Which is the sharpest? Battle of six lenses @50mm f/5.6

Roland Karlsson wrote:

Roland Karlsson wrote:

This is my first take at it

1. Tamron 28-200 - oops, faulty?
2. Sigma 50-500 - OK
3. Pentax 17-70 - OK
4. Pentax 50-200 - soft, but nearly OK
5. Tamron 17-50 - very good
6. Sigma 17-70 - very good (maybe with an edge)

I cannot decide between 5 and 6. Number 6 has higher contrast which makes it look sharper. So ... I give it a better point.

BTW - are you sure that the focus not is on the wall for the pictures?

As sure as I can be I selected the af point my self, and my tripod is professional line from manfrotto. Its possible the camera is playing tricks with AF

And this is my take at corner sharpness (lower left corner).

1. Very soft
2. OK
3. Slightly soft
4. Slightly more soft
5. OK
6. OK

Much harder to tell

But 5 and 6 are clear overall winners and 2 seems to come after that.

Thanks 😊

I give the number 1 position to Sigma 17-70mm lens for four reasons:

1. Slightly sharper
2. Higher contrast and clarity.
3. Best corner/edge sharpness.
4. Tamron should had performed better at f/5.6 since its a f/2.8 lens—two full stops is all a good lens should ever need.

No.2 position is of course Tamron 17-50mm.

Whats interesting is that Sigma 50-500mm performs quite well despite a 10x zoom; its probably at number three place in this test. However, it is a disappointing lens at longer focal lengths—where its needed the most ☹

NOTE - in this test, of course. There might be sample variations and the images might not be optimally focused etc.

Indeed, but the results generally correspond to other test reports of these lenses.