minute thoughts or ideas that might've popped into his head about any of these products that we've talked about so far today. Yeah, I would say with camera equipment when you are buying it, look at quality over everything else.

I think everything we showed you today from the Tamron lenses, to the Fujifilm camera and lens that they sent over, to MPB and the quality of gear that they send you that you can buy used, to even the smallest things like Datacolor doesn't become so small when you consider about colorization and getting the right white balance when you are in the field, and then editing the right colors when you're back in your digital dark room and post-processing your photos, I would look at quality over everything. And all of these pieces of gear that we've talked about are very high quality, and thay're gonna help you get the photos that you envision when you are in the field. Using some of these in the field I was never really let down at any point, even if it was, you know, used gear, second hand, anything like that, a 70-300 versus a 70-200, it was all fantastic to use. So I would say just look at the quality of your gear overall, and the reviews that people give them. Right, great advice, I really appreciate it.

We are nearing the end of our time like I said, so before I let you go I want to remind you all of the product links are in the video description. So below your video player you should be able to find the product links for everything that David reviewed for us today. And if you missed anything or just wanna play this back because you wanna see a couple of little insights that you might've forgotten about, this video will be available for playback. So you can come back to this in the future, and again, keep an eye out for the addition of that extra product review When David gets a chance to check it out and share his thoughts. On behalf of the entire OPG team, my name is Leah.

I would like to say thank you for joining us for our OPG Live Product Showcase, we hope to see you again on a future event, take care.