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Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 for Fujifilm X Reviews Roundup

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Earlier today Tamron announced its second autofocus lens for Fujifilm X, the Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8.

We already had a mini live-blog with some reviews covered in this article. So if you missed it, definitely check them out here.

But new reviews have been published since then so I thought it would make sense to give you an update

Already shared in the live blog

  • BH Explora – Tamron Announces the Versatile Mid-Range 17-70mm f/2.8 Lens for FUJIFILM X
  • ivanjoshualoh – G P L : General Purpose Lens

New reviews:

Video Reviews (some with Summary)

Christopher Frost

  • built quality typical for a modern Tamron device, mostly plastic but feels solid and tightly assembled
  • weather sealing gasket around mount
  • focus ring turns reasonably smoothly and responds reasoably well
  • very littel focus breathing
  • not parafocal (focus point will shift a little while you zoom in and out)
  • averagly fast autofocus motor, accurate and almost completely silent
  • has it’s own “VC” stabilization system
  • zoom ring turns averagly smoothly
  • 67mm filter size
  • still solid built
  • electronics handle nicely on his Fujifilm X-T3
  • at 17mm at f/2.8
    – in the center, sharpness and contrast are prefect
    – in the corners, almost as sharp but some fairly heavy color fringing (maybe in camera corrections need a little tweaking)
  • at 17mm at f/4
    – excellent sharpness in corners, but color fringing remains
  • at 17mm at f/11
    – diffraction begins to cause some softness
  • at 35mm at f/2.8
    – excellent sharpness and contrast in the middle
    – in corners image quality virtually as good with no visible color fringing
  • at 35mm at f/4
    – brings a little extra contrast into the corners
  • at 70mm at f/2.8
    – in the center image sharpness remains good, but contrast is a bit lower
    – in the corners image quality becomes a bit soft
  • at 70mm at f/4
    – slight improvement of contrast in the corners
    – in the center excellent performance again
  • at 70mm at f/5.6
    – corners just a bit sharper and remains like this until f/11
  • overall, if we don’t take into account the performance at 70mm at f/2.8, the lens image quality is fairly good.
  • it does not perform miracles, but considering the zoom range it is decently sharp with good contrast
  • Distortion and Vignetting
    – at 17mm moderately strong barrel distortion and darkness in the corners at f/2.8
    – darkness gets gradually pushed back at f/4, f/5.6 and f/8
    – at 22mm distortion straightens out
    – at 70mm quite stron pin cushion distortion and corners suffer from vignetting. At f/4 and f/5.6 corners brighten up
    – keep in camera correction turned on (as they are automatically on a Fuji camera)
  • Bonus Feature: a close focus ability. You can go quite close to a subject
    – close up image quality when zoomed out image quality at f/2.8 remains sharp and very sharp at f/4
    – close up IQ at 70mm: close up IQ very soft at f/2.8 with color tinting. Stop down to f/4, f/5.6 and f/8 to see gradual improvements that lead to excellent image quality
  • at the wide end little flaring, reasonably good performance. Zoom in, and flaring gets a lot worst
  • Bokeh: impressively smooth with no ugliness or problems at all
  • autofocus works really well
  • he highly recommends it

Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8: BHphoto / AmazonUS / Adorama

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