Tamron 11-20mm For Canon RF Lens Review With The Canon R7

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Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we’re here in San Antonio, Texas. I’ve got with me Tamron’s new 11-20mm f/2.8 zoom lens for an APS-C sensor. I’m shooting on the R7. This is one of the first lenses that Tamron has really introduced for RF. It’s a great offering because it’s the base, the first in the Trinity. The wide in the Trinity. So it’s an 11-20mm but that’s an 18-32mm equivalent in 35mm. So it’s going to give you that wide view. That wide view is just ideal for architecture. I shot some stuff at a hotel I loved. It’s great for any kind of astrophotography. It’s really excellent for landscape photography when you’re getting those wide views. So this though, as an f/2.8, it’s a constant, it’s a fast aperture. F/2.8 constant throughout is the foundation for any good zoom lens series you’re going to get. Because f/2.8 gives you a fast aperture. It gives you beautiful bokeh because you get a shallow depth of field. And it’s in a compact lightweight size still at f/2.8. That allows it to be compact enough to carry around with you.

It becomes just a really great offering. So this works for this kind of camera. This setup, it’s an APS-C sensor, a lens made for the APS-C sensor. Which I think is an advantage because if you buy a lens made for the APS-C sensor it’s going to resolve and it’s going to look sharp on that sensor.

And it’s actually going to work better than a full frame lens that you put on to an APS-C sensor. So let’s get out and take some images. Let’s find out why this lens may make sense for you.

All the elements have been coated with a BBAR G2 coating which is a Broadband anti-reflection coating. That’s kind of the secret sauce for Tamron. It’s what gives you that great contrast if you’re in really challenging lighting situations like back light, harsh light.

It’s going to give you a much nicer light. It’s going to give you better contrast. It’s going to give you a better rendition, just going to give you sharper images. And it gives you beautiful color. So I think that becomes one of the things that really makes this lens series and this in that series really worthwhile. It makes it attractive.

So the Lens comes with XLD elements. It’s got LD elements. It’s got GM elements. And what those do when they all come together, especially when you add the BBAR coating, is that it cuts down on chromatic aberration.

It cuts down on color fringing. And it cuts down on distortion. So it just gives you beautiful color accuracy. It’s kind of the secret sauce, those all come together that give you just a beautiful look from these lenses. Let’s take a look at some of the images because they truly are beautiful and you see it. It’s hard to get this lens to flare anymore. Not like old lenses where they flared like crazy, not anymore.

So on the wide end, the 11mm, I can get into about 5.9 inches. That’s from the sensor to the front. So I’m right on top of this which gives me a really tight view. It’s like, it’s not a macro lens, but it gives you really super closeup applications. So it makes this lens very useful for getting in close if you want to get in tight on an architectural detail or something.

It just gives you the ability to get in super close and be able to focus and give you a really nice tight shot. Got a nice tight shot of that little flower relief there. It was kind of interesting.

So on the lens you’ve got an autofocus, manual focus button. I love that, to be able to toggle back and forth. I think that’s a really nice addition. It’s fast and easy to use. I use that and I love that a lot. It’s got the USB-C port on the bottom so you can hook it up to Tamron’s lens utility to be able to make corrections to the lens and updates. Really, 67mm up front which matches most of the lenses that Tamron is doing these days. Except for the really large telephotos or all-in-one zooms.

So it really is a compact beautiful lens. It’s about 11.8 oz and also about 3.5 inches long. This is a pretty sweet setup for a gimbal because you got a very small lightweight lens on a smaller camera. It’s going to make that very easy to use on a gimbal. So it’s a great setup for that. This really is a lens that will work for video and the R7 has great video specs. So great setup for video, especially doing it with a gimbal.

My first camera, a beautiful Pentax ME with interchangeable lenses. And everything looked magical in that camera. It was fantasyland. And I thought, man if I could make a living doing this, how crazy, fantasy! And then, you know, to go and work with all the great artists that I have been working with is just, you know, incredible! So my advice for young photographers out there, find your voice. Find what it is you really want to tell the world with your art. Try not to copy everyone else. It’s okay to, like Mick Jagger said, it’s great to steal from other artists, but make it your own. Like they did with all the great blues songs that the stones covered. Hey, I’m Rob Shanahan, I’m a drummer, a photographer and endorser of the SKB case. They get all my gear and my drums safely to where I need to go.

