Below is the transcript of the video above for the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens for the Sony Alpha series bodies. You can pick up one for yourself at the Amazon links below (by clicking those you help out the site!) and please be sure to like the video on YouTube and subscribe if you found it helpful.
Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Sony E Mount – https://amzn.to/2p1BrcJ
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Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Sony E-Mount Review
Hey guys, how’s it going? It’s Robb Sutton and today and we are looking at this Tamron 28-75 mm f 2.8 that I’m actually shooting with right now. That whole intro sequence was shot with and we’re also going to enjoy a double IPA while we’re doing this. Today we’re looking at the Wild Leap Alpha abstraction Double IPA. This is the fifth installment of this series. This dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin hops not really sure what that means other than they are from New Zealand. It’s supposed to be really good and the artwork on the front of the can is actually a photograph of Krog Street Tunnel downtown that has a bunch of graffiti so really cool kind of local vibe to that. They are a brewery right down in La Grange, Georgia which is actually south of Atlanta closer to Alabama. WYou might have seen it in other places but they’re doing a great job. So really enjoying it. Let’s take a look at this beer. Let’s take a look at the lens and let’s get started.
I mean seriously how can you not like a juicy IPA that has this quote on the back of the can. Sir Mix a Lot for the win. Yeah it’s really kind of keep into that hazy IPA thing we’ve got going lately. Well at 8 percent it’s not like a super heavy double IPA but it’s definitely that citrus hazy.
Tarmon 28-75mm Lens Review
This lens has really been making a splash because we’re really looking for kind of these third party lenses to come out for the Sony E-Mount and Sigma out their Art series and now Tamron is jumping on the bandwagon with this 28-75mm f/2.8. So first let’s get into the pricing which is actually what kind of drove everything for this lens in the very beginning coming out at $879 dollars…it is incredibly affordable especially for enthusiasts when it comes to a 24 to 70 ish zoom range that holds it f 2.8 through the entire range. The closest you can get at this point in that price range for a Sony E-Mount is their Sony Vario series which actually had their 16-35 which is really nice but it is an F4…not a f2.8.
For the f2.8 aperture, you have to go to the Sony G.M. which is over two thousand if we want to get specific $2,198 on Amazon right now. So you’re talking about a really big premium to go up to the G.M. series which has an f 2.8 all the way through the zoom range. In comparison, the Sony Vario lens is actually $798 but it is F4 and you will see a huge price difference typically going from F4 to 2.8. So with this lens you would expect it to have a lot of decent features with it just because it’s up 2.8 but with the cost you would actually expect it to be the downfall in a lot of way to the G.M. lens. So let’s get into the good parts of this lens first then we’ll get into the bad and then I’ll talk about who this is really meant for and whether or not I’d recommend it or not.
The Good – Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 E-Mount
So one of the things I was really surprised about is the focused drive in this let’s call it there are x d focus drive what you will notice when it comes to photography and video the focus is lightning quick and silent.
Auto-focus and Focus Range
I really don’t notice any difference in speed between this and say My 70 to 200 f4 that I also have from Sony or the 16-35/f4. It’s really on point and fast and it seems to lock on perfectly and it also applies to I auto-focus which it also does very well. Also one of the crazy things I noticed about this lenses how close you can get to the lens and still get the focus it says point .19 meters which equals out to .62 feet as you can see we can get this can’t crazy close to the lens and still have it in focus. That is awesome to have out of this 24 to 70 range it allows you to get really close to subjects and act almost like a macro lens. So for comparison the G.M. series from Sony which is you know over two times the amount the cost only goes to 1.4 feet…and the Sony very only goes to 1.3 feet. So what you’re really talking about here is you get twice as close to this lens as you can’t from one of the more really more expensive counterparts and the EF 4 variant from Sony. Sony really hit a home run with this and something use a lot in video production but also in photos it gives the lens just that much wider of a range especially when you come down to like the 75mm and where you might not be able to get as close. But it really creates separation from close subjects and the background in a really tight situation.
Bokeh Quality
So one of the things you typically worry about with these cheaper lenses is why are they so cheap. It’s not really cheap…its more budget lenses that are coming from third party manufacturers…is that the bokeh quality will be kind of abnormal or come out in really weird shapes. I find with this lens…typically…you get really round bokeh out of the background when you’re really trying to blur it out when you’re down enough to point it like right now we can take an example with those lights in the background so you could see where you get a little bit of abnormality and a couple of them especially towards the edges right there towards the center next to the glass you’ll see that they’re really round…and nice and soft. So overall quality was not on par with maybe like some of the really higher end lenses especially for the cost.
Now we’ll take a look at the still image that I took. And still the quality of the Christmas lights behind me while out of focus really look kind of circular and nice. You are going to get a little bit softer nicer bokeh out of more expensive lenses but for this price point it looks excellent.
Tarmon Lens Size w/Sony Alpha Series Body
So another really big plus of this lens is it really matches the Sony Alpha camera bodies very well. Part of the reason I went to so many from Canon is my 5D3 kits started to get incredibly big when it came to the lenses that came to the body. It got to be a lot to carry around. So one of the nice things about going to the Sony system was a lot more compact form factor that made it so I actually ended up taking the camera a lot more places because it wasn’t so bulky in comparison with the Sony G.M. 2.8 is a lot smaller and lighter and this fits a lot better with this camera format.
