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Tamron 17-50mm Lens Review – Great Crossover Lens!

(If you want to watch the video go here!)

Hey it’s Jay P. here down in Los Angeles and I’ve got with me the 17-50mm lens from Tamron. This is an f/4 lens throughout. Really interesting lens to me because you get that really ultra-wide into more of a normal 50 millimeter lens.

So I’m kind of excited to shoot with it, to see what it looks like, see what the images look like. We’re down here at Union Station. We’re going to do some images inside so we get those wide angle shots.

We’re going to get some nice normal shots. Great for stitching, great for video. Let’s just see what we got. Let’s get started. Let’s take a look at it.

So let’s take a look at some of the specs of this lens. It’s a 17-50mm. It’s an f/4 and is made for full frame, Sony e-mount. And it really gives you that wide end of the trinity. What it does, because of that wide end of the trinity is it gives you the ability to do landscapes, which are really beautiful.

But it gives you the ability to a landscape all in like one image, wide view. Or you can go to 50 millimeters, which I do a lot. And you can shoot those landscapes in images that you’re going to stitch together. And that gives you that flat perspective, when you stitch those images together like three of them.

It’s a much different kind of perspective than if you shoot that whole thing with a wide view. Some people like the wider view, some people like to stitch them. I like to stitch them. I like the wide view. It just depends on the situation. So but this gives you the option to do this, because it reaches into that middle category of the trinity. It gives you up to 50 millimeters, which is really an awesome place. So great for landscape.

Great obviously, for architecture, because it has such a wide view. F/4 is absolutely fine. Because I’m usually shooting at f/8 if I’m going to be doing architecture because I want depth of field. I want the building to be in focus.

I want the room to be in focus. So rarely am I ever, and maybe f/5.6 sometimes, but just rarely am I’m ever going to be wider than that. I need as much depth of field as possible.

Another thing with this lens is it really is in that category that is great for video because it’s got internal, all the internal mechanisms, the zooming is all internal. So it’s not going to throw it out of balance when you put it on a gimbal.

But it gives you from a nice wide to into 24mm, which I use a lot on the gimbal or into a 50mm which gives you a little tighter image on that gimbal. And it doesn’t throw it out of balance because all that internal zooming is going on inside the lens.

It comes in a 67 millimeter, which is really Tamron’s, everything that they’ve done in this Sony lens, not everything but just about everything except for their super long telephotos, have been 67 millimeters. So it works with all your filters and everything that you have.

So it does have the USB type C port on the side, which allows you to plug it into your computer and use Tamron’s utility to customize the lens. That takes this lens from just being a great lens to a professional lens. Now you have the ability to customize the buttons.

You have the ability to change the focus rings. It gives you all those abilities in that Tamron utility. So I’m going to keep shooting with it. I’m having a great time. Love the perspective. So let’s go shoot some more.

So I’m shooting with the Sony a7R V and I’m always interested to know how the autofocus features of a lens like this are going to work with the autofocus capabilities of the a7R V, the Sony. Because it’s incredible, incredible autofocus and it’s working excellent. It’s tracking the eyes. It’s great, it locks right onto the eyes.

It’s fast, it’s quiet. It really is an autofocus system that makes it really usable for video as well as doing stills.

So you can switch it to manual focus, which gives you complete control or you can just use the autofocus features of a camera like the Sony a7R V. So either way, it’s quiet, it’s fast and it’s doing its job. It really is working really well with the camera.

Photo tip of the day! I’m looking straight up at these palm trees. And if I make them very symmetrical, it looks cool. But when I Dutch the angle, it looks far more interesting.

They come in from the sides. It just really makes a frame a lot more dynamic, a lot more interesting. So there’s your tip of the day, Dutch that angle.

The reason these lenses are compelling to me is because they really are crossover lenses. Great for video. Great for stills. They’ve got an excellent range that starts to break down our traditional trinity and gives you a great range in one or two lenses. So I think they really work in that way. They’re professional lenses. They’re made to be adapted, they really are perfect crossover lenses.

So this lens is very lightweight, it’s 16.2 ounces, it’s about four and a half inches long. So it’s a very compact, lightweight lens, which makes it really easy to carry with you if you’re traveling. It’s just an easy lens to work with because it’s so lightweight, and it’s so short. Beautiful platform and also the internal elements are not changing. So it allows you to balance it on a gimbal. So lightweight, easy to travel with.

So the minimum focus distance with this lens at 17 millimeters, you’re working at about two inches from your subject matter you’re very close which is about seven and a half inches away. If you go to 50 millimeters, at 50 millimeters, I’m back about 11 inches. But I’m getting now like a 1.38 magnification. I’m super tight.

Look how tight that is. So this gives you a significant magnification which makes this lens really useful for if you’re shooting a wedding, you can do rings, you can do tight kinds of things for flowers and that. It really gives you a great magnification. I love that about this series of lenses from Tamron. They give you that really close focusing distance.

So this lens has a BBAR G2 coating. It really gives you great contrast and it really keeps it from flaring. It’s hard to get this lens to flare if you’re looking right into the sun almost. So that coating has been really effective and it certainly shows on this lens.

So I have really enjoyed shooting with this lens. It’s given me great images inside. Fast autofocus when I have people I’m photographing. Great shots of the building outside. You get that 17 millimeters.

It’s just been really a great lens with an excellent kind of range that I’ve enjoyed working with. So I think you’re going to enjoy this lens, professional lens that you can adapt.

So many things about it make it compelling. I think it’s an incredible range that you’re going to enjoy. So keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!

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