$200 tamron 17-35mm f2.8-4 OMG WOW

[matthewo]

What a lens. Paid $200 and it is amazing sharp on the d800. Even wide open, at 17mm its very sharp. Bokeh is very nice at 35mm and f4 when focusing close.

Distortion is not great at 17mm but what do you expect really no wide zoom is under $1000. Ken Rockwell says +3 but, thats got to be wrong... I plugged in a good deal more to get a good result.

Colors and contrast is very good. Was amazed to see my raw images come out of camera similar looking to my old zeiss 85mm 1.4 planer. Well maybe not as good, but better than my nikon glass. Maybe halfway between.

CA is very acceptable, and similar to nikon zooms "non n" coating.

Not a big issue with flare, the front element is relatively small. Takes 77mm filters, ohh yeahh

AF is fast with the screw drive, and fairly accurate and consistent.

This lens will probably take the place if my 24-85mm for a light wide angle walk around lens. It will also stay in my wildlife photography bag for environmental and wider landscape type shots.

Test images to follow....

Go buy one , its the cheapest wide angle zoom for FX and very good for the price.

 

[danh920]

it is a nice cheap wide fx zoom, another 1 I find is nice is a tamron 19-35mm that can be had for around $100

 

[pixmedic]

I picked up a mint condition Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 for $225 a few years ago from a professional photographer.
she was selling it to fund a nikkor 70-300 VRII.

 

[480sparky]

I had a copy before I got into FX. I didn't really care for the overly-soft corners when shooting 5.6 and less. I never intended to keep it, just long enough to find a Nikkor 17-35/2.8 AF-D.

But for the price point, it's a surprisingly good full-frame lens.

 

[matthewo]

Really???

Are you sure it wasn't because of DOF? I set the lens to 2.8 and 17mm and focused manually using LV zoomed into an object in the corner, and it was sharp in the photo i took. This was even on a d800.

Maybe i got a good copy