Tamron Lens Commercials
In mid-May I was contacted by Active Interest Media and asked if I would consider being a part of three commercials for Tamron Lenses. Since Tamron makes some pretty good glass I agreed. They let me test out the three lenses for about a week so that I could get comfortable with them. I really enjoyed using the lenses, especially their new 24-70mm. The 150-600 V2 was also very nice. I own the first version of this lens and so I really appreciated some of the new features that they've added to it.
AIM Studios jumped through all the hoops and managed to get permits from Rocky Mountain National Park to film in the park. We had to get each location approved and give a rough time of when we would be there. Only front-country locations were allowed, so this made it a bit challenging.
Just before 5am Matt from AIM Studios and Collin from Warren Miller Productions met me in the dark at the Beaver Meadows Entrance. From there we headed down to Moraine Park and began getting all the equipment organized for a day of shooting. They were well prepared and had some pretty interesting equipment including a body rig that held the camera from a cable.
Matt in the camera rig.
Unfortunately the clouds had decided not to wake up that morning, so we had to work with a clear blue sky. This is great for most people, but not what you want when you're doing photography. We made the best of it and I managed to get a few decent photos despite the conditions. Matt and Collin told me to just be free and do what I normally do. So while I tried to get certain shots, they went to great lengths to stay out of my images while also getting unique perspectives of me at work. I was really impressed with their dedication to being creative.
From here we headed off to Horseshoe Park to shoot several aspen trees that I knew would light up nicely. When we finished with this, it was time to do our best with capturing wildlife. We surprisingly saw a lot of creatures that day: elk, deer, squirrels, coyote, hummingbird, bear, ptarmigan, hawks, etc.. When we finished shooting wildlife then it was time to find a good place to film some of the informational scenes. It took us forever to find an ideal location with the harsh lighting conditions. In the end they setup a large diffuser over a picnic table. I then bumbled my words and struggled to express myself while the cameras rolled. Somehow they managed to edit it so I sounded fairly normal. (Thanks guys!)
After a quick lunch we were back out again to film some other informational sections and then it was time to photograph a fun family of four. This was to show what you can do with the 18-400 lens. While it is not a lens I would use to create high end prints for my gallery, it sure was nice to be able to capture such a wide range of subjects with one lens. While filming I realized that my skills do not extend to portrait photography or child photography, but it was still a lot of fun. We started filming them at the entrance sign, then spent time in Beaver Meadows where the kids could run and climb rocks. Then we headed up to the Tundra Communities Trail along Trail Ridge Road. We finished the evening by shooting sunset from Rock Cut. It was a non-stop day, but also a lot of fun.
Matt and Collin were so relaxed and yet incredibly skilled at what they do. I was very impressed to see how they took all of this footage and put together three excellent commercials which you can view below.
Tamron 150-600mm (Ideal lens for wildlife photography):
Tamron 24-70mm (Great landscape lens):
Tamron 18-400 (Perfect family vacation lens):
You can learn more about these and other high quality lenses at the Tamron USA website: http://www.tamron-usa.com/.