What a nonsense. OP has given very detailed pros and cons. Very much unlike your silly "A versus B summary".
I don't need photos to learn about user's impressions regarding size, weight, AF, tracking and MFD etc.
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My experience so far with the Tamron 35-150 f2-f2.8 coming from Sony G 24-105 f4
- Thread starter yysc
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I don't need photos to learn about user's impressions regarding size, weight, AF, tracking and MFD etc.
joger
Veteran Member
Got it - you‘re a one size fits all fan.
joger
Veteran Member
Driving the discussion into this direction was my intent.Have you not seen my own 35GM vs T35-150 comparison from last night? It comes with images.
Less debating more facts - the test camera though would not be my first choice.
yysc
Forum Enthusiast
yysc
Forum Enthusiast
In the Fred Miranda's link I shared earlier they do the test with the Alpha 1 and they obtain similar results.Driving the discussion into this direction was my intent.Have you not seen my own 35GM vs T35-150 comparison from last night? It comes with images.
Less debating more facts - the test camera though would not be my first choice.
--
__________________________________
... having is better than needing
Feel free to rent a T35-150 and provide your own results, just writing here is cheap.
M
Malling
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The Lamentable Lens
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Indeed — different tools for different jobs.
The 35mm GM might just be my favorite lens in the whole system — it’s a real treat. But man, it really stinks at 150mm!
Impulses
Forum Pro
Yeah, there's literally no combination of 35/75-85/135 AF primes that would weigh less, even a lightweight SY 35+75 f1.8 along with a Batis 135/2.8 would be in the same weight range. I love my 35GM and ultimately decided against the 35-150, but it's really hard to argue against it's versatility for anyone that needs to bounce quickly between those focal lengths. I think it's quickly gonna become popular for event work.
Well said.
I realise this is a gear forum - and I enjoy it, and find it useful, on those terms.
But the way some people talk about this stuff... Honestly, you'd think their house walls were covered in framed pictures of their favourite 400% crops of sharpness charts and brick walls.
I'm personally much more interested in seeing sample pictures and hearing people's experiences of the functionality of the lens.
Anyone buying the Tamron isn't expecting it to be "as sharp as" the 35GM. But that isn't why they are buying it! It's the wrong frame of reference. Far more relevant is how the images look overall, how sharp it is compared to other zooms, and whether this difference is discernible at the kind of sizes they want to display their images.
I realise this is a gear forum - and I enjoy it, and find it useful, on those terms.
But the way some people talk about this stuff... Honestly, you'd think their house walls were covered in framed pictures of their favourite 400% crops of sharpness charts and brick walls.
I'm personally much more interested in seeing sample pictures and hearing people's experiences of the functionality of the lens.
Anyone buying the Tamron isn't expecting it to be "as sharp as" the 35GM. But that isn't why they are buying it! It's the wrong frame of reference. Far more relevant is how the images look overall, how sharp it is compared to other zooms, and whether this difference is discernible at the kind of sizes they want to display their images.
Exactly. I do look to others comments on equipment I cannot afford like the 35mm GM.
Yet I can assure you the Tamron 35-150mm provides for excellent images, some of which I have printed!
I bought into Sony because of the announced Tamron as a one lens (heavy one) to do all my model photography.
The lens does what it should and well, the older A7RIIIa body not as good as recent ones misses frames but that is not the lens.
No one else makes an excellent lens for my application being f2-2.8 with this range.
It is really nice, and pixel peeping is still good!
How can one compare this zoom to fixed lenses anyway, Apples to Oranges.
Yet I can assure you the Tamron 35-150mm provides for excellent images, some of which I have printed!
I bought into Sony because of the announced Tamron as a one lens (heavy one) to do all my model photography.
The lens does what it should and well, the older A7RIIIa body not as good as recent ones misses frames but that is not the lens.
No one else makes an excellent lens for my application being f2-2.8 with this range.
It is really nice, and pixel peeping is still good!
