Thanks Sherman A1. Those op/tech loops work for the Sigma lens because the lens mounting bolt has room enough around it for the strap(s) to be placed so that the bolt goes through the loop thereby letting the lens mounting bolt carry the weight of lens and camera. Problem for the Tamron lens is that the mounting bolt has no space around it so it can't hook the bolt through a loop.

Does anyone have any suggestions for rigging a Tamron 150-600/Nikon D7100 (or similar body) to be carried on an Op/Tech dual camera harness so that the weight of the lens/body combo is borne by the lens, not the body? I'm thinking about the stress on the lens/body mount if I use the lugs on the body. For my Sigma 150-500/body combo I had a carry strap snaked around the lens handle bolt so that when suspend from the strap the lens mount had only the weight of the camera on it. The Tamron lens handle tightening bolt has no similar gap through which I could snake a strap. I could drill a hole through the lens handle and rig some kind of strap through it but I wanted to see if any Hogs have dealt with the problem and what suggestions I get before drilling.

I live on Big Island and for walking around shooting in the Islands I use Nikon D7000 with 1 lens, 18-200. Equivalent Canon mount lens will give you everything you'll want from portraits (of bikini bodies & your wife), landscapes, market scenes and displays. Weight is what, maybe 5 pounds? You'll be happier with your quality of shots and you'll have some extra for mai-tai's.

Have fun in Hawaii.

1) read another photography book
2) look at others' websites/flickr/pinterest pages
3) go somewhere different
4) read Brenda Tharp's books, esp. "Extraordinary Everyday Photography"
5) do a photography workshop with someone whose work you like
6) visit shops/museums where paintings/photos are on display

Good luck.

Big advantage for a newer photographer of an in-person course vs all the good but free stuff on the net is the assigned exercises which are then evaluated by peers and course leader(s). Perhaps even more informative is being able to compare your results with those from classmates. You know what you did and see what classmates saw and then did. Great way to learn. Even local camera shops do these and they provide structure instead of just advice you can read anywhere. No guarantees but workshops conducted by good/great photographers can be even better for a more intense learning experience. Robert Rodriquez Jr. recommends in addition to looking at photos by others is looking at paintings of the subject area (esp. landscapes) to exercise your eye for composition, color, form, and shape.

In a different UHH thread today I posted a link to my flickr page to show comparison between Sigma @ 500 mm and Tamron @ 600 mm shots of small birds at about 40-70 feet shot with D7000. (www.flickr.com/CaptainRBrown for those who are curious) All shots are handheld and the shots at 600 mm prove to my satisfaction that the Tamron is at least as sharp at max. focal length so I'm happy to recommend the Tammy for handheld bird and wildlife shooting over the Sigma 150-500.

I've now compared the two lenses systematically on the same test chart and D7000, each at their max FL and both at Sigma's max FL of 500 ml. As others have reported in probably better and more thorough comparisons, the Tamron lens is significantly sharper than the Sigma 150-500 at the same f/8 aperture and shutter speed at 500 mm and the Tamron at 600 was also sharper than the Sigma at 500. The Tamron also produced sharper test chart images at 160th v. the Sigma shots at 250th and 400 and Tamron shot contrast was better even though lighting was the same or a little less bright than for the Sigma shots.

Of course, it remains to be seen how the newly announced Sigma 150-600 will compare with the Tamron 150-600 except that announced price of Sigma's 150-600 will still put Sigma street price above MSRP of Tamron's lens.

Just got the Tamron 150-600 from Murphy's Camera after a 1 week wait plus UPS Ground to Hawaii. B&H didn't deliver after 4 month wait and couldn't explain why. Picture quality for birds so far is good. See www.flickr.com/CaptainRBrown for comparison of 5 small birds shot with 150-600 v. others shot with Sigma 150-500. Tony Northrup, naturally, rates Canon 400 f/4 prime sharper and easier to use for BIF naturally but for less difficult shooting finds the greater reach of the Tamron a real advantage. I find the Tamron as easy to hand-hold shoot at 600 mm for small birds ranging from 40-60 feet as the Sigma and acceptable sharpness so far but I expect to get better results as I gain experience shooting at 600 mm.

Check out the latest GOES West visible loop to see something very unusual...THREE hurricanes, 1 just past Hawaii to the southwest and two headed straight towards the Big Island to the ESE. Canceled a trip to the mainland to attend to the two coming tonight thru weekend so I'll have cameras ready.

I suspect that Windows update package is significantly larger than for Apple OS. E.g. initial message cited a 900 mbyte download size but for my iMac it was "only" 500 mbytes. Final size of updated files on disk on iMac is about 1.2 gigabytes. Anyone notice what it is on a Windows machine?

On my iMac LR5.6 download file(s) are supposed to be a little over .5 gigs and it took about 6 minutes to download. Then updates to LR 5.5 files took about 90 seconds with a claimed space requirement of 1.2 gigs. I'm using Time-Warner Oceanic cable service with about 12 mbytes/sec download speed. Good luck though to anyone downloading over slow virtual DSL (more than 3 miles from service provider data center).

Here on big island of Hawaii I do a lot of bird photography under highly varied conditions with bright skies and deep shadows. Just started using the Better Beamer and it makes a huge difference in producing well lit birds which usually hide in shadows but to my surprise also helps enormously to take good shots of birds sitting in open against backlit bright skies. It's important though to have external flash offset from axis of lens or one gets lots of "steely eyed" birds (flash reflecting in eyes of birds even if 40-60 feet distant). Just ordered an external flash bracket from B&H hoping to get the flash and Beamer off axis so the birds continue to be better lit but without steely eyes. By the way, I find the flash and Beamer improve balance for hand held shots with Sigma 150-500 while walking around looking for birds.

Red house finch in Mauna Kea rain forest

I'm searching for an external battery pack compatible with the Sigma EF-610 Super flash mounted on my Nikon D7000 so I can reduce recycle times doing bird photography. Do any UHH's have experience using the Quantum QB1 battery pack with this flash and/or any other external battery pack with the Sigma EF-610? (I believe it's compatible with but may not be identical too the Nikon SB600 flash.)