Fujifilm Photography News and Rumors

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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