0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott
0:29
And I'm here today to give you my final verdict on the new Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 DI3
0:38
which means it's four mirrorless cameras, in this case Sony FE. And this has an RXD, which stands for Rapid Extra Silent Stepping Drive
0:49
And so this is, of course, Tamron's first lens for Sony FE
0:54
And of course, it is a very, very important lens as such
1:00
This lens, which is given the Tamron code AO36, is designed from the ground up for Sony FE
1:10
And in that case, a lot more people are excited about this than a number of the Sigma Art Series lenses
1:16
that are being re-released in the Sony FE mount for the simple reason that this lens
1:22
because it's designed for mirrorless from the beginning it has certain advantages and one of
1:28
those key ones of course is that it is a more manageable size. In fact I would suspect that
1:35
this was more the form factor that a lot of people were looking for say the Sony 24 to 70 millimeter
1:41
f2.8 g master to be and instead we got a lens that's significantly larger than what the you know
1:49
Canon DSLR equivalent is. And so a lot of people are interested in this because not only of its
1:56
relatively compact size, and while it's not a small lens, it's a nice match for particularly
2:03
the Sony A7 series, which is really going to be the bread and butter of where it's sold. And of
2:09
course, a lot of people are buying into Sony because of the release of the new A7 III, which
2:14
is an extremely competent camera at a relatively affordable price. And so this, of course, is able
2:20
to pair with that at a reasonable price, whereas for the G Master lens, you'd actually pay more for
2:25
that lens than you would for the a7 III. And of course, a lot of people are not really interested
2:31
in doing that. So this is probably going to be somewhat of a system seller, but today we're here
2:37
to explore whether or not it should be a system mover or an option for you. Good news is that I've
2:45
already got an extensive playlist where I've jumped into all these things in detail which will save me
2:49
covering some of these things in as much detail in this final review. So first of all taking a look
2:54
at the build. I would recommend that you take a look at this first episode here where I break down
3:00
the build and the handling of this lens but I do want to say I've heard some people say either in
3:05
comments or just in general discussion that this has a kit lens type build. Obviously
3:12
these are people that have not used both this and the rather uninspiring Sony FE 28 to 70 millimeter
3:22
variable aperture lens because the difference between these two lenses is pretty much night
3:26
and day. Now, it's not quite to the level of the supreme build of the G Master lens, which
3:33
has a number of great features. It's got a lot of internal weather sealing
3:37
This lens is rather short on the feature list as I'll detail in a second
3:42
but on the positive note it is weather sealed And for those that have argued oh it just got a gasket at the lens mount you not really speaking from experience because if you look at the actual breakdown of the internal diagram of the a036 it actually has six different seal points in it and so this
4:00
is a lens that is actually weather sealed and then to complete that it has that expensive
4:05
flooring coating on the front i'm always happy to see that for a couple of reasons number one
4:11
it makes the lens much easier to clean. It is also moisture repellent, oil repellent, so those things
4:17
tend to come off. It's easier to clean, but on top of that, I feel like when I've got a flooring
4:22
coating on the front that I don't need to mess with some kind of protection filter there
4:26
and so that's certainly a plus. On top of that, everything moves very nicely here. The lens is
4:33
made up of actual a lot of metal alloys in the lens barrel itself the rings feel good everything
4:41
moves nice and smooth there's no play in it up front it has a very standard 67 millimeter filter
4:49
size which by the way this filter thread is in metal not in plastic it does come with an included
4:55
lens hood this is plastic and not it doesn't feel particularly robust but it's about you know
5:01
within expectations of what you should look for. Inside, it's finely ribbed in plastic
5:07
and so that's what helps to keep stray light from bouncing around. The manual focus ring, as is, you know
5:14
for a true mirrorless lens, which is, by the way, it's part of the reason why you can tell
5:18
that the Sigma FE mount lenses were not purpose-designed for mirrorless because they still have a focus ring
5:25
that is more akin to a design for a DSLR. In this case, you can turn these all day
5:31
because stepping motors, the only way that input is taken from this
5:34
is when the camera is powered on and you're in the correct mode
5:38
manual focus or DMF, and then input from this is routed through the focus motor
5:44
and will move the lens elements. Focus by wire, as that's called, has never been my favorite
5:50
However, I do feel like these manufacturers are getting it better. It's a better experience than what it used to be
5:55
And one nice assist that helps out in these Sony bodies is that when you begin to do input, the center of the frame is magnified
6:04
and that helps you to visually confirm focus. But I found that precision was good, lag was not a problem
6:11
and so I have nothing really serious to complain about when it comes to the manual focus
6:17
Now, the autofocus has gotten a bit of controversy because of a few YouTubers that discovered an issue where, you know
6:25
video, during video AF at a certain distance, under certain circumstances, the lens wasn't working
6:31
I was unable to recreate those, that scenario myself. And so I have to report that I've seen
6:38
no problems with video AF. And in fact, I have shot quite a bit of video with this lens, both
6:44
for my episodes and then throwing it on a gimbal. Whereas by the way, the, you know, lighter weight
6:49
and balance of the lens actually in some ways is much easier to balance on a gimbal than what the
6:55
G Master lens is and so I've had very positive results there. In fact autofocus in general has
7:02
been very positive for me. Autofocus is very quick it's perfectly quiet and so you're not
7:07
going to have to worry about any kind of microphone pickup under any circumstance. In AFC mode it's
7:14
It's quick, it's responsive, it does a great job. The only thing that I would say that I noted
7:19
as a difference between the G Master and this lens is that there were a few situations
7:24
where I was shooting a subject, say something like this, that was about four feet in front of me
7:29
