Product Description

Di II Lenses are designed for exclusive use on digital cameras with smaller-size imagers and inherit all of the benefits of Tamron Di products. These lenses are not designed for 35mm film cameras and digital cameras with image sensors larger than 24mm x 16mm.The SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 is a lightweight, compact, fast standard zoom lens designed exclusively for digital SLR cameras, expanding the product concept of the popular SP AF28-75mm F/2.8 zoom lens.In addition, portrait shots are made beautiful with the natural out-of-focus effect characteristic provided by the fast F/2.8 aperture. Additionally, a broader photographic expression through the use of faster shutter speeds as a result of the maximum aperture offers enhanced photographic pleasure. The lens boasts one of the best close-up shooting performances in the class of fast standard zoom lenses designed exclusively for digital cameras and featuring an F/2.8 maximum aperture throughout the entire zoom range, to ensure stress-free photographic shots at all focal lengths and distances.

Product Details

• Brand: Tamron
• Model: AF016N-700
• Released on: 2006-03-08
• Dimensions: 4.10" h x 4.10" w x 5.30" l, 1.25 pounds

Features

• Nikon-compatible lens designed specifically for digital SLRs
• 17-50mm focal range equivalent to 26-78mm in 35mm format
• Maximum aperture of f2.8
• Filter diameter of 67mm
• Minimum focus distance of 0.27 meters over entire zoom range

Customer Reviews

This len has lots of potential, but quality control is questionable
I felt like I was taking a gamble when I bought this lens, because I was not able to find many reviews of it. Given that the equivalent Nikon was almost 3x the price, I decided to take a chance. At this point I still can't give a solid thumbs up or down, so I opted to give it a 3. Here is a short history of my experience:

1) Bought lens from Amazon to use on my D50. It was a joy to have an f/2.8 zoom lens, but I was not totally convinced about the sharpness (which the few reviews I could find said was supposed to be really good). After comparing it to my other lenses and a rented Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 (great lens, but much bulkier and heavier), I determined that it front-focused so much that the subject would always be very slightly out of focus. It wasn't obvious right away, because the front-focusing meant that the background went out of focus really quickly, making for a great depth-of-field effect. The heavily out of focus background essentially made the subject look more focused, even though it really wasn't all that sharp. After much deliberation, I sent it back to Amazon to try another copy.

2) 2nd copy. This one was much sharper but back-focused, which I found to be even more annoying. This would manifest itself by someone's eyes and nose being out of focus and their ears and hairline being razor sharp. After trying to force myself to live with it, I decided I couldn't and sent it off to Tamron for calibration. Several people in lens forums mentioned that this did the trick, so I decided to give that a shot rather than send it back to Amazon (they were out of stock at the time anyway, so it made the decision easier).

3) Tamron told me that they were running slow, so it would take 5 weeks to calibrate it. Again weighing the extra $800 I'd have to pay to buy the Nikon, I decided to send it in. It actually took 8 weeks! And when I wrote them to inquire at the 7 week mark, they said they had no record of it. I think that was just because they had already shipped it, but it did scare me at first.

4) Calibrated lens. My first impression was wow, this thing really is sharp, and I was really glad that I has sent it back in. And that's when I started noticing something strange... many of my shots were looking massively overexposed. I was out on a nice, evenly-lit overcast day, so I wasn't able to figure out why the camera was having such a difficult time metering. After a few more shots, I realized that anything taken at an aperture smaller than f/2.8 would be overexposed, which led me to suspect a problem with the aperture blades. Sure enough, they were stuck wide open, so every picture was at f/2.8, regardless of the actual setting. At this point in the story, I was very unhappy.

5) Tamron customer service. I expressed my frustrations to them in an email over Christmas weekend, and I am happy to say that they responded positively the next business day. They gave me their Fedex #, so that I didn't have to pay return shipping. They also promised that they would keep it for only 2 or 3 days and ship it back right away. That made me feel a little better.

6) ???? I have not received it back yet (should be soon), so I don't have a final recommendation on this lens. My sense is that it will follow the "worth what you pay for it" adage. It will have taken a large investment of time (actually, waiting), but in the end I hope to have a pretty good lens at a relatively bargain price. There have been several times that I wanted to give up and just go buy the Nikon, but not being a professional, it's really hard to justify paying $1200-1300 for a single lens.