So for comparison this Tamron weighs 550 grams in comparison to Sony G.M. which is 885 grams. It’s also 4.6 inches long versus 5.35 inches long with the Sony. It’s just a lot more portable and you will find with the G.M. series for relatively the same image and video quality.
Picture Sharpness with the Tamron 28-75mm
Another thing I love about this lens is it’s actually crazy sharp. I’ve had a couple of Tamara lenses in the past and they’ve always been incredibly sharp. I’ve really loved the picture quality. They’ve always been on par with my Canon L lenses or some of my Nikon lenses that I’ve had in the past. So I really came to expect this one to be super sharp and it was just like I expected.
Negatives – Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Sony E-Mount
All right. So not everything’s perfect. We are getting a budget lens here so there are some drawbacks that you get for the price.
Water Resistance
One is they list this lenses water resistant and I’m not really sure what that means. There’s not a big overhang on the back of it. The body doesn’t look very well sealed. So what are you going to run into if you’re in a lot of rain situations wildlife outside or really dusty situations you might see that so many G.M. as a good compromise even though it is a lot more expensive to get that weather sealed. The flip side of that is you could almost by three of these for the price of the G.M. so does it become a throwaway item at that point? Who knows. It really is going to come up to you. But I wouldn’t expect this lens to really hold up well and really wet or dusty conditions. Just be aware that getting into it.
Build Quality
So the other thing about this lens is the build quality. I’m not going to lie even by Tamron standards the build quality of this lens feels a little bit cheap as we used to get kind of this soft touch feel in the Tamara lenses kind of like what you got with the older Sigma lenses and this feels like really hard plastic. But for the price point for a 2.8 zoom lens like this I wasn’t really expecting it to be over the top nice but even in comparison with like the Sigma Art series that has come out recently this really does feel like a cheap lens. It’s unfortunate but it is what it is. So if you’re really big on touch and feel…it might be an issue for you. So I can only really see this being an issue and one really big circumstance and that is if you were in a professional photography situation where people are looking at your lens because the amount of money that you’re charging them. Otherwise, not really a big deal you just kind of get used to it.
28-75mm vs. 24-70mm
So the other thing is this is a 28 to 75 zoom range which is outside of the industry standard of a 24 to 70 which means you lose 4mm on the wide end and I’m not really sure why they did that. It probably has something to do with the size of what would be my best guess. But keep in mind you do lose those 4mm while you gain it on the other end. So here I want to show you on my 16 to 35 with that four millimeters actually makes some difference on the wide end. It’s not that big of a deal to me because I use my 16 to 35 for anything what I want super wide. Even when it is..the only reason that would hurt was in low light situations where you might have to use a longer shutter speed but on the wire and the aperture as far as depth of field doesn’t mean as much. So. Just keep that in mind while using it you buy it to re-frame things.
Lack of Some “Pro” Features and Manual Focus
You are also not going to get the advanced features like you would with a G M. with programmable buttons and a manual switch for manual focus to auto focus you have to do that all in body. So again it’s one more step you have to take because you don’t have those premium features.
Another thing I didn’t really like that I wasn’t really expecting out of this lens is do you have the zoom ring and focus ring swapped. Really wouldn’t be that big a deal..but a lot of times. I’d like to swap the lens hood just for a storage sake on the lens itself. While I’m using any kind of variable filters whether it be a circular polarizer and filter so I can actually turn it like I want to especially cloudy situations where you’re really not worried about lens flare because of the sun. It puts it right in the way of the zoom ring. So when you’re trying to frame your shot unless you have the barrel out if you’re trying to go wide. Your fingers have to kind of manually go in around the lens so that when you’re just trying to store because you’re not using it. Again it’s a little annoyance but it’s something I never had to worry about before and really wouldn’t have been an issue if they just would’ve kept the zoom ring right where it was supposed to be. There’s probably some design reason behind that again that I don’t know about but it did create a unique situation for me where I did have an annoyance you just using the lens.
67mm Filter Size
So another weird annoyance for me that with the lens that is really another just small deal is that it uses a 67 millimeter filter size or all of my other lenses are 72mm. So I do have to use an adapter which can run into issues or if I’m using a circular polarizer within the setting. Again it’s a small issue because I wanted to keep the lens of compact size and with that compromise you get a smaller front element which means you get a 67 millimeter versus a 72 so you can either buy all new filters or you can use an adapter.
1st Gen Focus Issues
Another downside that I do need to mention even though it didn’t affect me personally is that the first firmware of this lens ran into focus issues. I didn’t personally have it this lens was shipped with version 1.2 and I have not found any focus issues whatsoever with this lens. As you can see we could pick up this can. Then at points right on. And then right back on me. Back on the camera. I just didn’t have that issue but it was well publicized so I thought it was worth mentioning if you you’re ever buying this lens to use make sure you update the firmware otherwise you’re going to run into those focus issues.
So guys that is my review of the 28-75 2.8 from Tamron for the Sony email. It’s an incredible lenses…especially for the price. When you consider just the drawbacks of the lens which I almost expect is for being at the price point. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me to buy the more expensive G.M. unless you really just have to have the weather sealing and the look of an expensive lens because of what you’re charging whatever you are for your project.
For any enthusiast I wouldn’t even think about the G.M. I’d buy this right away.
