After some more experimentation with my Tamron 28-300 Di VC, I think I finally understand what this lens is and what to do with it. It is a closeup lens, not a telephoto lens. That is, it takes really good pictures fairly close (within a few meters) and pretty crappy ones far away. For example look at this nice close-up of a juvenile American coot taken at 300mm:
Santee Lakes, San Diego County, 2009-08-23
1/800 s, f/6.3, ISO 400, handheld
It’s pretty good, especially around the body where you can easily make out the individual feathers. In fact, if anything, it’s over-sharp; though that’s probably just a combination of me over-sharpening it in Lightroom and the JPEG conversion. The original full-size photo is even better than this.
Now compare to this shot of a far-away coot taken with the same lens. You’d expect the subject to be smaller, but it’ worse than that: very, very fuzzy and unsharp, even with a much faster shutter speed:
1/5000 s, f/6.3, ISO 400, handheld
Going back through my photographs with this lens, I notice this with a number of subjects: within a few meters I get great shots. Far away, I might as well not bother.
The 300mm extension just lets fill more of the frame with close subjects. It doesn’t really help bring far away birds much closer. Maybe this is just how the optics are designed, or is what the VC (image stabilization) and auto-focus are optimized for?
So what does one shoot with a 300mm closeup lens? I suspect the answer is bird feeders and wasps. It’s good for anywhere you can get reasonably close to your subject, but not right on top of it like you can with a real macro lens. In the meantime, I’m still looking for a good telephoto lens for birds.
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