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dhphoto
Online
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Registered: Feb 15, 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8809
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Review Date: Apr 23, 2007
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: $430.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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2.8, comes with a hood, decent contrast, pretty good at longer lengths, cheap
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Cons:
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Awful at 17mm, really awful, unsharp and soft corners right up to f8
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I bought it because of all the hype.
It is very good, verging on the excellent from 30-50mm, with very crisp contrast and good colour, but is simply terrible at the wide end, I honestly think the Canon kit lens is better.
Some people honestly say it can replace a 17-40L. Chalk and cheese, no comparison, not even in the same division
In short, not as good as it's cracked up to be - unless you won't need the 17-30 end
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 Apr 23, 2007
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DerekIz
Offline
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Registered: Apr 1, 2007
Location: Japan
Posts: 42
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Review Date: Apr 19, 2007
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Recommend? |
Price paid: Not Indicated
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Pros:
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great resolution , great color , fast AF , excellent build quality.
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Cons:
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none.
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I bought it in BKK , Thailand after tested this lens there for about 2 hours , carefully comparing it agianst the Sigma 18-50 EX macro ,which I happened to have at the time .
I concluded this lens is a stellar , fast AF , fast optics and perfect resolution , kinda unbeatable.
I brought back this lens with my Sigma and other lenses which I rented for test.
I brought them into my office and shoot out a statue of Chinese god , the lenses I used for the test shots were:
1 Tamron 17-50.
2 Canon EF-S17-85Is.
3 Canon EF-17-40.
4 CanonEF 50 F1.8.
5 Sigma 18-50 EX macro.
6 Sigma 18-200.
The tamron was the sharpest of all and the Canon EF-S17-85IS focuses fastest with highest keeper rate.
The EF17-40L has the least distortion.
Now those 2 Sigmas are for sale .
The Tamron BQ is just fantastic.
I truly love this Tamron.
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Apr 19, 2007
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DerekIz
Offline
[ X ]
Registered: Apr 1, 2007
Location: Japan
Posts: 42
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Review Date: Apr 18, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Extremely sharp (maybe as sharp as EF-S60 Macro) , Focus very fast , no hunting in low light, excellent build quality , the soft plastic material feels so good and elastic .
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Cons:
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None.
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This is a stellar , I bought it a week a go and love it .
I did some comparions at a store and my room, I did not have a lot of time to test them out side yet , but I will do that soon .
Any way, I compared this agaist my most trusted Canon EF-S17-85IS , EF-S60 macro , EF50 F1.8, EF-S17-55Is(rented not mine), EF17-40L(not mine),Sigma 18-50EX Macro, Sigma 18-200 and Sigma 17-70 DC Macro(rented from a shop),in my opinion, I have to admit that this Tamron was the sharpest of all those zooms and just a bit less sharp than the EF-S60 , but definitely shaper than the Nifty.
In term of AF quality, this Tamron is a kind of a big surprise , it never hunts in low light and focuses very fast , noisy , though (I dont care the noise since all SLRs make some kinda noise).
Also , this Tamron has shockingly accurate color reproduction rate , and very well controlling flare and ghosting with a cute hood that Canon force me to buy separately.
The size and BQ of the lens is excellent , the body material is of the best quality plastic of all lenses in the market now for sure..... it is not hard materail like Sigma EX's but very elastic and so it is actually more durable than those Sigmas or Canons .... plus , it is much lighter than the 17-40L or 17-55IS (very bad lens over priced , overly worshiped with nothing special to write home about IMHO).
I think Canon should learn how to design a good looking light and compact sized nice walk around zoom from Tamron , the 17-55Is feels just horribly cheap in my hands and creeps it self and stays at 55mm all the time, not because of the price but because of the BQ and size , I will never like it at all, even unable to get it why people rave about it.
The Sigma 17-70 is also very very lousy in term of build quality and design , the zoom creeps always and always stays at 70mm unless I lock it at 17mm (the 17mm of this lens is not as wide as that of the Tamron or Canon).
Also the Sigma has the distinguished Sigma urine color cast and it is annoying......... and hunts too much in low light , even in a brightly lit room , it hunts and the AF is very very very capricious, also slow.
