Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 Di III-A VC RXD: B&H Photo / Adorama
Tamron has released some great lenses for E-mount over the past few years that are of incredible value. Some of the lenses are so good that they even surpass Sony GM lenses for 1/2 to 1/3 the price and now we are getting some of that value and performance on X-mount. Above you can see Richard Wong’s full review of the recently announced Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 Di III-A VC RXD and below you can find a summary of the video:
- Identical optical design as E-mount lens
- Fast standard zoom lens covering 1.5x at f/2.8
- Typical Tamron design, but doesn’t match Fujifilm bodies
- Built-in OIS
- Fujifilm hasn’t had a standard constant f/2.8 zoom with OIS until now
- Very flexible lens
- 100g lighter than the Fujifilm XF16-55 f/2.8 R LM WR, but the Fujifilm is more metal
- Metal lens mount
- The front element is fluorine coated
- The length of the lens changes when you zoom
- 67mm front filter thread
- Reversable lens hood
- Firmware is updated through the body like other Fujifilm lenses
- Tamron has a dedicated processor for stabilization
- OIS seems to be very good with about 3.5 stops of performance but there is no official statement of stabilization capabilities
- Great lens for video and the AI that the processor for OIS is trained with does a good job of determining if the camera is on a tripod or panning, etc…
- Fast AF and it is compatible with eye AF
- AF is very quite
- Good macro capabilities
- 17mm min focus distance is 19 cm / 7.5 inch and max magnification is 0.21x
- 70mm min focus distance is 39 cm / 15.4 inch and max magnification is 0.19x
- When shooting close the image can be a little soft at f/2.8 so stop down to f/5.6 to make things very sharp and add depth
- 17mm f/2.8 at a standard distance is very sharp wide open in the center and stopping down makes almost no difference up until f/11 where diffraction sets in.
- 17mm f/2.8 at a standard distance is very sharp wide open in the corners and stopping down improves things a little up until f/11 where diffraction sets in.
- 70mm f/2.8 at a standard distance is very sharp wide open in the center and stopping down makes almost no difference up until f/11 where diffraction sets in.
- 70mm f/2.8 at a standard distance is pretty sharp wide open in the corners and stopping down improves things a little up until f/11 where diffraction sets in.
- Lens has minimal field curvature at the wide and telephoto end
- No cats eye or swirly bokeh but there is some onion rings
- Very high contrast photos can have some color fringing
- LoCA is well controlled
- Tamron uses profile corrections to reduce the amount of distortion, but there is no corner sharpness issues from profile correction
- Little vignetting at 17mm wide open and almost done at 70mm
- Stopping down a little gets ride of all vignetting
- Some lens flare
- Good contrast even when there is a something bright in front of the lens
- Sunstars are ok at f/11
- Not much chroma is visible and it all disappears by f/4
- Great for video and C-AF works well with the X-T3 with no AF noise
- Focus breathing is minimal at the wide and telephoto end
- Very popular on E-mount and Richard can see why because this lens is very impressive all-around and affordable
- The only downsides are it is a little plastic for a Fujifilm lens and the aesthetic doesn’t match Fujifilm cameras
- The Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 Di III-A VC RXD ticks all the boxes
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