The original Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 was a Goldilocks lens for many Sony E-mount shooters. Now Tamron is back with a second gen version that promises to be even better. Does it deliver on that claim?
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Chris and Jordan did a side-by-side comparison to find out, looking at critical qualities like bokeh, sharpness, flare, ghosting, AF speed and more. Watch to find out if Tamron has another winner on its hands.
I just got mine brand new a couple of days ago, and I must say I'm not impressed. The vignetting is very noticeable at all focal lengths. It is less noticeable from f5.6 onwards. The idea behind purchasing an f2.8 lens was to be able to shoot at f2.8 and not having to stop down to f5.6.
Can someone please take a look at the picture of the ducks/gooses and check if they were doing what I think they were doing? If positive, Chris had a perfect timing (and hopefully he could evade those!)
I bought one while waiting for the new GM but am sending it back. This review kind of killed it for me. If a lens does not wow! and render I am not interested in the least which is why I use GM and Voightlander primes 95% of the time.
What a great lens, what a dreadfull range! 28mm zoom start should be resigned to history! Thank goodness for Canon and Nikon who value 24mm zoom lenses!!
I don't know, many people buy more than one lens. 28-70 makes perfect sense if you want to add either a wide angle prime (20mm or thereabouts) or a wide angle zoom.
Sigma camera? Panasonic camera? These are very low key players that probably should concentrate on what they are/were good at! Panasonic, I seriously wonder what they are playing at, since they dropped the m43 ball along with Olympus they must of spent so much cash with so little return hard to believe they are able to survive. Anyway, the issue is the lack of 24mm zooms that most people want to use, ie yes there are plenty of 2k decent 2.8 zooms but some just want a 24-200, 24-140, 24-105 that's good but doesn't need to be super fast. The fe 24-105 is the only option and in all honesty the 28-200 is a better lens, so I imagine is this 28-75 but 28 is a red flag and after using several 28-200/28-75 and 24-105's I just feel Sony is missing an opportunity that Canon and Nikon are capitalising on. Anyway, sold my A1 and bought the R5/24-105/24-240 and the 16 2.8/100-400, so my Sony cash is now spent elsewhere, good luck.
Well, you spend an awful amount of cash by switching from A1 to R5. Hope those extra 4mm are worth it for you. Personally, I am happy with the 28-70 and carry a small extra prime (Loxia 21) in my pocket in case I wanna go wide. Good luck.
Mediocre photos from a mediocre lens. I always hear faster focus, but what is this good for if the photos are soso. (And in the examples shown, no need for fast af.) The Sigma seems the obvious choice, if you see the small difference in price. And the photos are actually quite bad, sorry to say. Maybe hire a pro if you want attractive pics. Summary: Unimpressive.
This is a review of lens performance, not a photography competition. How exactly would a more "attractive" photo convey how a LENS performs? You remind me of my instructor in art school that railed against photo-realism in CGI because it was "boring" as if that's what mattered when that kind of rendering was your goal!
OK - we use two white solid lines for the same thing in the UK - we do use a double yellow by the curb to indicate no parking - I wasn't sure if this was some way of saying "don't park on either side of the road"... Always interesting to see the differences around the globe.
In the US, white line separations means the traffic is going in the same direction such lane delineations on one-way streets and express-ways lanes. Yellow lines separate lanes in the opposite directions such as two lane roads.
Where I live in Indonesia lines painted on the road are guidelines, suggestions if you will, ignored for the most part and viewed more as decoration than an indication of which lane to keep to or whether or not you should pass.
I did not see any 'wall hangers' in that gallery. I think DPR should hire a professional photographer to their staff to take gallery review pictures in the future. It might help sell more lenses on Amazon (who owns DPR) if they did, just saying.
The point of the review is to talk about image quality with samples, a professional photographer can probably produce “wall hangers” with $10 moldy lens
dont forget its their job, not their hobby to review lenses for us. Would you like to work earlier/later than 9to5 just for having nicer light for the sample gallery pictures?
You do not need 'wall hangers'. Taking a pic of a rare mystical snow leopard way up high in the himalayas at dusk gives you the same sample from the same lens that you took a pic of your toilet with.
Another idea for shooting if the DJI wore you out - get a Hero 10B, shoot in 5k linear levelling high data rate natural and just hold it in your hand, then use ReelSmart to compensate for the higher shutter speed (as hyper-smooth doesn't work well with slow shutter speeds). I'd love a review of ways to compensate for phone (etc.) high shutter speeds and if ReelSmart is the best BTW...
I had the chance to shoot the V1 on a Sony a7III on Sunday and was surprised by how poor the AF was compared to what I am used to on my Z6II and Nikon lenses. In particular eye AF tracking.
To be fair some of that is probably camera issue, but still.
Dont forget Sony 28-70 and 28-60 kit lenses and 24-70ZA. Also many consider the Tamron 28-200 as best allround option. If you ask CaNikon though thats too many choices and its better to be stuck with one or two lens options for a standard zoom.
it's great that this has almost zero longitudinal CA, but there are some color fringing on small apertures (the birds in the sky, Jordan wide shot and the building for the flare test) all exhibit this which is a bit hard to ignore for me...i suppose that's lateral CA? or is it something else entirely?
I have read a few review elsewhere on this lens, everything looks pretty promising except I really don't like mid range telephoto starting at 28mm, so I will just stay put with my Sigma 24-70 F2.8 DN DG. and Canon 24-70 F2.8L II, normally when I use a mid telephoto like 24-70, means i don't need to have another wide lens with me, but if i carry the 28-xx I will most likely need a extra wide lens, so kind of defeating the purpose of having a mid telephoto.
