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adamz
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Registered: Feb 4, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 34
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Review Date: Aug 1, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $650.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Extremely sharp, very useful zoom range for portraits, fast constant f2.8, big/heavy lens is very intimidating (people will get out of your way.)
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Cons:
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Very large lens hood will block the on-camera AF assist lamp (use a flash assist lamp instead).
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I didn't know how good this lens really was until I started comparing it to other lenses like the Nikon 24-120 VR. The Tamron gets sharper photos in every situation, except when the Nikon is at 24mm wide open with VR on at less than 1/15s handheld. Even at 1/160s, f8, 70mm the Tamron is perfectly sharp while the Nikon is soft by about 8-10 pixels (6.1Mp Nikon D70). See my post here. When compared to my Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro, which is said to be one of the sharpest lenses (and in my tests was just as sharp as the Nikon 60mm f2.8 Macro), the Tamron yields the exact same results.
As seen by the other reviews here, there must be some major variations in quality with these lenses. I read that it is very difficult and expensive to produce, but I must have gotten a good one. I also hear that the Canon version is of less quality than the Nikon mount version I'm using, but I wouldn't know about that. I am unable to reproduce Mr645's review results. The focal point of a shot at f8 for me is perfectly as sharp as at f2.8 in my samples. The only difference is about a 3% change in contrast. That's practically nothing.
Regarding slow autofocus, mine is as fast as the Nikon 24-120 VR or Nikon 17-70 DX or the old Nikon 70-210 F4-5.6 D. The Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro is definitely slow, compared to the Tamron. In shooting fast paced wedding reception events I've never missed a shot waiting for the AF. The AF seems to be more accurate than other lenses as well, since I've experienced much more focus hunting with the Nikon 24-120 VR.
By the way, the Tamron is very good at getting big lens flares on your photos, hence the need for the humungous hood.
Anyway, if you can find one that's made the way it's supposed to be, it will be an great lens.
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 Aug 1, 2005
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gmooney
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Registered: May 3, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2
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Review Date: May 19, 2005
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: $950.00
| Rating: 3
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Pros:
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Not many. POS!!! or Piece of CRAP!!!
Great sharpness.
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Cons:
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I bought this over the Nikon 28-70 due to price and its reach. Big mistake.
fair focusing, but slow. Hard to focus in low light. Lens would not communicate with the camera often, so sent it in for repair. They changed the chip inside. Form there it fell apart. Literally!!!
Picture this, your standing infront of a wedding coordinator. You sling your camera over your shoulder at the reception, and as you sling it over your shoulder the lens seperates body mount. Less then a year old and it was in repair three times.
But this is where it gets good... Sent it back in for repair. Repair said it was my fault. They had no record of it ever being repaired. Faxed over the copies I had for the three repairs. Tamron said "thats nice" however you can still pay for the repair. Thats when i called the president of the company. Then it was fixed.
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May 19, 2005
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Dean Treml
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Registered: Aug 9, 2004
Location: Switzerland
Posts: 333
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Review Date: Apr 1, 2005
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: $700.00
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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Good range for a 2.8, can produce insanely sharp images.
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Cons:
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Sometimes soft/CA at wide aperture in certain lighting situations, slow AF.
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Being desperate for a 2.8 that could marry up to my Sigma 120-300 made me buy this lens.
It's solid, seems well made, and weight is acceptable for a 2.8 with this sort of range.
The AF is very slow and I generally use it manually for moving subjects.
It is a Dr. Jeckyll/Mr.Hyde lens when it comes to results. It can produce some of the sharpest images I have ever seen in 70% of the situations I use it, 20% it is merely average and 10% it's crap ! At it's worst when shooting backlit wider than f5 or when shooting something white in bright sunlight wider than f5.
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Apr 1, 2005
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Mr645
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Registered: Jun 7, 2002
Location: United States
Posts: 1288
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Review Date: Mar 26, 2005
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 3
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Pros:
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No one else makes a 2.8 lens with such range
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Cons:
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Focusing a bit slow, optical performance poor, contruction avg.
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The point of having a fast lens is so it can be shot in low light conditions. The 28-105 F2.8 is very, very soft at F2.8, virtually useless in my opinion. It needs to be at F4.5 or smaller for acceptable results. You would be better off with the Canon 28-105 f3.5-4.5 lens since it is sharper, smaller, lighter, better handling. I returned this one after testing
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Mar 26, 2005
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JMShort
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Registered: Mar 18, 2003
Location: United States
Posts: 294
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Review Date: Mar 2, 2005
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: $800.00
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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The zoom range is nice. I found it to be ok optically, but not spectacular.
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Cons:
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Very slow auto-focus. A structurally week construction. Too expensive for the quality.
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I bought this lens back in 1996 or 1997 I believe. It is a very large lens and very weakly designed for the amount of extention when it zooms to the longer focal lengths. I had to send this lens in for structural repairs several times, as did a colleague. The auto focus is way to slow for any kind of action. It was a lot to carry around and it did not stand up to the rigors of day-to-day photojournalism. I replaced it a few years back and it needs some sort of upgrade as it will not work on any of my 3 dslr bodies: It causes a err99 message without fail. Then again, I bought it 8 or 9 years ago.
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Mar 2, 2005
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Peter Kwok
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Registered: Feb 10, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5
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Review Date: Mar 1, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $750.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Good zoom range, f2.8, rugged built, 6 year warranty
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Cons:
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82mm filter size, weight
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I bought it in 1997 for my film Canon SLR. Optically, it is better than all my cheapo Canon consumer grade lens. After 5 years, its aperture motor broke. Tamron fixed it for free, including a complete cleaning.
One minor complain, although the 82mm lens cap feels solid, it falls apart when dropped. It is not easy to find all the pieces, including two tiny springs. Fortunately, Tamron sent me replacements.
However, with 1.6x crop D-SLR, it is not wide enough. Now, the 17-40L is my walk around lens.
You can see some samples at http://www.pbase.com/peterkwok/tamron28105
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Mar 1, 2005
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HarleyCat
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Registered: Sep 22, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 13
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Review Date: Jan 24, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Great zoom coverage for most work. Nice big, fast lens!
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Cons:
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The 82mm filter factor. I keep wishing it was only 77mm.
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Jan 24, 2005
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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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23
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92567
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Aug 16, 2010
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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70% of reviewers
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$505.22
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Build Quality Rating
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Price Rating
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Overall Rating
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7.50
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7.48
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7.5
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