Otherwise, the lens is really nice. It's nice and compact for what it does, and what several have complained about as a "really loud focus noise" doesn't seem bad to me at all. It does have some pretty serious distortion, especially at wide angle. It's a complex moustache distortion which isn't correctable with Photoshop's built in correction. I did send in photos to the creator of PTLens, and he calibrated the lens and integrated it into the PTLens plugin (and standalone version). With that, your photos can be essentially distortion-free. It's really impressive how well it works. Of course, I used the lens for weeks before I really noticed the distortion. I took a picture of brick wall and couldn't believe how bad it was. Unless your photo has a continuous horizontal element, you're unlikely to even notice this.

I wish my review could be more conclusive, but I'm feeling ambiguous at this point. Hope that this helps someone trying to decide on this lens.

A close match for the $$$ Nikon lens
I have had this lens for a month now and have shot a few thousand photos with it in different lighting situations. I own a few other fast lenses and use them all in my work as a wedding photographer. This was the first purchase I have made outside of the Nikon brand name. I am always a big review reader, before I buy kinda guy. Not just with Photography.

First off, let me say this. The lens is very good. I would go so far as to say it is excellent, with all things considered about this lens.

Now I will tell you how to buy it. Go to the shop you favor and use it. I did this and did not buy it on Amazon. I brought one of my cameras (D200) and I used the lens inside and outside of the shop. Then for comparison, I used the Genuine Nikon lens to A-B them together. Tamron has been rumored to have some QC issues, so using the lens copy you are going to actually buy is the best bet, I think. Note: I made samples from each lens at 2.8, f4, f8 and f11. I did them at full wide and full zoom and about the middle range of both lenses I think it was 35mm. I used no flash for these tests.

Here is what I determined from the above exercise. The Nikon lens is definitely much better built. It is much larger and has significantly more weight. It reminds me of a Jr version of my Nikon 80-200mm 2.8D AF lens. A lens I love btw. However, that is not to say that the Tamron was in any way built cheap. In fact it is well built. I use my lenses a lot, but I am very careful with them too. Tamron offers a 6 year warranty VS Nikon's 5 year. The build of the Tamron lens was better than the kit lens sold with most Nikon models, but no where near that of the Nikon lens I am comparing it to. With proper care, the Tamron lens will hold up, no doubt.

Focus was also, noticibly faster on the Nikon lens. However, not dramaticly so. It is more quiet, again, not dramaticly so. Some people have complained about the Tamron being noisy. All I can say is the one I tested was not. It was About as noisy or a little less than my Nikon 18-55 Kit lens was, before I sold it.

Image quality: Honestly, I could not tell the difference here and this is what really sold me on the Tamron lens. The folks at my camera store took the A-B images I took and uploaded them to one of their in store computers for me to really compare them on the spot. Now that is customer service!! I was really hard pressed to see any difference at all in the images and I knew which lens they came from. Both lenses produced images which were very sharp and contrasty in all areas at all focal lengths and stops. I would bet if I mixed them up and said..OK, Pick the Nikon and the Tamron's out of the pile, I do not think anyone would get them right. The only noticible difference was an image taken outdoors at f/11. The Nikon one did seem to be just a tad sharper in the background. I should have taken more images at that range, but on the LCD they both looked good at the time and I was starting to run late, so I didn't. My point was, I do not know if it was lens error or my error on these two particular shots. But like I said, it was minimal differences anyway.

Conclusion: Ok, so the Nikon is a better lens on a number of points. This of course given my highly un-scientific testing results. However, when you consider the cost, it better be superior at something. I opted to buy the Tamron 17-50 because, I could not tell the difference enough to make me justify the cost of the Nikon lens.

I am very happy with this lens and I have no doubts it will last many years. So, do yourself a favor if you are in the market for this lens, use the one you intend to buy first. Make sure you did not get one of the bad copies and I am confident you too will love this lens.

Great lens for available light and wedding photography.
This lens features a good zoom range, that gives us nice wide-angle scenics and groups, mid-range couple shoots, and acceptable head-and-shoulder shots. The lens is of middle weight, but feels solid, and has a smooth zoom control.

The internal focusing is quick, but a bit noisier than Nikon's Silent Wave designs, and does not allow for "focus on demand" (while still set to autofocus). When switched to manual, the focusing is easy to use.

The lens comes standard with the petal type lens hood, and has a warranty a year longer than Nikon's.

The real charm of this lens is the fast F2.8 throughout the zoom range. It's great for general available light photography, but at it's best as a wedding lens. The range will do the groups and couples, the larger aperture will increase our flash range, increase our ability to get the background to come out in flash shots, and increase the ability of the camera to focus accurately in low light.