Lens Poll.

Great Bustard wrote:

fishy wishy wrote:

I think Tamron have it right, in manufacturing 35/1.8 VC and 85/1.8 VC instead of f1.4 equivalents. If you offered me the choice of those and a Sigma f1.4 Art I'd take the Tamrons... because in practice it's rather hard to use the f1.4 re DOF. The only Tamron lens I don't really want is the 45mm f1.8 VC. It's just not a 50mm, it's not long enough and it's not as special as the others. Would have preferred a 58mm f1.8 VC.

The current Tamrons also have a handy bonus in closer-focusing and higher reproduction ratio. For hobbyist photography around the house and on walkabout this and VC are far more useful than ego-trip superfast lenses.

This is along the lines of what I'm saying (but, in the specific case of the Tamron primes, the CA is simply unacceptable, the VC is marginal, and the sharpness is not quite there until stopped down a bit).

Looks just like you're talking nonsense at least 2/3 times according to Lenstip. Why write a whole thread on this if you are going to be so lazy investigating the lenses that already exist...

85mm: As you see that aberration depends weakly on the aperture value and most of results we got here range from 0.04 to 0.06%. It means the aberration is simply low and very difficult to spot in real life photos. The Tamron optics specialists did a very good job here.

The maximum distance between both curves reaches a bit below 3 EV and it is a result slightly lower than that declared by the producer. It also leaves us slightly dissatisfied. A stabilization unit in a lens of such quality should be as efficient as 3.5-4.0 EV. Still it’s worth mentioning here that the tested device is perhaps the only stabilized full frame portrait lens currently available on the market so it compares favourably to its rivals anyway.

To sum up the Tamron 1.8/85 VC, even if noticeably more expensive than the older 1.8/85 constructions of Canon and Nikon, remains distinctly sharper practically at all combinations of aperture and for all frame positions.

35mm: The Canon 2/35 IS had very similar results in this category but its maximum level was a bit higher. The Nikkor AF-S 1.8/35G fared worse practically at all aperture value for a change. Once again the Sigma A 1.4/35 is the most serious rival of the Tamron – it had results of 0.03-0.06% which were only slightly depending on the aperture value.

The maximum distance between both curves amounts to almost 3 EV and such is, according to our test, the efficiency of the stabilization mechanism. As you see the declarations of the producer and real life values match more or less and these values are additionally good so the lens should be assessed positively in this category.

Some small reservations you can have when it comes to the performance at the maximum relative aperture on the demanding edge of full frame; still on stopping down the situation improves swiftly and near f/2.2 the image is already of sensible quality. A swift reaction to stopping down is indeed one of the strong points of the tested Tamron. The Canon and the Sigma improved a lot slower and, as a result, the first of them reached the decency level only near f/3.5 and the Sigma, even if able to produce images of decent quality already from about f/2.0, didn’t impress us with its maximum results which barely exceeded 33 lpmm. On the edge of the frame the Tamron prevails over the whole group of 35 mm lenses, mentioned in this chapter of our test - a round of applause!

45mm: Once again the Tamron is defeated here by some of its rivals; for example the Sigma A 50 mm f/1.4 DG HSM didn’t exceed a level of 0.04% anywhere, the Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.8G kept a level of 0.07–0.08%, and the Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 STM had results ranging from 0.02 to 0.06%.

The maximum distance between both curves reaches a bit above 3 EV and such is, according to our test, the efficiency of the stabilization mechanism. As it is very close to the value declared by the producer the performance of the stabilization system of the tested lens should be assessed positively.

More optically complex Tamron doesn’t seem to provide a better performance than the old 1.8/50 models. It is a very interesting conclusion, especially when you remind yourself the declaration of the producer about an excellent cooperation with 50-million pixel sensors.