[Flockheart]

Hi all,

After being dissapointed with the quality of the kit lens supplied with my 400D I'm looking to purchase a replacement walkabout lense.

My budget isn't great, I could stretch too £250 but I'm conscious that I may be dissapointed with image quality once more if I choose a cheaper option.

I've narrowed my choice down to the following two options:

Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di (approx £240)

Canon EF 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 USM II (approx £180)

The Tamron is suppose to be a very sharp lens, and is obviously faster across the whole focal range than the Canon. This would hopefully give me the option of photographing in lower light than the Canon and be pretty decent for portraits.

The Canon obviously has more reach than the Tamron, has also received favourable reviews and is significantly cheaper (possibly enough to allow me to purchase an additional Canon 50mm f1.8). The Canon also has a USM ring motor.

I'd be grateful for any advice, feedback and experiences in regard to this purchase (which I'm hoping to make as soon as possible!) that could assist me in making my decision.

[Liam O'Neill]

That Canon's USM motor is not the same one they use in the upper-end lenses. It doesn't allow Full time manual overide, for example.

I own that Tamron lens, and I absolutely love it. In my opinion it's a different class of lens to the Canon. The AF may be a tad slow compared to an L-series, but compared to this Canon lens, I doubt there is anything in it. On every other front, the Tamron should win hands down, especially anything to do with image quality. It's a steal at the price. It's a pretty popular lens with wedding photographers, which says a lot to me.

Two caveats. Tamron can let themselves down with quality control. When this lens first appeared, it was a bit hit-and-miss about whether you'd get a good copy or not. From what I can gather about the internet, bad copies don't seem to be so frequent. My first copy was perfect.
The other caveat is that zoom range. I came into digital SLR's after a few years away from photography, so I used a film SLR's kit lens, which has the same focal range, so I'm used to how it works on a crop camera. However, with the crop, thats a strange range to use, with no real wide end. Late 20's to 70's is a very usefull range on a full frame camera, thats why Tamrom make that lens and why my old kit was that range. The equivalent range on a crop is more 17-50.
Tamron, as it happens, now make a 17-50 f/2.8, and it seems to be pretty well received.

[stepheno]

I agree with Liam, particularly with a constant f2.8.

[Flockheart]

Thanks for the reply Liam (and the confirmation stepheno), I didn't realise the Canon had a cheaper USM motor in it. I thought they old produced a couple of different USMs but the better one was the "ring type" which i believed is used in this lense and allowed fulltime manual overide. If thats not the case that does take away one of the Canon's main advantages.

I realised after posting this thread that Tamron did a 17-50 f2.8 (for about £260) but I noticed it was Di II which means I couldn't use it on a fullframe/film camera in the future(though I'm not sure how likely this is).

I'm pretty certain that the Tamron is the better bet, but will have to make a tough decision about the wider angle versus future compatiability.

[Flockheart]

Ive gone for the Tamron 28-50mm. Hopefully will get it tomorrow and can be sure any technical problems with my images will be my fault not the equipments! Thanks for the help.

[silver]

Originally Posted by Flockheart

Ive gone for the Tamron 28-50mm. Hopefully will get it tomorrow and can be sure any technical problems with my images will be my fault not the equipments! Thanks for the help.

that's kind of the way I feel about it,. it's been expensive learning curve though,. and I think even with the kit lens I used to use I now realise the equipment was never the issue,. sometimes you need to go on the journey for yourself so good luck!

hope you enjoy your new lens

Sil

[ChrisRabior]

I've been looking at picking up the 28-75 for concerts. The 17-50 would be a blessing too. Too bad I can't afford either at this point in time..