After got this lens , I decided to sell my Sigma 18-50EX macro and 18-200 , this Tamron is a great lens and definitely a keeper , maybe this will be the most often used lens of mine or second .... for now I use the 17-85IS more often since I shoot in a museum or an art class in where I am not allowed to use a tripod , but for cityscapes or photos of people , I prefer this lens or EF-S60mm macro to my 17-85IS ......
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Apr 18, 2007
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ohdawg
Offline
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Registered: Dec 23, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5
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Review Date: Apr 14, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $449.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Very sharp, great color/saturation/contrast, f2.8, comes with the lens hood, about $200 cheaper than the 17-40L and one whole stop faster and wider to boot
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Cons:
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Focusing speed and accuracy is not as good as Canon's USM, soft corners and CA (but never bothered me)
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The pictures are very sharp and the colors are very good (on the warmer side, I'd say, but not as warm as a Sigma). Focusing speed is acceptable for most wide-angle use. Decent build quality, but its no L. Some people like it because its fairly lightweight. Last but not least, it comes with the hood, and all for $449 MSRP!
Although I said focusing speed as acceptable, it is not good enough for action, in my opinion. Focus mechanism does make more noise than Canon's USM, but its not overbearing. Common complains include CA and softness in the corners, but to be honest, in reviewing my own images shot with this lens, I've never thought these to be major issues.
AF accuracy in low light is not as good as some of my other Canon lenses, but its definitely acceptable (I had a Sigma 18-50 EX that I found totally UNACCEPTABLE).
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Apr 14, 2007
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breenj
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Registered: Sep 24, 2005
Location: Marshall Islands
Posts: 317
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Review Date: Apr 13, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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sharpness - pretty good wide open, excellent at f/4
size
price
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Cons:
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thinking hard...
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I would have given this lens a 10 had I not tried the Canon 17-55 IS also. I think it should really be about a "9.5". In most lighting, it would probably be hard to tell the difference in the Tamron and the Canon. Wide open, the Canon is sharper, but by f/4 or so I couldn't tell any difference. The Canon may have slightly better color and contrast, but the Tamron is very good also. The Canon IS allows some shots that you just couldn't get with the Tamron, but then the Canon is much larger. I would say the build quality of the Tamron is actually better than the Canon.
Overall a very good lens for the price, highly recommended.
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Apr 13, 2007
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dellis
Offline
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Registered: Feb 11, 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 1
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Review Date: Apr 12, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $390.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Sharp, close focusing distance for non-macro, good walk around lens (compact)
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Cons:
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Noisy AF, rear cap difficult to get back on
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Great lens for the money. Sharp wide open...only slightly better when stopped down. Fast focus; however, rather noisy AF. This is a great walk around lens on a 1.6 crop.
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Apr 12, 2007
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timbop
Online
Buy and Sell: On
Registered: Dec 29, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 6030
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Review Date: Apr 12, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $419.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Sharp, light, compact, f/2.8, excellent price/performance ratio
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Cons:
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No ring USM, reverse zoom direction from canon
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This lens hits the right balance of price, performance, and capabilities. Plenty sharp wide open, good color/contrast and bokeh, AF. The build quality is just fine, certainly on par with canon consumer glass including the direct competitor: the 17-55IS. I have no complaints about the noise of the motor, the AF is bang on and plenty fast enough. I was looking for a wider replacement to my tamron 28-75/2.8, which left me with 2 options: this tammy and the 17-55IS. Although I like IS and the canon has USM, I just could not justify shelling out that much more to get those niceties. If you shop around, for the same money as the 17-55 you can get the tammy, an 85/1.8 (giving nicer reach), and even tack on a 50/1.4.
You hear people mention the dreaded "if you get a good copy" clause with third party lenses, and frankly the number of great copies far exceeds the number of bad ones. Bob Atkins did a quasi-scientific survey, and the results show that Canon's good copy rate is around 90%, and Tamron's is in at 85%.
The tammy 17-50/2.8 is a great piece of glass, and I have no complaints about it whatsoever. For a crop body, it does a great job as a standard lens.
