The whole shoot, I never took the lens off. Not once.
Ely, a quiet beach in Da Nang, the light still soft before the sun got mean. I had a camera strapped to my chest and exactly one lens on the front of it. Fifty-seven frames later — tight portraits, wider shots with half the beach in them, and the slow cinematic clips you see at the very start of the video — all of it came off the same piece of glass. No swapping. No “hold on, let me grab the 85.” Just the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 quietly doing the entire job while I took the credit.
Why I used to dread the lens swap
For years my beach kit was two or three primes. A 35 for the scene, an 85 for the faces, sometimes a wide for the drama. Great glass. Genuinely. The problem is what happens between the primes.
You frame a portrait at 85, the model finds a pose that actually works, and then the wind shifts the light and you want the wider shot — the one with the rocks and the surf in it. So you crouch down, pop the cap, swap the lens, get sand in places sand should not go, and by the time you are back up the moment has politely left. On a beach, with a model who is being patient with you, that dead air adds up. I have lost more keepers to lens swaps than to bad focus, and I am not proud of that number.
I already wrote a full review of this lens a while back — mostly theory and test frames in calm conditions. This time I wanted to see it earn its place on a real shoot, start to finish, with nothing else in the bag and nowhere to hide.
One lens that goes from 35 to 150
The Tamron 35-150 is a fast zoom for full-frame Sony, and on the Sony A7CR it covers almost everything I do on a portrait shoot. f/2 at the wide end, f/2.8 once you zoom in. So at 35mm I get the environment — the beach, the palm leaning into the frame, the context. At 150mm I get the tight, compressed portrait where the background turns to soup. Same lens, same minute. I just turn the ring.
That sounds like a small convenience. On a moving shoot, with light that will not wait for you, it is not small at all. It is the difference between catching the moment and describing it to people afterwards.
What the beach shoot actually showed me
Three things stood out, and you can watch every one of them happen in the video above — settings on screen, so if a frame works for you, just steal them.
It is a genuine portrait lens. Zoomed to 150 at f/2.8, the compression does the heavy lifting. There is one frame I keep coming back to — 150mm, f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 500 — where the rocks behind Ely stop being rocks and become a warm wash of nothing. You get separation and that flattering “step back and zoom in” look without carrying a dedicated 135 you will use twice a year.
It pulls the landscape in when you want it. Wind the ring back to 35 and the shot is suddenly about the place as much as the person. More beach, more sky, more story. For the kind of natural-light beach work I do, being able to go from “her” to “her and all of this” without moving my feet is most of the job. A prime makes you choose before you shoot. The zoom lets you change your mind while she is mid-pose.
Here is the honest caveat, because UNFILTERED: it does not give you the depth of a fast prime. My Sigma 35mm f/1.4 still wins for that three-dimensional, wide-open look at 35mm. If razor-thin depth at the wide end is the entire point of the shot, reach for the prime. The Tamron’s trade is reach and flexibility, not the last word in bokeh. Most days, on a real shoot, that trade goes in my favour.
And then it shot the video too. The cinematic slow-motion clips at the top of the piece — the ones that look like they needed a separate setup and a grown-up budget — are the same lens. Stills and motion, one piece of glass, no second rig clipped to my belt. I walked off that beach with a finished portrait set and a video, both off a single lens. That is the part that still feels slightly unfair.
A few of the frames
Five from the morning, wide to tight, so you can see what the focal range actually does on a real shoot. Tap any of them to see it bigger.
The pattern I keep relearning
A lens you never take off is a lens you actually use. The sharpest, fastest prime in the world is worth nothing while it is sitting in the bag and the moment is walking down the beach. The Tamron is not the best at any single thing. It is just there for all of them, which on a working shoot turns out to matter more than I would like to admit.
Gear in this shoot
Everything I had on me for the Ely session. If you have seen more of my model work and favourite lenses, none of this will surprise you.
- Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 — the only lens on the camera all morning. Portraits, landscape, and the video. The one this whole post is about.
- Sony A7CR — the body. Sixty-one megapixels, small enough to strap to my chest and forget it is there.
- Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN — what I reach for when I want more depth at the wide end than any zoom can give.
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I packed up with sand in the bag, salt on the filter, and the Tamron still on the body where it had been since sunrise. Fifty-seven frames, one lens, one good morning. If you want to see exactly how each shot came together, settings and all, the full thing is in the video up top. Catch you in the next one.
Model: Ely — follow her on Instagram.
