No, this image was not taken with my Tamron 17-50/2.8, but I have made this post part of my review series, because I think you should know, that I have sent it in to Tamron one more time.
You remember the last time, when my bag had fallen from negligible height and the lens barrel broke? Tamron has repaired the lens, the autofocus error is gone, but instead a new problem had appeared:
Often when I turned the camera on, the first image was severely overexposed. Well, this became very frequent in the last few weeks, to an extent where I could be almost certain that the first image or even the first few images would be unusable.
Further study has revealed, that the lens fails to stop down during exposure. You know, while metering and while you look through the viewfinder, the lens is always wide open, in case of the Tamron this means f2.8. Only for the actual exposure the lens stops down to the aperture selected. Or it does not, just like mine. When that happens, the camera exposes for, say, f8, but the lens faultily stays open at f2.8. The result is an overexposure by three full stops.
Now, when I look back, this lens, while it works, is extraordinarily versatile, and the image quality is pretty good as well. On the other hand, I had this autofocus problem (that seems to have been corrected with a firmware update when I sent the lens in the last time) and now I have this problem, that makes the lens completely unusable for street photography.
Would I buy it again? Maybe. Not all of them can be that flimsy, and optically it has brought me through the dark winter like no lens before. Nikon simply has no alternative. I guess it all depends on how well the upcoming Sigma 17-50/2.8 OS will perform. It has just become available for Canon and may come out for Nikon within the next month. Less and less can I imagine to be able to resist 🙂
Being without the Tamron, I had to switch to another lens, and in this case it was the Nikon 70-300 VR. For a few days I had seen this image, but the Tamron was not the right lens. This cried for a serious telephoto lens. Yesterday I finally took the image. This is one of two exposures. It’s a tad awkward standing in the middle of a crossing 🙂
The Song of the Day is “Let’s Get High” from Lenny Kravitz’ 2001 album “Lenny”. Very recommendable. Hear it on YouTube.
joan v hall (2010-07-16)
I really like this photo, thank you , could you make a couple of comments about any post processing work you did?
💬 Reply 💬