Hands-on: Tamron's new 24mm and 35mm Di III OSD M1:2 are featherweight options for Sony shooters

The front elements also appear recessed enough and deep enough that the front of the lens body practically acts as a lens shade without actually using the detachable lens shade. I think that's convenient and kinda cool.

That is shockingly stupid. Also false dichotomy. Just make all of them 49mm filter thread size. Feel free to add your own 49 to 67mm step up ring. It'll still be smaller. I dont think there are many people who are owning the f/2.8 zooms thinking they need to buy an oversize slow prime lens.

@Critical Thinker

Your name is richly ironic in this context. You actually haven't thought about it at all.

There is NO ADVANTAGE to making the lenses with a 49mm thread. They are already small and light. making the barrel narrower gives you no benefit and takes away the simplicity of switching filters.

The 70-180 also has a #67mm thread. In your scenario you would have to remove the step-up ring each time you went from say the 24mm.

Theres no advantage to artificially inflating the barrel size. Plenty of emount lenses have this design where its narrow where possible closer to the back of the lens. There's a reason its not thick and chunky from the base where it literally doesn't
need to be. Leave the step up ring on, its the same thing.

@Critical Thinker - you should learn what words mean before using them.

Zony 35 2.8 is not a macro lens. You are comparing Apples and Oranges.

Why not provide both metric and non-metric info so that everyone can be comfortable.

Agreed. Please convert the 67mm filter diameter to inches so we Americans can understand.

Sony GM and Loxia lenses are in another price range and performance category. Loxia lenses are small because they are manual focus and relatively slow. However they are unusually heavy because they are strictly metal and glass.

These are budget lenses. You wouldnt be able to manufacture these in Japan.

So "Designed in Japan" is exactly what it says.

Not a big fan of any company writing "designed in ...". I want to know where they were made.

I mean, it does say both on all lenses. They have the "Designed in Japan" as well as "Made in blabla".

@EcoR1 - Yeah that's what cheap extension tubes are for, done deal!

If you ever used extension tubes with wide angle lenses you would know that they are unpractical tor even unusable. Even if you used shortest extension tubes available the working distance would be too small. So no, it’s definitely not done deal.

@EcoR1 - Close-up macro filters, done deal!

optics are lacking, I own some of them. They also started off with higher prices, lack weather sealing, build quality is poor, use reverse engineering vs licensed protocol. These tamrons also do 1:2 macro, which is very convenient.

not completely apples to apples, I would prefer the SY 18 over the Tamron 20 purely for focal length, but I cant get it considering how much better my tamrons behave. I'll eat the minor width discrepancy, it's fatter, but not really longer, and so I'm good with that.

It's not a one-size-fits-all world. There's no rule that says that the world should only have one 35mm f/2,8 for any particular system. I have the Samyang FE 35/2.8. It's a great little lens. But I'm still glad the Tamron FE 35/2.8 exists. The ability to do 0.5X macro and to close-focus without having to add extension tubes or close-up filters is indeed a great convenience. If you are shooting a wedding, etc,, it's really convenient just to get super close to an object to shoot it-- without the hassle of attaching additional filters or extension tubes. By the time you've pulled your filters or extension tubes out of your camera bag (if you happen to have them at all), someone using these Tamrons would have gotten the shots and moved on already.

I have a set of Kenko extension tubes and also a set of close-up filters I bought a long time ago for my Canon EF system. I don't think I ever used them more than a couple times. They are "practical" in principle, but tedious to use IRL.

^ are you saying if you try these lenses in person they will magically shrink in dimensions?

True, the 3 people in the entire world wanting better max mag on a compact lens at the cost of making it no longer compact anymore will be happy, i guess.

*<citation needed>

"No IS though. That adds up to a less compact build and more weight."

You know these Tamrons dont have IS too, right?