So we stumbled into the Menger Hotel last night. The oldest hotel in Texas. And it’s just a beautiful place.

The old furniture, the old lights, I just fell in love. And so when I say architecture photography, which is a great use for this lens, I really love this kind of interiors.

And sometimes kind of creative interiors where you’re using Dutch angles and just doing interesting things with the architecture here. So let’s take a look at what a wide-angle lens can do with architectural work inside.

It can be very interesting. Let’s look at some of those images at the Menger Hotel.

When you get a close focusing distance with a wide-angle lens, what’s interesting about that is the things that are closer to you, because it’s a wide-angle lens, become large. But then they become small very quickly as they fall away from you. So you get this really forced perspective, which is a beautiful look when you’re shooting with a wide-angle lens. But a close focusing distance allows you to do that with like macro types of things, smaller things.

But you see that change and it’s really cool looking. Here’s a shot I did of a piano looking at the black key. You can see how the keys change really quickly then you get that beautiful bokeh in the background. So it’s that interesting perspective of wide angle up front but quickly becoming small in the background.

So I love doing portraits with a wide lens like this. I did some photographs of some cowboys, a Cadet and a couple of dogs.

But with the cadet you see it the most. When I’m on 11mm it pushes that Alamo back. Just like when I’m doing macro photography it pushes things back and things in the foreground become larger. When I went to 20mm it brings the Alamo in. It just brings it right up closer to the person. And just makes a really interesting kind of contextual portrait. So I love shooting portraits with this lens. I think it’s very interesting.

It’s a different look. I make myself do it sometimes just because I love the look. So here’s some portraits we shot.

So this lens has the RXD stepping motor which gives it really fast autofocus.

I tested it on people walking down the street. It sticks with the person. The autofocus is, it works really well with the Canon camera.

It does an excellent job. The advantage of the RXD motor drive is that it really gives you silent enough movement that you can use it for video as well.

This lens works in video mode as well as stills. And that’s because of that really quiet motor, that RXD motor.

All right, so let’s wrap this up. I’m super excited to see Tamron get into the RF lens line. Canon is slowly opening this up now. Mostly just for APS-C sensors. But I think that’ll lead to other lenses as well. This is Tamron’s first.

It’s a serious entry into the market because anytime you make an f/2.8 lens, it’s an f/2.8 throughout, that means you’re really, it’s a professional lens. You’re serious about the lens. And this falls into that category. It’s the wide end of the Trinity.

It has a 67mm filter. Not all of Tamron lenses have 67mm but most of their newer lenses and fast, these fast lenses, f/2.8 lenses have that 67mm so it makes it very easy to switch your lens caps and switch filters. I love staying in that same ecosystem. It’s really a great place to be. It’s lightweight, it’s like 11.8 ounces so it’s under a pound. And like 3.4 or 3.5 inches long. So it means that it’s very small and compact. It makes it easy to carry around with you. Which really makes it attractive. Especially on an APS-C sensor. I mean, that’s what you want. You don’t want a huge lens on mirrorless cameras. Those huge lenses, when I see them nowadays, I’m just going, it just doesn’t match the ecosystem of the camera.

I love the fact that it’s got a really close focusing distance on the wide end, 5.9 inches. At 5.9 inches it allows you to get really in tight on things to give you a macro type look. But it allows things to fall out of focus in the background. And the size of things change when you’re on a wide lens. The things closer to you are large, things further away get smaller. I love that about this lens. I mean who’s going to use this lens? This is a pretty useful lens.

Like I say, as we shot in our lesson today, I love it for portraits. I think it’s really interesting for portraits, even on the wide end. So I think it’s a great portrait lens. I think it’s an incredible landscape, architecture, astro type lens. It’s really the base of the Trinity, the beginning point. So I think it makes it extremely useful. We have seen this lens for Sony and for Fuji. So this now becomes the first entry into the RF market. For me, I think if I had an APS-C sensor this is a go-to lens. It just makes it very easy, lightweight and compact.

It works with the camera, it’s perfect. So there’s a look at the 11-20mm lens from Tamron, f/2.8. Great lens, check it out and keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!