Pepper

I've been in the house on my lonesome today while my fiancee has toured South Yorkshire in pursuit of the perfect wedding dress (which I am told she has now found). As such, I'm raiding the fridge for subjects.

If you are going to shoot close-up subjects with the Tamron 18-270 PZD, then there is something to bear in mind that distinguishes it from true macro lenses: it's not optically corrected across the diameter of the lens. If you take frame-filling shots of small subjects, then you will find that even if you get parallel to your subject, you'll not get it focused from edge to edge. In the areas that are slightly out of focus, the detail begins to obscure very quickly, almost as if you had double vision. As is often the case with superzoom lenses, the bokeh is not terrific, so you are reliant on limiting the depth of field in order to create good separation from your subject. Obviously that's not possible with a shot such as this one. You may see this optical degradation in the green areas of this photo. If you can't, then it's not likely to be an area of concern for you when using this lens.

You'll get the best from your 18-270PZD by making sure that you use a greater depth-of-field, and allowing lots of distance between your subject and background, as was the case here. By keeping the subject towards the centre of the frame, you will be able to maximise the resolution, and get some surprisingly good close-ups.

Nikon D300; Tamron 18-270mm PZD @ 270mm; ISO 200; F/7.1; 1/200s. VC on.