Ok, last time, I swear! Thoughts on Tamron 17-50 f2.8?

minicoop1985 · Feb 3, 2014

Wife's STILL looking to replace the kit lens (the 18-55 SAM soft, plastic, and loud thing) for her a55 (no, her a55, not her ass, perv, sheesh). She's got a pretty good 50mm f1.8 and will be snagging another couple primes (90mm macro probably and a 35mm or thereabouts), but still wants a utility zoom kinda deal. Anyway, now she's got her heart set on a Tamron 17-50 f2.8. Anyone have any experience with this? So far, it seems appealing-constant aperture seems like a great deal, and it's pretty fast for a "kit" length. Thanks for the help, guys.

DiskoJoe · Feb 3, 2014

Yeah, go with the Tammy. Good lens for the price. Solid build but colors could be a bit better. They make a nice 90mm f2.8 as well.

Ive never used the Sony version but my friend has the nikon version which is basically the same. He loves it and uses it a lot.

jaomul · Feb 3, 2014

Nice lens.I have had it on both Canon and nikon fits. Good value and better than kit lens when the light is low

Close by jaomul, on Flickr

Derrel · Feb 3, 2014

You've heard that the earlier, NON-VC 17-50 Tamron is considered optically much better than the later, VC version, right? Roger Cicala at Lensrentals.com lists, among his "greatest regrets" at Lensrentals his decision to sell off all of their rental stock of the earlier non-VC lenses and replace them with the new, VC version...without testing and finding out that the VC version is vastly inferior.

minicoop1985 · Feb 3, 2014

Luckily, Sony's got their image stabilization in the body (one more thing to turn off), so I don't think it has the VC. Think is the operative word here. Thanks for the help. As for that 90 2.8, I think that's the other one she's going for.

minicoop1985 · Feb 15, 2014

She ordered it yesterday. THE AGONY IS OVER! I think letting her play with mine helped push her to get it done, finally. Whew. Thanks for all the help, everyone.