How can one compare this zoom to fixed lenses anyway, Apples to Oranges.
Jacques Cornell
Forum Pro
Sony doesn't make a 35-150 or anything remotely like it.
not needed for discussions of size and weight, and largely irrelevant to discussions of AF performance
Not presenting evidence does not make an evaluation fiction, especially when discussing subjective intangibles.
twilsonstudiolab
Forum Enthusiast
I was a happy Lumix S1R user when I first heard about this lens a couple months ago (August 2022). For the last five years I've longed for a sharp all-in-one f/2.8 FF zoom that covered at least from about 40mm to maybe 120mm, the range where I do most of my shooting. ("Urban vignettes", kind of documentary/street/abstract; so, handheld walk-around.) Having two zooms split at 70mm is a non-starter for me, so I've had to compromise at f/4 with the Lumix 24-105mm, and before that, with a Nikkor 24-120mm on a D810.
So the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 immediately piqued my interest. I handled one at a Tamron demo booth, and didn't find it as ginormous as the reviews seemed to imply it was, so, still interested. Of course, getting one would require getting a Sony body, too, and I didn't know squat about Sony. So I rented an Alpha 1, to learn about the camera, and decide if this one lens would be worth switching systems.
Long story short, it was. I bought the A-1 rental body and a new 35-150mm, once I found one, and will soon start selling off my L-mount gear.
I haven't done any systematic IQ tests, so won't comment about IQ, except to say that my impression so far is that it is very sharp everywhere.
I do want to talk about size and weight though. I guess it is a big lens. But it doesn't really feel that way to me when I'm using it. I support it in my left hand by the zoom ring, but not cradled with my thumb forward, but rather with my thumb underneath, pointing up to the right and my pinky out touching the top left of the focus ring. I can easily fine-tune the zoom this way while supporting the weight, and my right hand is free to operate whatever controls need operating. This works very well for me, and it's stable and comfortable. When it's not at my eye, I just dangle it by the grip, no problem, or toss it back in my compact sling pack, which it fits nicely in because, you know, I don't need any other lenses! I should mention I'm a 5'9" male, 150 lbs, and will be 70 years old next spring.
Anyway, very happy with the lens.
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Tim Wilson
Studio/lab
Chicago
So the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 immediately piqued my interest. I handled one at a Tamron demo booth, and didn't find it as ginormous as the reviews seemed to imply it was, so, still interested. Of course, getting one would require getting a Sony body, too, and I didn't know squat about Sony. So I rented an Alpha 1, to learn about the camera, and decide if this one lens would be worth switching systems.
Long story short, it was. I bought the A-1 rental body and a new 35-150mm, once I found one, and will soon start selling off my L-mount gear.
I haven't done any systematic IQ tests, so won't comment about IQ, except to say that my impression so far is that it is very sharp everywhere.
I do want to talk about size and weight though. I guess it is a big lens. But it doesn't really feel that way to me when I'm using it. I support it in my left hand by the zoom ring, but not cradled with my thumb forward, but rather with my thumb underneath, pointing up to the right and my pinky out touching the top left of the focus ring. I can easily fine-tune the zoom this way while supporting the weight, and my right hand is free to operate whatever controls need operating. This works very well for me, and it's stable and comfortable. When it's not at my eye, I just dangle it by the grip, no problem, or toss it back in my compact sling pack, which it fits nicely in because, you know, I don't need any other lenses! I should mention I'm a 5'9" male, 150 lbs, and will be 70 years old next spring.
Anyway, very happy with the lens.
--
Tim Wilson
Studio/lab
Chicago
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yysc
Forum Enthusiast
Yes completely agree. I think the matter of the weight and size was initially a con for me as I was biased to see the lens this way as many of the YouTube reviewers listed that as a downside.
I am well past that and accepted that carrying 1.1Kg of glass is worth by the tremendous versatility and IQ this lens provides. As a single lens solution I cannot think of anything better.
