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Adventure Photography Tips
Images & article by Operation Adventure - Sentry Kelly
As an adventure photographer I often find myself carrying my gear deep into the backcountry and up mountainsides. It’s vital that my photography kit is lightweight, durable, and compact. For these reasons I always keep my Tamron 17-28mm F2.8 Di III RXD and 35-150mm F2-2.8 Di III VXD in my backpack and ready for an adventure. This lens combination has reduced my “Essential Trio” of lens into a “Dynamic Duo”. When utilizing the cropped sensor function on my camera I’m able to achieve a focal range from 17-185mm at f/2.8 with two lenses. It’s hard to describe how beneficial this is for long trips into the mountains.
17-28mm F2.8 Di III RXD (A046)
Have you ever found yourself amid a beautiful massive landscape and snapped a picture only to find that the picture doesn’t capture the moment? Yeah, me too. But since shooting with the ultra-wide 17-28mm I’ve found that capturing a more captivating scene has become easier.
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At 14.8oz. I hardly notice this lens in my bag. This is my go-to lens for long days in the mountains. It provides stunning quality in an ultralight package.
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We often start our climbs before sunrise and the large f/2.8 aperture makes capturing those early morning low-light shots a breeze.
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While rock climbing my subject is often close by because we are physically tied to each other. When my subject is right in front of me with a massive landscape behind them this ultra-wide angle lens shines. At 17mm I’m easily able to fully capture my subject and the background.
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Capturing depth in a scene with a wide-angle lens can be challenging. The foreground plays an integral role in creating interesting images with this lens. I often look for leading lines to my subject or interesting flora and fauna in the foreground to frame the larger background of the overall image.
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I love to get creative with sun rays on backlit images. It’s not for everyone, but I love the look and I think that I can often make even the most boring scenes look interesting. However, I hate “Ghosting” and “Red Dot” flare. Thankfully the BBAR (Broad-Band Anti-Reflection) coating on this lens drastically reduces these abnormalities. You can play with effect by adjusting the aperture on your lens. At f/2.8 you’ll get a soft “Veiling” style flare and as you close it down to f/22 you’ll notice much more intense rays.
35-150mm F2-2.8 Di III VXD (A058)
If I could only keep one lens for the rest of my life this would be the one. Incomprehensible quality, variable focal length, and an impressive aperture range puts this lens in a class of its own.
The long focal length on this lens allows me to really provide a sense of scale to my images by utilizing a technique called compression. This works best when your subject is faraway. As you zoom into your subject, you’ll see that the background starts to look bigger as the subject and the background start “compressing” and filling more of the frame.
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The low f/2 aperture of this lens allows for great bokeh and lowlight shooting.
This versatility of this lens allows me to shoot everything from landscapes, portraits, to wildlife.
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To see more from Sentry Kelly see his website or follow on Instagram.
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