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The first thing I noticed with the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 test frames was that even this good a lens isn’t immune to distortion at 17mm - to be honest, there’s more than I expected, with noticeable barrel distortion around the edges of the frame, but that’s about it with the bad news. Even at full aperture the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 resolves lots of fine detail and has an attractive softish tonal response which preserves information and gives you lots to work with. Many modern lenses use increased contrast to give high apparent sharpness - The Tamron 17-50 f2.8 doesn’t need that sort of help. Resolution throughout the range even at full aperture, is exceptionally good. There is a little softness at 17mm but you’re talking barely noticeable, and easily corrected. Used with the Canon EOS 20D there were no signs of vignetting or of CA and the corners, although a little softer than the center field, still had lots of detail. Moving up the zoom range, at 35mm overall resolution was good enough to have me checking the EXIF to see that they really were taken at f2.8 - they were so sharp. Continuing to 50mm and f2.8 brought a slight drop in sharpness in the center and more in the corners - Still very good for f2.8 though. By f5.6 results were excellent at all settings and right into the corners.
This is a very good lens, and one I would highly recommend - not perfect, with more distortion than I expected, but Photoshop, PT Lens or DxO will take care of that. Considering the price tag of the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 is less than half that of the Nikon or Canon equivalent it’s also good value. If you’re finding your kit lens just isn’t as good as your DSLR deserves, the Tamron SP 17-50 f2.8 XR Di II LD Aspherical [IF] could be just what you’re looking for..
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