Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE Review

Dustin Abbott posted another of his lengthy reviews that is broken up into three parts about the Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE. Below are excerpts from the videos:

  • The 17-28mm is well built and very light
  • Fully weather sealed
  • Very well designed
  • Not great for manual video
  • Video AF is good and silent
  • Great AF overall and it is one of the quietest lenses Dustin has ever used
  • There is some strong budge/barrel distortion and vignette at 17mm, but it is well corrected in JPEG and easy to correct the RAW
  • For real-world landscape, there isn’t much distortion or bulge so it gets better when the focal point is distant
  • The Tamron is very sharp at the center of the frame with good contrast wide open
  • Tamron is pretty good in the corners wide open, but a little soft
  • At f/5.6 the center is spectacular and it sharpens up in the mid-frame and corners
  • Once you get to 20mm there is a little pincushion distortion and vignetting gets much better
  • The Tamron at 20mm looks excellent at the center and the midframe and corner is performing well wide open
  • 20mm at f/5.6 fantastic center and mid-frame with the corners looking good
  • 24mm has a little pincushion and vignetting is not an issue
  • 24mm looks very good at f/2.8, but the resolution does get a hair better at f/5.6 very good result overall
  • 28mm is a little wider on the 17-28mm than on the 28-75mm lens
  • The 17-28mm has a little pincushion distortion at 28mm
  • The 17-28mm is fantastically sharp at 28mm, but the 28-75mm is a little sharper
  • There is a little softness on the 17-28mm and 28-75mm at the corners
  • At f/5.6 both Tamron’s are sharp in the middle, but the 28-75mm shows some more contrast
  • The extreme corners at f/5.6 are good, but not excellent
  • This lens is well designed for landscape photography because infinity focus has minimal issues
  • The Tamron 17-28mm has lots of micro-contrast and pop at infinity wide open and stopped down
  • A little ghosting pattern with the Sun in the frame, but the contrast is still solid and it makes the image look more artistic
  • Starbursts are good and bokeh is pretty good
  • Image quality is solid at 28mm up close
  • Crisp star points for Astro with minimal chroma problems
  • Good lens for Astrophotography at 17mm, but not exceptional
  • Chroma is a hair worse at 28mm
  • 17mm can focus closer than 28mm and contrast and resolution are great here
  • 28mm close focus has a little less magnification, but the contrast drops off a little
  • Hopefully, we will see a lens profile for 17-28mm RAW files from Adobe soon
  • Video is corrected in-camera for distortion and vignetting
  • The only comparison the Tamron lost was against the 28-75mm Tamron at 28mm
  • The Tamron 17-28mm and 28-75mm can replace a lot of prime lenses
  • Had a few AF glitches that require the camera to be reset so might need a fix like the 28-75mm
  • The 17-28mm cost less than half of what Sony’s wide zoom G master does and it’s even less than what Sony’s f/4 wide zoom costs while offering superior performance

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Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE: B&H Photo /  Amazon / Adorama
Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

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