( 85 reviews )
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Posted: Jul 4 2009
The Tamron has replaced my kit lens (22-55) that came with the Rebel XT. Pros: * The extra wideness of the lens is greatly appreciated. * One thing that you will keep hearing people say about the Tamron 17-50 is the sharpness. This is true. Shoot with a tripod and shutter release cable and it's not too hard to get tack sharp. * Build quality is solid, and the autofocus is very fast. Yes, it does make a little bit of noise when autofocusing but it's such a non-issue that I would not bother with it unless you needed absolutely silent ring USM focusing. * Constant f/2.8 throughout the focal range. Cons * Just heavy enough to make me think about putting on the 50mm f/1.4 as a walkaround lens. However, the range of the lens along with the IQ generally has me going about town with the Tamron. Other I was having trouble getting sharp pictures when I first got the Tamron. It ended up not being a Tamron issue but a me issue. I was hand holding most of my photos and shooting at least 1/FL. What I was not taking into account was the 1.6 crop factor of the APS-C sensor. Once I started taking photos faster than 1/FL*1.6, things sharpened up considerably.
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( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jun 14 2009
I looked at lenses for months trying to figure out which was the best to pair with my flash for indoor pictures of kids. I had the Tamron 18-200mm and while I was happy with the reach it focused way too slow and the aperture was 3.5-6.3. I ended up selling that lens and buying this one. I'm really glad I did. Positives: 1. The first thing I noticed about the 17-50mm was the focusing speed. It makes noise (a little) but it's really fast and accurate. 3x the speed of the 18-200. I hardly ever miss focus indoors with the 430ex II flash assist lamp on and it's lighting quick. Outdoors the focus speed is as fast as I could ever want. 2. Fast 2.8 max aperture. 3. My pictures are always very sharp even using an aperture of 2.8 4. The closest focus distance is much closer than the 18-200. 10.6 inches is very close when zoomed into 50mm. 5. The 7 blade aperture along with the 10.6 inch min focus distance produces great looking bokeh. 6. The build quality is solid, not plastic feeling. 7. $500+ cheaper than the Canon 2.8IS 8. 6 year warranty! (Canon has a 1 year warranty) Negatives: 1. There's some obvious distortion at 17mm however it's only noticeable if your looking for it and it's easy to correct using software. 2. AF is a little noisy (but very fast) 3. The 18-200 Tamron I owned had very similar build quality and ended up letting quite a few dust specs inside the lens. They didn't affect image quality but it still bothered me. So far I've found 1 tiny dust spec inside the lens, so this may or may not be a problem but I thought I would mention it since my last Tamron experienced this. A friend of mine got the Tamron 28-75 and I have to say that I like this lens a little better. As far as sharpness goes, both are great but the 17-50 has much better build quality. The 28-75 feels more plastic that I'm used to. I also prefer the wide 17mm angle to the extra 25mm but that's just me. Overall I'm extremely happy with this lens. It hasn't left my camera for 3 months and I plan on using it until it falls apart.
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Posted: Jun 6 2009
I really like this lens. It's very sharp and produces fantastic results with my 40D. Great low light performance, good bokeh, and fast focus. I have had no focus problems with my copy that a few people have complained about. The only fault I have is that it's not ultrasonic so the noise is louder than Canon's, but by no means unacceptable and so fast I hardly notice it anymore. After lots of research and testing other lenses in this range I found this to be the best lens and also about $300 cheaper than Canon's 17-40mm which was my next choice. In most situations this lens stays on my camera more than any other.
