Used Nikon 16-35 or New Tamron 17 - 35??? or something else?

Hi all,

i have been lurking on here for a few years, but haven’t posted much so please be gentle

i am looking for some advice re the above two lenses, I am a purely recreational photographer who mainly takes pictures of motorsports and landscapes on holidays.

In about a weeks time I am heading off on holiday to Peru, Ecuador and The Galápagos Islands and from reading reviews on the Nikon lens it sounds like it would be a great addition for the trip.

I currently plan on taking a D600, Nikon 24-85mm, Tamron 150-600mm (Tamron more for Galapagos cruise)

I have previously bought new and used kit, based on what was available at the time, so no issue with buying used.

Used lens has 6 months warranty.

Unfortunately I can’t get both lenses side by side for an evaluation so need to decide based on what I can find out about the Tamron - which is limited at minute because only a couple of places have them here in the UK

So any thoughts on which way to jump would be greatly appreciated .

Part of me wonders whether I would be better served sticking with the 24mm as my widest lens and get a 70-200 f2.8 instead to fill the gap between the Nikon and the Tamron and stitch together a couple of images ar 24mm to get a similar field of view as the 16/17mm would give me.

thanks in advance for your thoughts

Paul

I don't know much about the Tamron 17-35 but I did consider the Nikon 16-35. Eventually I decided on the Nikon 18-35. Lighter, cheaper and just as good over the range, of course it does not have VR though. So consider the Nikon 18-35, a great lens.

thanks romfordbluenose, I had forgotten about the 18-35, I am looking at a used Nikon 16-35 tomorrow and they may hopefully have an 18-35 as well.

The lighter weight of the Tamron and the Nikon 18 definitely appeal given I will be trekking.

Many thanks

Paul

I have no direct experience with any of these lenses but have read from other forum members that the 14-24 is a better lens than 16-35. May be you'll find a used one within your budget to evaluate against the others

All the best

Paul,

I'm a pretty big fan of Tamron, as I think they're putting out some OUTSTANDING lenses, and the prices are pretty reasonable, as well. I'm not that familiar with the 17-35, but I believe it's a pretty good lens, particularly for the price. I'm also not familiar with the Nikon, so can't really advise you with any solid advice, other than I like Tamron and don't think you could go too wrong. If you go with the Tamron, you'd have a NEW lens, with a 6-year warranty, instead of a used lens with a 6-month warranty. That may be something to consider, as well.

All that said, I WILL say that I wish you well in this, as it's typically NOT a good idea to wait until so close to a big trip to think about a purchase like this. You just never know what may happen, and the lens may not come in, or may perform as expected. Having said THAT, I did JUST that in 2010 when I waited pretty late to buy a Sigma 10-20 f3.5 to take on a trip to Italy. I bought mine in person at the store, but still. As it turns out, everything was fine, and I'm still using that lens today. In fact, I tended to use it more often that I first thought I would, but that's not relevant to the topic at hand.

Good luck!

Sam

romfordbluenose said:

I don't know much about the Tamron 17-35 but I did consider the Nikon 16-35. Eventually I decided on the Nikon 18-35. Lighter, cheaper and just as good over the range, of course it does not have VR though. So consider the Nikon 18-35, a great lens.

Click to expand...

Check out the review:


If you're starting to think I have a lukewarm response to this lens, that's probably the right conclusion. The 14-24mm just blows the 16-35mm away in terms of sharpness, particularly at the wide end. While the 14-24mm also has considerable linear distortion, it's not quite as bad as the 16-35mm, and the other traits of the faster lens are generally better—or at least more predictable—too.

....

Some people have asked about the 18-35mm in comparison to the 16-35mm. Sorry, but that less expensive lens doesn't really fix anything. You pay more for the 16-18mm portion of the focal range, you get less (size/weight) by leaving it off. But many of my comments about the 16-35mm also apply to the 18-35mm, unfortunately.

Somewhat mirrors my experience of the 16-35 and the 14-24. However I have got many great pictures from the 16-35 lens in real life - so not all is bad. Again maybe not all is bad in the 18-35 land as well - especially stopped down.