with a fairly busy background behind. And what I would find is that the G Master was a little bit more intuitive about focus In other words it would grab onto the near object and the Tamron would often want to focus on the background and I had to kind of coax it back to a closer focus point
7:46
and after that, I had no problem, like an AFC mode, with it slipping back
7:51
It would stay up there, but as I said, it was a little bit more intuitive. Good news is that Tamron has announced
7:57
for those that have experienced that kind of focus issue, the video focus issue, I should say
8:03
that a firmware update is in the process of coming, and it allowed us to discover that firmware updates will be delivered
8:11
just like for any other Sony lens through a standard USB packet
8:16
delivered through the camera itself. And so the good news is it was further confirmation
8:21
that this is a fully supported native lens. And so with that, you have all kinds of focus modes, high-speed tracking
8:30
All of those things are fully supported. that IAF seemed to work as well as when I was shooting in portrait venues
8:37
I found that IAF with the Tamron seemed to work as well as it did with the G Master
8:43
And so nothing to complain about on that front as well. Now in a couple of episodes, I broke down the image quality
8:50
and compared it directly to the far more expensive G Master lens
8:54
In the first of those episodes, I took a look at resolution and compared it directly to the much more expensive G Master lens
9:01
The G Master is $2,200. This Tamron is coming to the U.S. market at $800. So a huge difference
9:08
What I found is that in the center of the frame, the Tamron is very competitive with the G Master
9:13
And for a lot of people, depending on what you're going to shoot with the lens, that's music to your ears
9:18
because that's probably the portion of the image frame that matters most to you
9:22
I found that the Tamron wasn't as strong at the edges of the frame
9:27
with the exception of at the 70 versus 75 millimeter mark where it was closer to being competitive
9:34
It was also, the Tamron is fairly strong at 50 millimeters, whereas the G-Master is actually
9:39
at least the copy I reviewed, was a little bit softer at that point. And so that was another competitive point
9:45
What I did find, however, is that the G-Master sharpened up to a much greater degree when stopped down
9:51
than what the Tamron did. I would conclude that the G Master is the better landscape lens, particularly if you're going to pair it with one of the high resolution bodies like the a7R III that I did a lot of this test on
10:05
But beyond that, the Tamron is going to do things fairly comparably to the G Master
10:12
In the second episode, we took a look comparing the two lenses when it came to the overall rendering
10:16
A few highlights from that in that I found that the G Master color was, in my opinion, a little bit more neutral, a little bit more accurate
10:24
The Tamron was a hair warmer and that could be on certain Sony bodies
10:29
I found it less of an issue on the Sony a7 III which has a more neutral color science to begin with in my test
10:37
but on the a7r3 I found that the extra bit of warmth didn't necessarily help with the a7r3's
10:45
tendency towards a kind of a slight yellow bias anyway and I found that the g master produced the
10:52
more neutral skin tones there that's not to say that the tamron was bad and in fact it would be
10:57
hard to tell without them side by side but outside of that I found that the tamron was very very close
11:04
to the G Master as a portrait lens. In that episode, we also looked at the bokeh quality
11:09
which, you know, bokeh is somewhat subjective. And I kind of pointed out that the Tamron actually has
11:16
a somewhat vintage, I could call it, rendering, in that there is kind of a unique circling
11:21
that takes place on circular bokeh highlights And in that sense it a somewhat artistic look that you either like or dislike depending on your taste But it certainly has some personality to it It not
11:36
some kind of bland clinical lens. And there will be some people that really, really like the look
11:40
of the bokeh quality. But just take a look at these images, or even better, look at that episode
11:46
and determine that for yourself. Surprisingly, there was one area where the Tamron was actually
11:51
the stronger lens compared to the G Master. Not that it was really a problem on the G Master
11:56
but the Tamron is completely neutral when it comes to longitudinal chromatic aberration or
12:02
green and purple fringing, in which I just couldn't really find any kind of real evidence of
12:08
in any kind of field use. And in head-to-head comparisons, I found that it had just minutely
12:13
better results than what the G Master did. When it comes to flare resistance, both lenses have
12:20
some pros and cons. Neither of them are exceptional. For the most part, however
12:25
except for an extreme torture test, the B-bar coatings from Tamron on this, they do a pretty
12:31
good job. All told, I think that the image quality is surprisingly competitive when you consider the
12:37
price difference between these two lenses. And so if you're looking at this from a value proposition
12:43
it's very easy to argue the value of the Tamron in that it has a lot of things that are almost
12:50
as good as the G Master when it comes to auto focus and it comes to image quality
12:57
The lens itself is less fully featured. It doesn't have a focus hold button
13:01
It doesn't have any kind of switch on there. And of course neither of them have a built-in OSS and rely on the in-body image stabilization
13:10
of compatible Sony bodies. But I did find that it worked very well
13:15
All of the proper information is transmitted properly and camera profile corrections are all there and done well
13:22
And so all in all, this is a true native lens and it performs like one
13:29
And so for the first kick at the can, I think Tamron has done a great job
13:33
And like the autofocus system, I found to be much more sophisticated than say the Samyang 50 millimeter F1.4 AF lens
13:41
that I reviewed a few months ago. This functions very much like I would expect
13:45
a Sony branded lens to operate. And if you're one of those that is worried
13:50
about that focus issue that others detected, I can't speak to it because I never saw it myself
13:56
but I can tell you what Tamron is telling me and that is that they will get that fixed
14:01
and a firmware update will be rolled out very shortly. I'm Dustin Abbott
14:05
And if you'll look in the description down below, you can find linkage to my full written review
14:10
You can also find a link to the image gallery. I've got lots of photos there
14:15
And of course you can also follow me on social media, become one of my patrons, sign up for
14:20
my newsletter. And if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button here
14:24
Thanks for watching. Have a great day. Thank you
