I work at a photo/video/audio shop, we scan thousands of slides, negatives, prints and artwork each year. I have found through lots of testing that no camera will beat an Epson scanner with a transparency adapter for image quality and sharpness. Not even the D850 with the new slide/neg adapter.

Dustin Abbott has an extensive 4 part review on YouTube comparing the Sigma and the Tamron. He is a Canon user so he throws in the Canon 24-70 also, but it is still a very good review.

https://youtu.be/efRzdYkgbn4

I have owned 8 White Lightning Ultra heads since 1989, and they have been great. Now I have added 2 Flashpoint Explor 600 TTL units and they are wonderful for outdoor use with HHS, once you get use to the interface. The modeling light is weak compared to the White Lightning units but useable indoors. I am looking forward to picking up one of the upgraded new models with the brighter modeling light later this year. On a recent shoot for a hot tub company I shot over 300 frames between 1/8 and 1/2 power and the battery level never moved off full.

What do you use to edit photos?

Yes, the adjustment brush in the camera raw filter, under the filters menu.

That works, been doing it that way since layers were introduced in version 3 nearly 20 years ago. Hard to believe it’s been that long. The adjustment brush in camera raw works well too.

On really lousy images I use the add noise filter in selective areas to restore texture to an image, I’m talking mostly old snapshots that are damaged and have blown out highlights. Also to minimize extreme banding in in sky’s in customers digital snapshots from cell phones.

I wish Photoshop had a “add noise” brush, it would save me some time.

I didn’t mind the grain, since it was 35mm. When I made the switch to commercial work, most of it was done on medium and large format, no more grain issues.

Digital noise can be a problem, although it can help some images with texture or banding issues. I use it now and then when restoring old photos.

I agree that today’s music is a lot of noise, now I sound like my parents. Seems like a lot less talent today than the 60s, 70s & 80s music.

There was plenty of grain, decent lighting, shooting tight so you didn’t have to crop much and textures helped hide the grain. Grain was never looked at as a negative thing, it was amazing to be able to shoot in low light without using flash.

Seagull was a beautiful paper, a sales rep came to our school and demonstrated it, plus gave out free samples. I was using Ilford Gallery, but switched to Seagull after trying it, plus I think it cost less.

It did have faster auto focus until the Nikon D5 came out, now Canon seems to be slowing down although dual pixel auto focus is a nice feature.

I studied photojournalism in college and started shooting sports in the early ‘80s. For nighttime fields and poorly lit indoor courts my favorite was Tri-X pushed to 1600 and developed in HC 110. Ilford Multigrade for RC paper and Oriental Seagull for fiber base.

I owned both lens for several months and used them with the D500 and D810. When mounted on a tripod the image quality was basically identical. The Tamron seemed to focus slightly faster, there are several reviews on YouTube that will show that. I liked the ability to lock the focus at any focal length on the Tamron and it was also eaiser to carry on long walks. The stabilizers are excellent on both lenses, the Tamron's locks the image in the viewfinder a hair quicker. I was able to get sharp images on static subjects consistently all the way down to 1/8 of a second with both lenses. When hand holding I seemed to have a higher keeper rate on birds in flight with the Nikon, plus I like the constant f5.6 aperture. The 100mm difference in focal length did not seem to make any difference, it's only a slight crop to get the same image size. The Tamron comes with an Arca Swiss plate built in, I picked up a different tripod collar for the Nikon with an Arca Swiss plate built in, that way it's quick to mount on my ball head or gimble head tripods. I ended up selling the Tamron on Ebay and got most of my money back. I now use the Nikon with the D850 and it is an excellent combination. Either lens is an excellent choice.

The Tamron G2 version gets excellent reviews, auto focus speed, VC & sharpness are very good. The Sigma is an older design, there is no Art version of the 70-200 yet. Unless you get a super deal on the Sigma, get the Tamron. I use the Nikon VRII version, which is great. If I didn’t have it I would be looking at the Tamron.

I used to own that lens, image quality is ok but the build quality is fragile. The Nikon 200-500 is a lot nicer lens.

Thanks for the info, I just received the grip for my D850 and will be looking into that battery and charger combo.