I was just pointing out that someone said there is no quality superzoom. The Leica is at the top of its class... but you gotta pay to play.
I realise that Tom, but since that Leica is in the same class as a Canon L lens price wise, I was trying to find the best compromise between quality and price. If this Tamron is as good as the reviews said, it could be the lens with the best performance per dollar value you can get.
I would love to see a shootout between the Tamron and that Leica.
I have an Olympus E-420 and bought the Panasonic/Leica 14-150. It was very inferior to the Zuiko 14-54; perhaps I simply got a "bad copy," but I don't think B&H would be ready to order another (and another, etc.) till I was happy with one. The stabilization worked as advertised, but the colors were flat and it didn't resolve much detail. Glad you got a good one; wish I had.
jeremy_clay wrote:
I don't imagine anyone was expecting *too* much from the all-in-wonder glass tho..
Strangely enough, the 36-420mm 12x superzoom in Canon S3 IS is actually quite good, even wide open (f2.7 to f3.5!) and throughout the range, even in the corners.
I bought one for my kids but also run it through some tests. The image quality is comparable to the better DSLR consumer zooms with a range around 3x. Though, don't ask about high ISO image quality - there is none.
I've been shooting with the Canon 18-200IS for a couple of days now (on my 50D body).
Initial impressions: the lens is best on the long end (200mm), and weak on the short end (18mm).
At 200mm, I'm quite impressed with the sharpness, contrast, etc. The look at 200mm reminds me of the 70-300 f4-5.6 IS lens.
At 18mm, the lens is softer, and shows distortion and CA. It's usable, but there's a big difference between this lens at 18mm, and the Canon EF-S 10-22 at 18mm.
As a superzoom, for walk-around convenience in a small package, the lens offers a decent set of trade-offs, and I'll make use of it. But I won't be shooting any serious wide-angle landscapes with it.