The new Tamron 17-35 may be an interesting lens - the initial users are impressed with it (but initial users for all new lenses are impressed with a new lens):


One good thing about that lens is that it is fairly light.

I have both these lenses. I use the 16-35 mostly, but only because it is small enough to fit in my 'travel bag for cameras', a waist bag. In fact I only bought the 16-35 because I loved the bag and the 14-24 didn't fit in it. (Too fat).

As for sharpness - don't be quite so concerned about it. The 16-35 is actually quite sharp, and I recall when it first came out, there were tests (here) between the two lenses by a number of people. In one test in particular, a lot of people were surprised that the side-by-side images from the 16-35 were a little sharper in the corners than the 14-24.

Let me say that sharpness is not a characteristic that defines either lens - both are plenty sharp. It's the other flaws that define them, flaws that you are always aware of and have to shoot around. (Like in a bad lens like the 80-400 AF-D where you have to stop it way down for adequate sharpness - your experience is defined by having to shoot at F9 rather than bokeh, or VR, or some other issue.

With the 16-35, I worry about distortion at the wide end, and I do worry about the corners as well, even stopped down to F8. If you are going to be shooting at 16mm a lot, you'll probably get tired of this. It's bad enough to have perspective distortion at 16mm, but the 16-35 has a ton of barrel distortion.

With the 14-24, besides worrying about carrying the thing (and what to do with the 'lens cap' in the field), I mostly worry about flare, flare and more flare. It's a tough lens to shoot in the sunlight as flare issues creep in even when you are looking for it. Sun just out of frame is the worst - and with a lens this wide, most of your shots are going to be with sun just out of frame. Either that or you have sun IN the frame, or you have your own shadow in there.

The 14-24 has the (big) advantage of going wider. 1mm on a wide lens is quite significant. You can't really compare these lenses simply because the 14-24 is so much wider than the 16-35. And going to an 18-35 is massively different.

In thinking of the OP's focal ranges, I'd say this. You might not need to fill that gap between 85 and 150mm. I think of the time I bought a 24-120 as a travel lens, to give more coverage than my 24-70. And I discovered that not only is 120mm not particularly long, I didn't shoot much between 70 and 120mm to start with. In thinking about it, this is a range I'd normally use for portraiture, which isn't something I do a lot of on vacation.

I also don't do a lot of shooting wider than 24mm - but when I need something wide, I really want width! (Often for an interior, or a close-up of a build). When traveling with the 16-35, I really miss the width of the 14-24.

Here are some shots with the 16-35 to show it's no slouch.


Taormina, Sicily



I take my D810 underwater in a housing, and I only have a couple of lenses and ports to use with it. One is the 16-35. In this shot I was looking for something in the anemone, and when I found it I wanted my macro lens. So I did the best I could, shoved the dome port right up against the anemone, stopped down, and zoomed in to 35mm.


16-35vr

This was a pretty big anemone, even unusually large, in my experience. Each arm is about as thick as your little finger. And there is a (very) small shrimp on one of them.

Here is an extreme crop showing the little critter. Keep in mind that I'm shooting through a big glass dome AND a few inches of water.


100% crop

I'd say the lens is sharp enough. Like I said, I don't worry about it being soft, I worry about barrel distortion. I would not recommend this lens for architectural shooting.



--
Phoenix Arizona Craig
www.cjcphoto.net

whoosh1 said:

If you're starting to think I have a lukewarm response to this lens, that's probably the right conclusion. The 14-24mm just blows the 16-35mm away in terms of sharpness, particularly at the wide end. While the 14-24mm also has considerable linear distortion, it's not quite as bad as the 16-35mm, and the other traits of the faster lens are generally better—or at least more predictable—too.

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I can agree with your choice of lens and preference. You normally get what you pay for, however not everyone wants the extra performance of a larger, heavier and more expensive lens when all they are doing is recording their recreational activities.