The Sony 24-105 G was sold already, not missing it, just like not missing a bit the Panasonic 24-105 either!
PD: I went from the S1 to the A7IV and the C-AF improvement blew me away, in your case from S1R to A1 the change would be even more extreme!
.Do you find the size of the 35-150 a bit obtrusive for the documentary style stuff - ie that the subjects in your pictures are more likely to notice you, to react to you, to (bluntly) be aware that a photographer is taking their picture and to modify their behaviour accordingly?
I know a lot of people shoot street with bigger lenses but I personally try to stick with something quite discreet, having noticed a distinct difference in people's behaviour when I went out with a 70-200 a couple of times.
twilsonstudiolab
Forum Enthusiast
The lens I got when I rented the A1 was the Sony 24-105, which allowed me to do a head-to-head comparison against the Lumix 24-105, which I knew to be a very sharp lens that has stood me well since early 2019, when I got it as part of the original S1R kit. I was kinda disappointed with the Sony version: a little bit soft by comparison.
I was never much into continuous AF, having cut my teeth back in the day on manually focused Leicas, Hasselblads, and view cameras—one of the reasons Lumix DFD never bothered me.PD: I went from the S1 to the A7IV and the C-AF improvement blew me away, in your case from S1R to A1 the change would be even more extreme!
That said, now that I can see what the A1 can do, I'm totally reevaluating my position. It's opening up new styles of photography to me.
An example: in art school I did a project photographing ordinary people at public events and in social situations where I tried to capture awkward gestures and chaotic visual relationships. I used a tiny Rollei 35 which had a fixed 40mm lens, and on-camera flash to blast the scene, but also to get me to a small aperture for hyperfocal-distance focusing. Having that 40mm field of view, and not having to think about focus, allowed me to shoot totally intuitively, from the hip. And I got some great stuff.
I've wanted to ressurect that project, with technical and aesthetic updates for the digital era, but one problem has been that digital images are just too sharp for the hyperfocal method, in my opinion, and I've never had much luck relying on AF systems to take up the slack.
The A1 changes that. With fast and accurate wide area face and eye detection, and the high frame rates I can get, even with lossless 50 MP raw, it's a new ballgame.
twilsonstudiolab
Forum Enthusiast
When I say "street", I mean something that's more about chunks of the urban landscape, and less about the people there. So when people do get in those shots, which is rarely, it's as shapes moving through the frame or as some other kind of incidental element.
That said, I had the idea recently to test out the A1's close-in candid capabilities in a quick-shooting people-immersive setting at Chicago's Columbus Day parade. Part of that testing was to figure out what fixed focal length might be the best look for that kind of work. I wanted to test 35, 40, 50, and 55mm focal lengths. Not having any of those lenses yet (I've since picked up a Sony Zeiss 55mm) I realized I could just simulate them all with the Tamron 35-150, at, or near, f/2.
To minimize any intrusiveness I might be projecting, I removed the lenshade, used E-shutter with the sound off, worked quickly, and kept moving. And I tried to look more like a tourist than a journalist. Of course, this was an unusual situation with lots of people, including quite a few of those journalists with their monster sports rigs, so there may have been some desensitivity to the issue in the air, but my sense was that I wasn't being intrusive, and my tools weren't hampering my efforts, any more than if I had had a small prime on my compact A1.
Even though the 35-150mm is close in size to a 70-200, I think that by its not having a foot, and not being painted white, and not being attached to a big sports camera or a tripod, it just doesn't feel like it's in that category.
BaseballShots
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Also got the Tamron 35-150 while owning the Sony 24-105G since it's release.
The Tamron's now sent out to trade-in for a Sony 24-70GM II & Sony 70-200GM II. Since the Tamron was back-ordered almost 6 months I ended up buying the A1 after the Tamron was initially ordered. Costly mistake.
I really enjoy 30fps High+ and as declared by Sony the Tamron is limited to 15fps. That's my fault for not thinking of this situation.