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Apr 12, 2007
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tanglefoot47
Offline
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Registered: Oct 12, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14725
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Review Date: Apr 11, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $419.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Price, sharp light weight
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Cons:
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none
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I am becoming a Tamron fan fast. I just posted a review for the 28-75 and now this one. Another very sharp lens and again sharp at 2.8
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Apr 11, 2007
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redgraves
Offline
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Registered: Oct 4, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Apr 4, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $430.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Sharpness, contrast, weight, f/2.8,
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Cons:
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Plastic barrel
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This is a much superior lens to any kit lens I know of. Great as a "walk-around" lens, you don't have to worry about low-light situations or wide angle distortion. The weight of this lens balances nicely with the camera.
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Apr 4, 2007
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MArC-OH
Offline
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Registered: Feb 28, 2006
Location: Italy
Posts: 3
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Review Date: Apr 3, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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color reproduction (close to Canon's L), weight, performances at 50mm
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Cons:
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resolution performances at 17mm, some occasional flash underexposure, zoom extension introduces dust
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Great lens for the money paid, great colors (comparable to my 70-200 f/4 L), great resolution at 50mm, less at 17mm (maybe only for the wide angle effect, not an expert on this focal length...); on the wide side also the distortion is very low, low CA and low vignetting.
The AF is noisy and miss focus on very dark situation, but is very very fast and accurate; manual focus is good, but the ring has a short angle of rotation, so you need to be careful when focusing. The min. focus distance is very short, so you can get very close to an object; the magnification is not so much, but acceptable for a general lens.
Sometimes the lens don't work well with the Speedlights, I recorded some underexposures with my 430 EX.
I see internally some dust within the lens elements, the gap between the element that extents and the barrel could allow some dust to enter.
The 2.8 aperture is very good, also for portraits (but there are better lens in this regard!).
After 10 months I'm very happy for the money paid. I've already tried the Canon 17-85 IS and disappointed me, especially at the focal length of 17mm (very bad distortion, CA, resolution, etc..). This lens is far better!
Maybe 20 mm more on the long end are better, but surely you loose on quality, so it's better as it is!
just my 2 euro-cent!
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Apr 3, 2007
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Nick Choy
Offline
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Registered: Apr 1, 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 37
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Review Date: Apr 2, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Price, sharpness, colour reproduction, free lens hood
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Cons:
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Noisy
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This is my first Tamron lens and I can say it probably won't be my last.
This lens is fantastic and a couple of shots at f/4 have turned out amazingly sharp - equally as sharp as my Canon 50mm f/1.8 II.
Colour reproduction is excellent. Photos turn out with excellent contrast and a nice tonal range.
The lens's macro capability is also underrated. You can get very close to the subject and it still focuses fairly well.
Value is unbeatable. For the price you pay, you cannot get a better portrait lens. It's really great value and if you like taking landscape and portrait photos.
It's that good that I haven't taken it off since I've mounted it on my camera. This lens is a definite keeper.
Apart from the noise, I don't think there is any area in which this lens could improve. Highly recommended.
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Apr 2, 2007
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Jman13
Offline
Buy and Sell: On
Registered: May 2, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 8020
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Review Date: Apr 1, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $429.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Very sharp, high IQ at all apertures, excellent bokeh, good color and contrast, smooth zoom mechanism, price
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Cons:
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plastic build, rotating focus ring during AF
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The Tamron is an oustanding lens for a little bit of money. I have been wanting a fast standard zoom for a while, and after waiting forever for the Tokina 16-50, I decided to just get the Tamron.
Images are sharp straight from f/2.8 at all focal lengths. The corners are sharp at f/2.8 at 17mm, and while slightly soft in the corners at 35mm and 50mm, they sharpen right up to match the center by f/4. It's critically sharp at f/4, and f/5.6. Truly astounding IQ.
Color and contrast are quite nice...nothing amazing, but certainly not lacking. Bokeh is surprisingly nice for a short zoom lens.
Autofocus has been accurate for me, and it's quite fast, though a bit loud. The focus ring turns during autofocus.
The build is solid, with no wobble, but the lens is almost entirely plastic on the exterior. The plastic does not seem to be on par with Canon's higher end plastics. This is really my only complaint...Tamron really needs a pro-level build, and they don't have it. The zoom and focus rings do have a nice, soft grippy rubber on them which is quite pleasant.
