Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 XR Di II LD

I've had this lens a while now, but I am constantly amazed by its sharpness. If you're looking for a very sharp, low-light, walkaround zoom with incredible value for money, this is the lens to buy (in my opinion, of course ).

(The main downside is that it is quite noisy when autofocusing).

Here's a 1:1 crop of a shot I took yesterday on my K20D. This was a RAW image, the exposure has been boosted but there has been no sharpening.

I had this lens for about two months ,it's a fantastic bit of kit ,the noisy focus didn't bother me at all in fact i quite liked it ,had to sell it when i decided to change brands .I'll definitely be looking out for another one .Can't rate it highly enough ,best bang for buck

How does it perform wide open across the frame in terms of sharpness? And how is the build quality?

I am interested because the DA* 16-50 is a little soft in the boarder when wide open.

Well. See this Photozone.de review of the Nikon-fit version for detail.

Warning to other readers: An AF Adjustment may be required, which can only be done for individual lenses on the K20D and K-7.


The plastics look cheaper than Pentax's, but actually it's good and solid and nice to use - and carries on remaining so. I like it.

It's not tack sharp,but to be honest what lens is at the biggest aperture , i'll see if i can find a photo i've taken .Bare with me

I took this photo wide open using this lens. You can click through to 'All Sizes' to see the full-sized version. Unfortunately it won't help much with your questions about corner sharpness due to the limited DOF.

About build quality I've heard people complain of barrel wobble, and filter ring wobble. Supposedly neither issue affects image quality, it's just disconcerting. Mine has no barrel wobble, but the filter ring does flop around a bit if you wiggle it. I haven't noticed any IQ problems from that. Other than that it seems very solid.

Agree with Iceblinker about the AF adjustment, I've read several similar reports. My own copy needed a fairly large (8 or 9) adjustment on my K20D.

Interesting, thanks for the replies
I think I would still like to see some images (at some point) where the subject remains in the focal plane at f/2.8 to give me a feel for how it compares with the DA* 16-50

I'll try and find one! If not I'll take one for you, watch this space

Thanks Tim I really appreciate that but please take your time, there is no rush at least as far as I'm concerned

No problem, I'll be working at home all day tomorrow. perfect chance to skive off

I'm not even sure why I started this thread It was late and I'd had a few. I was just going over some photos from the day before (drunkenly marvelling at my photographic prowess ) and it occurred to me that the Tamron 17-50 doesn't get enough love on this forum!

You asked for an honest reply, and to be honest the image isn't really very sharp. Lenses even wide open can be sharp, although DOF will be very limited, and a Perfect Lens would actually be at its best wide open.

Sadly there is no such thing as a Perfect Lens, so most are best at medium apertures.

John, are you bearing in mind that that is a 100% view and RAW with no sharpening?

Must admit I thought it looked pretty good as a 1:1 without any sharpening.

There must have been some sharpening in the RAW conversion surely? If not then it's a pointless test as you need to apply sharpening at that stage. Given that it's not been resized then you shouldn't need any unsharp mask at the save as JPEG stage which is probably what was meant. I wouldn't describe it as bitingly sharp and I have always felt my own copy is just that.

This is the best I can do for now f4.5 at 125th top left corner actual pixels RAW with some PP no unsharp only sharpening at RAW conversion.




Click on it for full size.

I'll see what I can dig out. I barely use it these days as I tend to use primes and it's a bit big for my taste.

Mike