Weight and size is very important to some of us.

romfordbluenose said:

I don't know much about the Tamron 17-35 but I did consider the Nikon 16-35. Eventually I decided on the Nikon 18-35. Lighter, cheaper and just as good over the range, of course it does not have VR though. So consider the Nikon 18-35, a great lens.

Click to expand...

+1 on 18-35 G. It took some months to find a decent Used one in London early this year since last year. IME this lens is quite scarce on Used inventories, and for good reasons. It is great traveller and light. 7mm filters another +ve .... Shoot it at f8 and be grateful.

If you need wider, I would look at Sigma 12-24 options but more costly.

But I've not tried the 16-35, as I have 3 Zeiss primes - all MF - for unmatched IQ especially the colour rendering, which is exquisite. But it all depends how you see your len(es) working for you...

Actually I agree with most of what you said about the two lenses & I regularly use the 16-35 (more often than the 14-24). In fact I have some of my best pictures with the lens. Between the two, if I have to keep one however - it would be the 14-24. On the other hand - I have recently added a Zeiss Milvus 15mm - and I will likely sell the 14-24 (as it adds the possibility of filters as well as the great optical performance of 14-24). If the lighter Tamron 17-35 turns out to be a good lens (or at least better than the Nikon 16-35 or the Nikon 18-35) - a 3 lens setup of Zeiss 15mm + new Tamron 17-35 f/2.8-4 + Nikon 70-200 FL may be compelling with only two filter sizes (77mm and 95mm). The Nikon 16-35 may be just too big/heavy to go in a small bag along with Zeiss 15mm and Nikon 70-200 f/2.8.

Hi all,

many thanks for all of the thoughts and suggestions so far, after some more reading and looking at a couple of used Nikon lenses I have narrowed my choice down to two options as both Nikon lenses looked like they had had hard lives.

Tamron 17-35

Sigma 12 -24 f 4.5/f5.6 (not the newer f4 lens)

i am worried that the Tamron isn’t gaining me a huge amount over my existing lens and the Sigma could be legitimately purchased through my company so I can disappear the VAT.

My only concern is the mixed reviews the Sigma gets online, any thoughts on this or am I being too worried about levels of detail I’ll never notice - bear in mind these pictures will only ever be seen on a 24” 4K LCD frame, I doubt any of them will make it onto canvas or be printed.

Both are in stock in the UK non grey import and about the same price.

My heart is telling me go 12-24 and live with the downsides if I even notice them (I am assuming everything but sharpness can pretty much be eradicated in light room in any case?)

many thanks in advance for your thoughts once more.

Paul

Paulgwat said:

Hi all,

many thanks for all of the thoughts and suggestions so far, after some more reading and looking at a couple of used Nikon lenses I have narrowed my choice down to two options as both Nikon lenses looked like they had had hard lives.

Tamron 17-35

Sigma 12 -24 f 4.5/f5.6 (not the newer f4 lens)

i am worried that the Tamron isn’t gaining me a huge amount over my existing lens and the Sigma could be legitimately purchased through my company so I can disappear the VAT.

My only concern is the mixed reviews the Sigma gets online, any thoughts on this or am I being too worried about levels of detail I’ll never notice - bear in mind these pictures will only ever be seen on a 24” 4K LCD frame, I doubt any of them will make it onto canvas or be printed.

Both are in stock in the UK non grey import and about the same price.

My heart is telling me go 12-24 and live with the downsides if I even notice them (I am assuming everything but sharpness can pretty much be eradicated in light room in any case?)

many thanks in advance for your thoughts once more.

Paul

Click to expand...

Paul,

If it were ME, I'd go with the Tamron 17-35. However, since your gut is telling you to go with the Sigma, you should probably do so. Else, you'll always wonder, "What if?" or regret the purchase.

Good luck,

Sam

For completeness I placed the order for the Sigma 12-24 and will have it Monday, thanks to everyone for views.

Paul

Paulgwat said:

For completeness I placed the order for the Sigma 12-24 and will have it Monday, thanks to everyone for views.

Paul

Click to expand...

Sounds good. All the best