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Hey, it’s Jay P. here. I’m asked the question all the time, “What is the best lens for me to buy?” That’s a tough question to answer. But it really isn’t. There is one lens that I know, that most everyone should have, you’ll use it the most. It’s the Swiss Army knife of lenses, that is a mid-range zoom.
This is the 28-75mm from Tamron on the Nikon Z8. That mid-range zoom covers such a great range and gives you a great quality, because you can get them in f/2.8, which is what this is. F/2.8 gives you really shallow depth of field. It’s a faster lens. It also gives you a wide range.
You can go to 28mm, which is more landscape, more open for doing buildings downtown like we are here today. It gives you a wider view to be able to shoot. But you also get to the other end of it.
At 75mm with Tamron’s you now have a 75mm lens that is very close to a portrait type lens. And a f/2.8 it gives you beautiful bokeh. It becomes a great zoom to be able to use. That’s the lens that I think most people should buy after they have, with their kit lens or whatever they get with their camera, a good, when I say good, I think you need to get a really good mid-range zoom. I think that’s the lens I carry with me the most.
I carry it when I travel. I shoot on set with it a lot of the times.
It just becomes a go to lens because it has a great range that works quickly and allows me to get the shots I want and not have to change my lens often. So I think it’s fabulous.
So let’s look at the range of a mid-range zoom. We were shooting downtown this morning as the sun came up, we’re at the Row. And we started out with a 28mm. So here’s downtown on a 28mm.
Now I went to 35mm.
Now we’re going to go to 50mm, it’s going to bring us in a lot closer.
Then we’re going to go to the 75mm. So there’s 28-75mm. That’s quite a range. It gives you a lot of options, which allows you to be able to work, like I say, from that landscape to more portrait. So looking at those images should help you understand what you get with a mid-range zoom.
So what lens are you going to buy? I think the Tamron 28-75mm is a really great choice. And I’ll tell you why. 
There’s several reasons. Number one, it’s about 19 ounces, so it’s slightly over a pound.
So it’s very lightweight and small. Tamron kind of pioneered this type of lens that is very compact, and small form factor that matches that mirrorless camera. So it’s very compact.
It has a 67 millimeter filter size, which makes it very small. It’s got f/2.8 throughout, which gives you that beautiful bokeh.
And also, I think what’s really an important thing is, it comes with the adapter on the side to be able to plug it in with USB type C. So you can adapt this lens and really adapt it to the way you work, which really makes a lot of sense because they make a version for Sony and they make a version for Nikon now. So they have both Z mount and the Sony E mount.
And you can change the direction that it focuses when you’re doing manual focus. You can change just all the different features on the lens through their app on the computer. It also gives you a button on the side that allows you to switch between if you want to switch from manual focus to auto focus. You can do that button, program that button to do that. You can do that also through the app. So it becomes a really go to lens.
It’s under $1,000, which makes it a very reasonable entry point. If you look at a 24-70mm manufactured with a G-Master or a Z 24-70mm, that’s a really expensive lens. Almost twice or more than what you’ll get from the Tamron. So there’s my advice when people ask me what lenses they should get. Get a mid-range zoom. That’s the first purchase you should make. So we’ll talk a little more in depth about each one of those qualities.
So probably the most important reason you buy a lens is because it’s sharp. Well, this certainly delivers on that. It has 17 elements and 15 groups. That f/2.8 is sharp throughout and into the edges. It’s made for modern cameras. So I’m on the Z8 here. You look at the images, you see the sharpness in the images.
It just gives you beautiful sharpness, that f/2.8 gives you wonderful bokeh if you’re shooting any kind of, you know, people or portraits. So sharpness is one of the first things that makes this a great lens to purchase. It’s a very sharp lens.
So it’s pretty impressive when you think of shooting something very close up. It’s not really a macro lens but we get about 7.1 inches from the sensor. Which is the back here in the sensor. It is not from the front of the lens. So I’m right on top of this flower.
At 28 millimeters I can get a 1:2.7 magnification. So it’s, I wouldn’t consider it a major kind of macro lens, but if I’m shooting like a ring for a wedding, I mean, this is way more than adequate to get a super tight shot of ring, couple rings, those kinds of things.
So it really gives you some macro capabilities that makes this lens not just great on the kind of mid-range but also gets in closer.
So this lens comes in at $999, so it’s under $1,000. That’s a great price point for what you’re getting. Because it allows you to have money to be able to buy other lenses. If you buy a brand specific 24-70mm it’s going to be more than twice that price. So it really gives you the ability to have a great lens, that medium zoom and to be able to have money to buy other lenses as well.
So Tamron’s 28-75mm G2 comes with a VXD linear motor. This system has proved to be extremely fast. I have it in other lenses I’ve used. I’ve used it in this lens, it’s very fast, right up to f/2.8. It stays on your subject matter and gives you fast autofocus. Even at that close focusing distance it’s going to give you fast autofocus and works really seamlessly. So the autofocus capability of this lens really matches that Z8 which is pretty impressive.
You know, as Tamron moves into the Z-mount area, there are some things that are very interesting because Nikon or Z-mount focuses the opposite direction of Canon. And so with the new lenses, you have the ability with the USB port to be able to plug this in and to be able to update the lens or to change the focus direction. Or do a lot of different things you’ll need for video.
You can change it from linear to nonlinear manual focus, which is really nice. So you have the option to change this to be able to adapt it to what you’re doing. It even has an A B point to be able to give you two different points to focus.
So you can use the button on the side to be able to change that focus point. It’s just a lot of different things in that Tamron Lens Utility that allow you to program the lens and adapt it to how you’re working and what you’re doing.
So let’s wrap this up. My suggestion is, and always is for people, that the first lens you get is a mid-range zoom. So the 28-75mm from Tamron, that G2 lens. So an incredible offering both for Nikon or for Sony. 24-70mm, get something that’s in that mid-range. It’s a great walk around lens. It’s a great kind of landscape to portrait type lens. And it is a great place to start out, especially if you get a f/2.8. So you give yourself that really shallow depth of field. It gives you the beautiful bokeh in the background. It’s a go to for me. I find myself shooting on that lens a lot because it just kind of fits in the sweet spot and gives me what I need when I’m shooting. So there’s my thought. There’s a look at the Tamron 28-75mm on that Z8. And keep those cameras rollin’, keep on clickin’!