In the 70's and 80's, these lenses mostly didn't have focus motors inside the lens body, and the optical standards for 35mm film lenses are definitely different than what they are with today's high-resolution sensors. Today's lens designs are designed to satisfy people who pixel peep images at 100% magnification all the way out to the corners. No one did that back in the 70's and 80's.

If people weren't so anal-retentive about pixel peeping, they could have smaller lenses. I have the very compact Samyang FE 35/2.8. I find it to be an excellent lens, but you'll still find people dissatisfied with it because it doesn't mean their anal-retentive pixel-peeping standards. And yet, it's still easily better than most lenses from the 70's and 80's.

@T3 I have found the Samyang 35mm F/2.8 to be a truly fun lens to use and more than capable of delivering excellent results . It's build quality is not stellar but this is reflected in its very low price point . I bought it explicitly for a the smallest possible option for my A7rII/III when only small will do :-) However I have ended up using it far more than that

The 100% zoom is in some ways the curse of modern photography . With digital screens of various types being by some margin the most popular way to view images . Everyone has access to zooming in . Which has indeed led to some seriously large no compromises lens designs . I would love a wide range of slower but still high quality primes these lenses look very interesting to me the 1:2 close focus ability is alos a bonus.

@James Stirling - "The 100% zoom is in some ways the curse of modern photography."

I totally agree. That's why many of our lenses are larger than lenses of the past: because today's lenses have to withstand (or attempt to withstand) the most extreme pixel peeping. This requires more complicated optical formulas and more glass. And yet, in real life, no one views images in this manner!

I was looking at sample shots from the Sigma 40mm F/1.4 on a 50mp Canon and even wide open they looked very sharp . Then I thought how often do I need/want corner to corner sharp images at F/1.4 { never :-) } . For a 40mm it is bloody huge , Sigma have been delivering some very capable lenses but man have they got the go big or go home mantra

Nonsense—the 67mm filter is a ploy to get you to buy LESS filters, not more. All the Tamron primes as well as their 17-28, 28-75 and 70-180 use it, meaning you only have to buy one set of filters to cover all the lenses.

In contrast, with Sony’s set of F2.8 zooms and primes, you get to deal with everything from 49mm to 72mm, 77mm, and even 82mm, which is impractical to cover with one set of filters even with step-up rings. (Running to Canon and Nikon won’t solve the issue, as they’re similarly inconsiderate.)

@T3 I'm so with you on this. I ceased to care about pixel-peepers. I use lenses with 49mm filter sizes and stopped using ones with 82mm filter sizes. The difference is hardly ever in the gear. It's in the talent, which is where I think I need to work harder on quite frankly, versus lusting for yet another glass.

I don't know what zoom will match that mtf at 35mm. You'll be paying through your nose and still fail if you attempt it. The Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24–90 f/2.8–4 ASPH could be close but looks like it's not as good...

"They are not even slightly compact and are definitely not featherweight. Why this ridiculous hyperbole?"
Go to the gym! 200gr, ultraheavyweight...man, no Steve McQueens anymore?

"I'm quite frankly astonished that Tamron could try to market such an unwanted lens as an oversized 35/2.8 [...]"
I want it.

"[...] especially when there is already a much lighter, much smaller Zeiss available. What is the point?"
Price.

Aberaeon , the Sony does not have a 1:2 close focus ability along with truly epic levels of CA , it is also less wide than the other 35mm options. These factors would I suspect have resulted in much more negative commentary from DPreview if it was other brands they were reviwing

Colour rendering is of course a matter of opinion and many would not rank Sony as the best in this area. I find for people the Sony defaults are unattractive and need to be adjusted in post for landscapes and nature however I like them. Either way it is an opinion and adjustable

I’ll give you the close focus but I have used the Sony 35mm for quite a while and have had no issue with the alleged CA. No particular colour fringing. What is your experience in this regard?
I’ve also tested it against other 35mm and 35mm equivalent lenses and found no discernible difference. Against what have you measured this and how much variance do you perceive?