Tamron 24mm F2.8

[Aldowski]

More than a month ago, I bought the Tamron 24mm F2.8; without huge expectations.

Already bought Sony 28mm F2, just weeks before that.

Saw number of great articles, reviews about the Tamron one, especially about it's sharpness, MTF charts promised good images, on technical side.

And, yes, it's not newest, not best lens, but, must say it is rivaling lenses 3 or more times more expensive, easily. I am not using it at low light environment, for obvious reasons. Yes, there is "click" sound, when lens reestablishes autofocus. Yes, the front glass surface seems very small compared to the filter thread. Yes, there is a bit of shading, vignetting.

Distortions fixed in-the-camera.

Finally, must say that none of those "minuses" are really bad things. I even like the vignetting on many photos (in reasonable amounts) as that is somehow emphasizing the main part of the image.

Autofocus is working nicely, I went thru many of photos by enlarging them to 200%+ and on just few of them (compared to 1000+) there's out-of-focus blurriness, I even can say when that happened, cause it is easy to remember when you took a photo not waiting at all for the autofocus to make it's work. Of course, after those photos, there are second ("backup") ones. Clicking sound is not good for videos, of course, so - for that the Sony 28mm F2 is better choice.

The minimal focusing distance is ~4.7in or 12cm. Many similar menses are not even close to that number.

Made 1000+ photos in few weeks, have to say, great lens.

 

 

[tadwil]

What obvious reasons are there that prevents you from shooting in low light conditions with this lens? 

[Aldowski]

The excellent sharpness with this lens is being achieved with F4; must say it's really amazing.

The lens does not have itself OSS, so the IBIS is taking care of the stabilization, means, SS should be balanced to that somehow. Anyway, Sony 28mm F2 also does not have the OSS inside, but it has wider maximum aperture, so I do use the lens at low light. Of course, Tamron can be used at low light as well, just saying what can or might be used for better results. Probably would need some time to test the Tamron more in low light environment. Not easy to be sure if IBIS can resolve everything by itself.

HH Twilight I checked with other lenses, Sony A7ii has 4 shots per "session" (Sony A3000 makes 6 photos); results are not bad at all, if there is no need for a lot of alignment effort in postprocessing those images in camera.

Of course, when using tripod, everything is different, every lens may provide good or better result.

I said that I am not using the Tamron for low light environment now, also I am not excluding the possibility for using it sometimes, maybe those mentioned obvious reasons are not definitive.

For example old, classic Minolta Rokkor 28mm, manual one with adapter, provides nice images at low light, still, would be significantly better to have wider F.

 

[thebeardedgroundsman]

I understand how a wider aperture lets in more light, so it is possible to use a faster shutter speed, allowing hand held shots to be taken in lower light - (at the same ISO) but it also reduces the depth of field, particularly at close quarters. So I am not entirely convinced that less than 1 stop of aperture is a deal breaker, when it comes to low light photography.

As for "the front glass surface seems very small compared to the filter thread.". Modern lens technology seems to be getting better at producing high quality lenses with a small front lens - this is great for those of us that like the ethos of smaller cameras that rival the "Old" DSLRs with their big lenses. - All my lenses up to 50mm  Voightlander, Laoawa and Zeiss) fit in the palm of my hand or easily fit into a jacket pocket, but give high quality images.

[tadwil]

@Aldowski,

In the film era when IBIS or OSS wasn't even a design concept, there have been debates about what is the lowest shutter speed needed to hand hold the camera steady and take a good shot.  The rules of thumb was the reciprocal of the lens focal length.   Shooting with a 24mm lens, the lowest shutter speed you should use is 1/24th of a second but since shutter speed dial didn't have half stop settings, you would err on the side of caution by setting the dial to 1/30th of a second.  Of course there have been many Zen masters who can hold a camera rock steady at even slower shutter speeds, just as there were many people who needed higher shutter speeds to get a good steady shot.

Back to the future.  Not only do we have IBIS, user adjustable ISO, shutter and aperture setting in 1/3 stop increments.  I think you are underestimating the efficacy of the IBIS in the A7II.  I believe it's rated at 4 1/2 stop advantage over cameras without IBIS but let's just say 3 stops to be on the safe side.  If you happen to meter at 1/30 second shutter speed, a 3 stop advantage is equivalent to shooting at 1/250th second without IBIS.   That's one huge advantage shooting with an IBIS capable camera.

As thebeardedgroundsman said, I don't believe one f-stop faster lens will make or break your ability to shoot in low light conditions.  What's more important is how useful is a lens at it's maximum aperture.  There is no point in having a 1 stop advantage in the aperture opening if the lens itself is unusable at it's maximum aperture and unfortunately Sony 28mm f2.0 lens is quite dismal at maximum aperture and doesn't actually get up to par until f4.0.  Every manufacturer has made some dog lenses, it seems Sony has made more than it's fair share of them in such a short time.

 

[XKAES]

On the other side of the coin, I've used the Minolta MC Rokkor-X 24mm f2.8 for years.  Superb lens -- even at f2.8.  Leica liked it so much, they sold it -- re-badged, of course -- as the 24mm Elmarit. 

Then I ran across the Vivitar 24mm f2.0 -- made by Kiron.  I ran some tests of resolution charts between the Minolta and the Vivitar.  They were equally great at f2.8 and smaller.  The Vivitar was not as good at f2.0, but I never expected it to be.  Still, I kept the Vivtar because I can use it at f2.0 when I need the extra light, knowing that I'm sacrificing some resolution.

Life has its compromises.  Just run some simple tests and decide for yourself.

Edited March 12, 2022 by XKAES

[Aldowski]

Have to say simply, understand all points and opinions here, maybe, sometimes is good to put few "sharp" words to start discussion.

For example, I was surprised with (very good) results of Canon FD 50mm F1.8, even many "numbers" at reviews are saying it's not comparable with it's "cousin" F1.4. The fact it's old lens, before this, today's era of optically engineering (would not exclude CNC there, of course) lenses, does not "affect" or "downgrade" the real quality of the lens.

Related to the Tamron 24mm, I emphasized the amazing sharpness at the F4. Again, I may not or would not say the lens is not usable at low light, when saying I am using other lens for that purpose. But, still, at lower light, autofocusing with the Tamron 24mm is not as good as with Sony 28mm F2.

When I mentioned the small glass surface at the lens front; did that because of the much larger lens diameter, filter thread diameter as well (Tamron wants to unify filter thread, for all their lens products).