For the same reason I have zero interest in their new 35-150mm. starting at 35mm means I will for sure need a wider lens with me all the time, it will be a " not wide enough and not long enough" for most of the time and I will be carrying another wider or long lens, so I will just stay put with the more traditional 24-70, 70-200 pair.
A much older Tamron 28-75 was my most-used lens at weddings. I never had a client complain about sharpness or bokeh. They cared about expression, framing, spontaneity.
Photo gear is superb now. I mostly watch for the continuing adventures of Chris and Jordan. Same reason I watched Top Gear once upon a time, which was never about cars.
Well, interestingly, talking about catching spontaneity, that was my main issue with the version1, because quite often, the lens induces some very noticeable shutter lag, at least on my A7III. My other third party lenses don't have the issue. I hope Tamron fixed this.
Sony users always like to complain that Canikon users have to drag Sony comparisons into every discussion about Canikon gear (I think you your self once complained about it), And yet here you are doing nothing but try to crap on competing cameras, not even comparing lenses, just pure attack. There isn't a single mention of Canon or Nikon in the comments except the Sony user trying to crap on other cameras.
Next time you complain about people dragging Sony into everything, remember you guys are just as bad. The 4th most liked comment in the sony mount lens review is sony users just throwing insults with no constructive comparisons.
good to see the bokeh is smoother now, it was main the reason i got rid of the Tamron 28-75 and got the 24-105f4, 24mm obviously being another reason, 105f4 still better for portraits than 75f2.8 from what ive found.
Why all these video reviews lately? Why don't you make normal articles as well; I'm all up for a video version for whoever likes it, but sometimes it's much easier to skim over text to look for a certain aspect.
That link is useless for "Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III VXD G2". Unless it is very well hidden there is no text review. Maybe video is easier or more self gratifying? Or maybe we are entering a post-literate world of Instagram, YouTube, tiktok, ad nauseum.
Agreed. I refuse to watch video reviews. At least with a text review I can quickly skim it and skip anything I find irrelevant. Not possible with a video.
check back later then, it's been pretty consistent for a few years now that a written review comes a bit after the video. doesnt take a genius to figure it out
Video snips force a linear experience that increasingly includes compulsory ads. Ads in a text page have become fairly easy to remove or ignore but most video ads are unavoidable.
@Djehuty obviously, but then you don't know what relevant information you might have missed while skipping ahead. You do know what "skimming a paragraph" means and how there is no analogue to that in video, at least in YouTube, right?
Ad FF is disappearing from most streaming TV and now about half of YouTube clips do not allow FF while the ad is playing (and those that do allow "skip" only do so after several seconds).
DPR has never (over the last decade+) published a lot of written lens reviews tbh, and all this video content is made in addition to and in parallel to the written content, they literally hired Chris & Jordan for additional video content... So they're not taking away from any potential written content.
It's been said many times, and it'll probably be said many more, and it sill won't stop people who don't have time to watch videos from spending time complaining about them... ;)
To their credit, DPRTV make it really really easy to skim their video reviews, those links at the top of the page take you exactly to the different sections in the video where Jordan talks about different facets of the lens, you can even jump right to the conclusion.
Lol, why all the video reviews lately? Because Chris and Jordan keep doing a good job. It has been said a thousand times, and will be said a thousand times more, DPReviewTV(Chris and Jordan) are a SEPARATE entity from the written DPReview. So go and complain to the writers for being lazy, don't take it out on my boys.
DPReviewTV is comparable to TopGear, the videos are more about these 2 guys, while still remaining informative. I have watched them since TheCameraStoreTV (11 years), while i won't purchase 99.99% of the gear they have shown, because they are that entertaining.
82DMC12 in youtube many videos have markers so you can see what they talk about. This video has them. So you can skip ahead and still know what they were talking about.
What a bunch of moaners. You can skip video reviews. And I prefer seeing the equipment in action. Chris and Jordan are the best thing in DPR. Sadly the BTL commentators are the worst.
I’m guessing it probably saves some time allowing for more reviews, but they often do both. But also, they have time stamps so you can skip to whatever you want to see.
"Chris and Jordan are the best part of DPR" Video is more entertaining than text. Not everyone is here to be entertained but that's the way it is going...
I should have been more clear that I wasn't knocking DPR video reviews specifically, but more the trend of video reviews in general by far less capable personalities.
Was just looking into the Tamron 17-28mm. Wondering if I should wait in case they are making a new version of that as well. It's only a few years old though so I'm sure it's still a good investment.
Better VXD motors probably won't benefit that one as much, the 70-180 already had VXD but it could probably stand to benefit from some of the other build improvements in this G2 (being larger & 2x the weight of the 17-28).
Will be interesting to see whether they tackle a G2 of either, I think the UWA & tele always held up a little better (optically) than the 28-75 tho, so I could see them staying pat...
FWIW I'm quite happy with my 17-28, it's almost as light as a prime which is pretty wild for an f2.8 zoom (granted w/an abbreviated range), holds up well at it's long end even on my A7R IV.
The main upgrades of the 28-75mm G2 are improved bokeh, AF speed and corner sharpness. Bokeh and AF speed are less important in an ultrawide, and the 17-28mm has very good sharpness across the frame, so there shouldn't be a big rush to make a G2 of that lens.
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