What I couldn't tell from specifications is that the Tamron would not do well with AF of fast action shots (Fencing regional tournaments).
The Sony 24-105 easily out preformed the Tamron with regards to AF starting and holding/locking-on for my usage case. That combined with 30fps (Sony) instead of 15fps (Tamron) it came to the point I wasn't using the Tamron 35-150 anymore.
If I didn't benefit from 30fps and had slower moving subjects the Tamron 35-150 would have been a great lens to keep.
The Tamron's now sent out to trade-in for a Sony 24-70GM II & Sony 70-200GM II. Since the Tamron was back-ordered almost 6 months I ended up buying the A1 after the Tamron was initially ordered. Costly mistake.
I really enjoy 30fps High+ and as declared by Sony the Tamron is limited to 15fps. That's my fault for not thinking of this situation.
What I couldn't tell from specifications is that the Tamron would not do well with AF of fast action shots (Fencing regional tournaments).
The Sony 24-105 easily out preformed the Tamron with regards to AF starting and holding/locking-on for my usage case. That combined with 30fps (Sony) instead of 15fps (Tamron) it came to the point I wasn't using the Tamron 35-150 anymore.
If I didn't benefit from 30fps and had slower moving subjects the Tamron 35-150 would have been a great lens to keep.
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Sparky_oto
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I’m considering this lens as a do it all street/urban photography for a 4 week Japan city trip. I have the 14/1.8GM and 24/1.4GM but want a zoom to cover the normal- tele range for day and night time shots
The range of this lens is fantastic and most reviews say sharpness is close to Sony’s own G / GM lenses which makes this a very interesting candidate for a travel lens. I’m considering getting either this or the Sony 20-70/4; and if I somehow managed to budget enough, the Sony 24-70/2.8 GM2
Before Sony, I had a few third party lenses on my old Fujifilm system and never liked the way these lenses render colours / microcontrast /detail and always ended up spending longer editing in Lightroom. Have you noticed any differences in IQ between this and Sony’s own G / GM zooms?
Thanks!
The range of this lens is fantastic and most reviews say sharpness is close to Sony’s own G / GM lenses which makes this a very interesting candidate for a travel lens. I’m considering getting either this or the Sony 20-70/4; and if I somehow managed to budget enough, the Sony 24-70/2.8 GM2
Before Sony, I had a few third party lenses on my old Fujifilm system and never liked the way these lenses render colours / microcontrast /detail and always ended up spending longer editing in Lightroom. Have you noticed any differences in IQ between this and Sony’s own G / GM zooms?
Thanks!
Jacques Cornell
Forum Pro
That’s a lot to carry around. I lived in Tokyo for 10 years. If I wanted to visit and shoot urban day & night, I’d bring two bodies and small 18, 24, 35 & 75 primes, the last three f1.8.
I've had the 35 - 150 for a few months now. I've had Tamron lenses for my Sony kit in the past, this is in a different league. I like it very much. It's a very high quality lens and performs well in all aspects that concern me.
The lens is big and heavy, no doubt. I do a lot of hiking, and the lens banging around on my body as I walk is annoying. But if I hold it close to my body, it just becomes part of me, like I weigh another 4.5 lbs (inc. my A7R5).
I have a Cotton Carrier G3 on the way, I think this should help to alleviate the "banging" issue. It's sort of a sling mount for the camera/lens that will hold the kit next to my body. I'm going on a 3 week trip to England next Spring and this would be the perfect lens to bring.
The lens is big and heavy, no doubt. I do a lot of hiking, and the lens banging around on my body as I walk is annoying. But if I hold it close to my body, it just becomes part of me, like I weigh another 4.5 lbs (inc. my A7R5).
I have a Cotton Carrier G3 on the way, I think this should help to alleviate the "banging" issue. It's sort of a sling mount for the camera/lens that will hold the kit next to my body. I'm going on a 3 week trip to England next Spring and this would be the perfect lens to bring.
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