Overall, I am very happy with this lens. It's optically stunning, and the ability to just choose an aperture solely on the DOF needs of that shot is very nice. I don't even think twice about using f/2.8, as the image quality is already very high wide open. Gone are the days of stopping down to f/8 just for sharpness. 
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Apr 1, 2007
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toma7
Offline
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Registered: Jan 31, 2007
Location: Austria
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Mar 30, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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sharp, light, good walkaround lens, price, image quality, f/2,8
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Cons:
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noisy, plastic, some CA
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some examples (without tripod in low light conditions)
www.pbase.com/toma7/antelope_canyon
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Mar 30, 2007
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Indo Kasera
Offline
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Registered: Aug 5, 2005
Location: N/A
Posts: 40
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Review Date: Mar 30, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $450.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Usable F/2.8 at all focal lengths, Contrast, AF accuracy, Compact, Light-weight, Hood included
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Cons:
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None for the price
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Got rid of EF 17-40 f/ 4LLL---, and purchased this gem from Tamron product range. My copy of EF 17-40 f/ 4L suffered from back focusing.
My copy of Tamron 17-50 f/ 2.8 is very sharp (corner to corner) full open at all focal lengths. The contrast and focusing accuracy are excellent. Build quality is just acceptable. Sturdier build compared to Tamron 28-75 f/ 2.8 (no wobbling/ no loose barrel).
It is a perfect walk around lens on my 350D body, covering all useful focal lengths from landscape to portrait. EF 17-40 f/ 4L was not fit for all-purpose due to its shorter tele-end and limited maximum aperture.
Colors are slightly warmer to my taste. The coating does not appear to be optimized. Images are slightly under-exposed, when compared to EF 50 f/ 1.4 in similar lighting conditions. However, I know that EF 50 f/ 1.4 belongs to film era and may not have heavy coating to combat flare/ ghosting of digital image sensors. AF noise is not much distracting but may be an issue at some places. AF is not as fast as USM. But I have not paid for it.
Highly recommended! But please check your copy before buying. Any lens (including Canon ‘L’) may suffer from quality issues.
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Mar 30, 2007
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poisonpill
Offline
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Registered: Apr 13, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 1948
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Review Date: Mar 29, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $380.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Extremely sharp. Great image quality. Compact and light!
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Cons:
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I dont like how practically the entire body is a zoom ring! Makes it annoying to remove the lens. Using the lock is one step too many when it's just plain unnecessary to make the zoom ring so large. Also no internal motor (AFS) which makes the focusing a tad noisier.
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I was reading here and there on several forums about this lens. I was extremely skeptical at first as I always equated Tamron with the stinkiest of the big 3 third party lenses (Sigma & Tokina being the other two). However I saw a review site with the MTF curves and they were astounding. Then I saw a guy's in-depth comparison between this Tamron and the stalwart Nikkor 17-55mm. To my surprise they were both equal!
The Nikon 17-55mm was of course almost triple the price of this Tamron. Sure it may be better built, but I could buy three Tamrons for that price. Also I don't know how you shoot, but I could do without having Nikon's 10 pound lens on the front of my camera -- especially at this walk-around focal length!
My first wedding with this lens had me shocked. Shocked that I had to hit a whole lot of photos with a layer of blurring because they were too sharp. Seriously, out-of-camera photos looked like I had already applied an unsharp mask to them.
Corner sharpness is not 100% perfect, but neither is the Nikon's 17-55mm. It would be unusual for this focal length to have edge to edge sharpness anyway.
Bokeh is great. No complaints there.
As I wrote on top, I have no idea why Tamron makes the whole body of the lens a zoom ring. It really makes swapping out lenses harder than it needs to be. I'm sure once I get used to using the zoom lock it won't be a problem, but for now it's a bit annoying.
Anyway, highly recommended.
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Mar 29, 2007
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godfreyz
Offline
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Registered: Feb 3, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 963
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Review Date: Mar 29, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $409.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Very sharp right out of the box.
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Cons:
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Very sharp lens. It is a little noisy focussing but not bad enough to be annoying. Great lens for the price.
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Mar 29, 2007
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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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187
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365153
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Apr 25, 2013
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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87% of reviewers
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$412.04
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Build Quality Rating
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Price Rating
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Overall Rating
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8.10
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9.31
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8.7
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