I had a blast in Sterling, VA last month shooting Claire and Jon's wedding. The ceremony was at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church, and the reception at the beautiful Hidden Creek Country Club in Reston, VA. Here are some of my favorite photos from the day.

Had the pleasure of taking some photos for my old friend and colleague, Katie, in the beautiful sanctuary at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. Here are some of my favorite photos from the session!

The Perkins School of Theology intramural soccer team had a game last night. Went out to support my friends and took some photos while I was there. Here are some of my favorite shots from the match. It definitely got a bit heated at times.

In regards to equipment used, all of the game photos are taken with the 5D Mark III and the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 OS at ISO 12800 and 25600. The Sigma is a total beast of a lens, but perfect for this kind of shooting.

​Post game photos taken with the 1DS Mark II with the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS and the 35mm f/1.4L USM. I still prefer the focusing system on the 1D bodies, but the ISO range and performance of the 5D is significantly better than the old 1DSII.

I had some time to shoot film this summer on my Hasselblad and Mamiya, which is always lots of fun. Here are some of my favorites from a couple of rolls.

Tried a new film stock. Fuji Pro 400H. It is a little lower contrast and cooler than I Kodak Portra 400, which is my normal color negative film. I like the Fuji stock, but I feel like it only works in certain situations.

Of course it wouldn't be summer without a trip to the pool. Shot some black and white to mix it up.

Today I'll be looking at an older and less common lens. The Tamron SP 300mm f/2.8 LD-IF Model 60B.

This lens is part of the Adaptall line, which featured an interchangeable lens mount. Each of the different mounts had all of the connection tabs for reporting aperture information to the different camera lines. Later Pentax mounts actually had electronic contacts for manual focus confirmation on Pentax AF bodies. While the Canon EF mount adapter was never officially introduced by Tamron, many 3rd party manufacturers produce a mount adapter for Canon EF with AF confirmation chips! This lens was originally produced from 1984-1992 and shipped with a beautiful leather shoulder bag designed to fit the lens with the hood on in the correct position. It's quite a nice piece, and common for most professional lenses to ship with cases. Notice the beautiful brass nameplate. They were quite proud of this lens.

The focus ring on this lens is so nice. It's buttery smooth with just the right amount of resistance. It's a fairly good size too with nice distance markings. It's really great since this is a manual focus only lens. Above the focus ring is a second smaller ring which you can use as a focus limiter or focus preset. You loosen the little black knob and turn the focus ring. The second ring will then turn with the focus ring. Once you have the focus where you want it, tighten the black knob. There will now be a small stop indent at that position like on an aperture ring.

Build quality of this lens is excellent. It's an all metal body construction except for the hood, which is made of metal on the mounting ring, and very solid plastic for the rest. The hood is strong enough to support the entire weight of the lens and camera. I've stood it on the hood many times. The lens weighs in at 2096 grams, so eat your Wheaties and lift some weights! 

The lens is a dual filter design. A 112mm filter in the front, and a 43mm in the back. The lens achieves optimum sharpness with both filters in place as the optical design was optimized for the filters to remain in place. So even if you aren't using a colored, neutral density, or polarizer filter in the rear filter slot, you should keep the clear filter in place.