We all know what this lens can do Phil, of course it can produce excellent images, its the difference between samples which is the problem, by the way, did you actually take time to look at some of the full res files on pixel peeper because lots of them are quite poor, yes some are excellent, most of those taken on a crop camera are excellent because it only uses the centre of the lenses image circle but lots of those taken on FX are not that good, some are very poor. One particular guy shooting with a D800 does produce consistently brilliantly sharp images across the full frame between f/5.6-f/13, i would buy his lens tomorrow, however when he stops down to f/22 the images are terrible as diffraction kills the images.
I tend not to look at sites like this because those togs aren't me, they don't shoot what i shoot, they don't shoot how i shoot and nor do they have the same expectations from a lens that i do, ive posted on other threads that i simply wont accept a lens which needs correcting using fine tuning, i send it back and get another, i refuse to do the manufacturers QC checks for them especially if im paying hundreds/thousands for a lens
While ever people are happy to do the fine tuning then Manufacturers will continue to let manufacturing tolerances slide, they first of all introduced in camera sharpening because of the introduction of AA/Moire filters and now fine tuning because of focusing intolerance's, what ever next.
Tamron can get it right, i own stupidly sharp across the whole frame 28-75mm and 24-135mm lenses.
