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

• 5 years ago

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