Canon 17-55mm is or Tamron 17-50mm vc ??

ESHTAL

ESHTAL

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i ve just bought a 50D and i am torn between the Canon 17-55mm and the Tamron 17-50mm VC .. with a bout £300 difference in price and a lack of comerhensive reviews of the new tamron lens i am buzzled !!! i need advice here .. i am mainly interested in landscape and family fotos ... can anyone help .. please ... Thanx
 
There's quite a lot of people in the same position - the 17-55 IS is supposed to be a great lens but like you say it's very expensive so the new Tamron was quite eagerly awaited.

There's been a couple of threads on here about the Tamron which have been a little mixed; it sounds like there first batches to reach some retailers weren't actually very good and some of the reviews showed surprising softness, especially given how sharp the non-VC version is. There was even an example of the zoom ring completely seizing up on one.

Saying all that, the soft copies have been returned and I get the impression that everyone is pretty pleased with the Tamron now - it looks like a great lens and I'm seriously considering getting one rather than the Canon I'd been saving for.

Have a search on here for the threads so you can make your own mind up about the early problems.
 
I own the 17-55mm and it is a suprbly sharp lens, but if the Tamron VC was available when I puchased mine I would have got the Tamron. The Canon is simply not worth £700 when you can get almost the same thing for half the price.
 
Orville said:
I own the 17-55mm and it is a suprbly sharp lens, but if the Tamron VC was available when I puchased mine I would have got the Tamron. The Canon is simply not worth £700 when you can get almost the same thing for half the price.
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That's what is going in my mind ... i know it s not the same but does the difference worth the £300 ?!! the next question would be : where to get it from ? is there anyway to avoid the first patch with the bad rep ?? or is it just pure luck ? would One stop digital be OK as it s the cheapest Now ? and the most important thing , am i gonna be beating myself up :bang: if the lens turns to be a complete **** ? :thinking::thinking::thinking:
 
Orville said:
The Canon is simply not worth £700 when you can get almost the same thing for half the price.
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Would it be worth it if it had a red band and an "L" after the 2.8??? :thinking:;)
 
ESHTAL said:
Nifkin , i believe u have the Tamron VC !! do you recommend it ? where did u get it from ?
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It is a good lens indeed; my second copy is better than my first, which had halation issues wide open and then the zoom barrel jammed :bang: However, I'm finding the focusing a little bit hit or miss, and to be honest, am not as blown away by it as owners of the Canon EF-S 17-55 seem to be with that lens (but perhaps they have to be at the price they paid! :lol:). I guess with the 17-55 having USM the focussing should be a bit stronger. I'd like to compare the Tamron to the Canon, but the only place there is a comparison is here, though it's hard to tell whether the website's copy of the Tamron is a bad one or not (I suspect it could be). Having checked out the POTN forum, there seems to be a lot of question marks over Tamron's quality control with this lens.

Therefore, it's simply a case of that nobody is really in a position at the moment to conclusively say that the Canon isn't worth the £300 more :shrug:
 
Nifkin said:
Would it be worth it if it had a red band and an "L" after the 2.8??? :thinking:;)
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If it had the L build quality YES. Sadly the 17-55 sits somewhere in the middle of L and bog standard EF-S so NO. I think £500 would be a fair price for this lens. I only spent the extra few hundred because there was no comparable lens with IS at the time. Compare the 17-55 F/2.8 and the 24-70mm F/2.8L and there is absolutely no comparison in terms of build quality. The L makes it seem like a cheap toy, but thankfully the IQ is extremely close between the two. Canon's profit margin on this lens must be huge.
 
Nifkin said:
I'm finding the focusing a little bit hit or miss, and to be honest
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I'm not knocking your photography skills in the slightest but I was thinking the same about this lens.
On the London meet today, I was struggling to get a decent shot in focus @ f/2.8 in a dimly lite section in a pub.
I knew in AV mode that the shutter speed was fine so it wasn't a case of being to slow for me to take the shots hand held even with IS.
I just thought it was down to hit and miss with the lens focusing.
I asked one of the more experienced Canon users (ramaran) to take a shot with my kit and asked him to use the settings that he would normally use.
He took a few shots that were very sharp and nothing like my dire efforts.
The only differences he made was to up the ISO where I had it set to auto and raised the exposure level.
Talking to him made me realise that the problem was my technique / skill rather than the lens.

I did have a few doubts about this lens even though I know I've taken shots of my dog in the house @ f/2.8 that are probably my sharpest yet.
Learning how to use this lens in even lower light has been a valuable lesson.
Overall I think that provding you do get a good copy of this lens (I think Tamron will sort this issue out quite quickly), you'd be more than happy with it.
I agree with those who regard the price of the Canon is very high for a non L lens even though many claim the IQ is of L quality but I would want L build quality for the price.
I woud have also been happy to spend £500 on one as well.
If money is no object and you can afford the Canon then fine, but if I believe the Tamron is better value for money.
 
Hey Darran, was going to go on the London meet today, but the missus has been ill so I stayed at home to look after her instead :love:

The conclusion I came to about the focusing is after a lot of methodical testing. I tend not to use auto ISO as I like to vary it myself when shooting/testing, so indoors I test with anything from 400 to 3200 (bearing in mind auto ISO won't use above 1600). I have got very sharp shots of subjects, but if I fire off a number of handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings, then adjust the settings and fire off another volley of shots, I find that I get a variety of results where focus is concerned, which I haven't found with other lenses. I'm pretty certain that this second copy is a good one too, as it's general performance concurs with copies in the positive reviews I've managed to find. Another thing I have to consider is that the 50D is known to be a bit unforgiving of cheaper lenses, due to the high resolving power of it's sensor.

Anyway, I still think it's a good lens, just would be really interested to see how it performs against the 17-55, or even the non-VC Tammy 17-50.
 
The canon 17-55 f2.8 is a stonkingly good lens.
Mine has been abused to the nth (including being dropped on its head and having filter screw thread snapped off) and still works a treat.
It gets my vote.
 
I have the Tamron 17-50 non VC. Its a great lens which is great value IMO however, I've had this lens for over a year now and I have found a weakness. Firstly while the focus motor isn't overly noisy, compared to Canon's USM it makes a racket. Try using it in a quiet room while discreetly taking pictures of people, you will be noticed by others straight away. USM focusing it worth paying the extra money for the Canon lens if you can afford it.

I think the 17-50 non VC is a bargain for the constant f2.8 and sharp images and the VC version is great I'm sure but if you are going to spend £500 on one I would spend the extra and get the Canon.
 
I hired the canon for a wedding and later bought the tamron (non-VC). I now wish I could justify the extra £££ for the canon. The tammy is sharp but the focusing lets it down a wee bit, it's just not as fast, plus it hunts a bit even in good light/contrast situations. Not sure if the newer VC version is the same however.
 
Tbh I am yet to see any shots with the 17-55 that make me think I did anything bu tthe right thing choosing the Tammy. I was blessed with a very nice copy of the 17-50 VC however I don't believe this is unique. USM is faster (my 200L is lightning) no doubt, but in real world I have not lost a shot due to focusing.
The VC is excellent, colour and contrast are spot on and the build quality matches that of my fathers 17-55.

I will be heading up to London next week for a full day shooting so hopefully I will have some more examples to get up soon.
 
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