Hello.
If you are wondering if the 16-55 cropped at the end is equal to the Tamron at 70 you can see it yourself with the raw files Jake Sloan made in his review.
I have done a blind test with them and people couldn't tell the difference in small prints/IG which is what I shoot. I have found also that the Sony seems sharper along the whole focal range. Always based in those raws files.
Considering the size difference, the softness and a great 2nd hand deal made me jump for the Sony lens instead of the Tamrom.
The sample gallery from this vid has put my mind at ease a bit, I think I will end up getting this lens based on this. Just have to sell some old unused gear first.
This is a really good review and also great that he provides access to most sample shots as raw.
Great job in comparing these two lenses.
Courtesy of Jack Sloan's sample shots I processed in Capture One V20 and created an overlay of the DSC0117 & ...118 to show the differences between 16 and 17mm.
Especially in Capture One you can extend the picture wide area a lot with the Sony even beyond the 16mm. The difference in wideness is A LOT between these lenses. Even when using the default crop the difference between the "16" and "17" mm of these lenses is very noticable.
Note: The difference between the default area and the maximum area for the Tamron are the narrow light blue bars in the overview below.
Some further observations:
The Tamron renders actually colder than the Sony in RAW. Clicking on the sunlit snowfield to the right of the left building results in identical colors, the Tamron at 7085K, the Sony at 6683K
The vignetting profile embedded is overcorrecting at 100% for the Tamron ( I reduced it to 41), whereas when one goes beyond the "safe" area, the Sony vignetting remains partly visible in the edges.
The 55mm f2.8shots #120 and #122 show a sharper picture for the Sony if one looks closely.
I also took a crop of the #129 (T 70mm f10) and #134 (S 55mm f10), resized the Sony to 140% with sharpening in Irfan and personally think that the resized crop is close to the Tamron at 70mm.
I don't want to diss the Tamron, but I think the pros are price & stabilisation & tele (especially for non A6600/6500 users) and the cons are less wideangle and size.
If I didn't have IBIS I would go for the Tamron since in a pinch you can still stitch panos.
But just when you think those lenses are comparable in IQ - they are not!
I took a crop right side of this scene, both lenses at wide angle and f2.8. The Tamron goes soft and fuzzy as a wide open zoom lens usually does at the edges.
But the Sony is crisp sharp - and wider- I have no idea how they manage this??
Before you ask, same story on the left side.
So the Sony is a wide angle zoom lens able to deliver f2.8 wide angle shots that are detailed all over the frame. So you can do landscape shots in low light without the need to stop down.
For tele, the performance over the frame is quite similar for both lenses, so this advantage of the Sony remains in the lower focal range.
It would be interesting to know at which aperture the Tamron picks up decent sharpness over the full frame.
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