Fast Standard Full Frame Zoom on a Budget: Tamron 28-75 f/2.8

In this post, I would like to have a second look at the Tamron 28-75 2.8, a lens that has been around for a while.  I used it when I had a Nikon D80.  I recently repurchased it to use it as a full frame lens for the Nikon D600.

BACKGROUND
When I moved to Nikon, the first camera I got was the Nikon D80, and the first lens I got for it was the Tamron 28-75.  I chose the Tamron on the strength of reviews such as from photozone.de.  Here is a sample shot (from July 2008!).  You can click on it for the full higher resolution.  BTW, all the shots here have had little editing, so that they are representative of what you can expect from this lens.

Nikon D80 + Tamron 28-75.  f/2.8, 1/160, ISO 100.

This shot had no additional sharpening applied.  Although I wouldn't say it's super sharp, it was sharp enough to capture pretty much all relevant details, including the texture and fine hairs of the skin.  Here is another one from August 2008:

Nikon D80 + Tamron 28-75.  f/2.8, 1/160, ISO 320.

As with the previous sample the Tamron 28-75 captured tiny details.  I was pretty happy with the Tamron 28-75 on my APS-C D80.  A couple of years later, however, I sold the Tamron 28-75 and got the then-recently released Tamron 17-50 VC, primarily because I wanted to be able to capture wider angles.

When I upgraded to full frame, I sold the Tamron 17-50 VC and for my standard zoom, I used a Nikon 28-70 2.8D on my Nikon D3.  I later upgraded to a Nikon 24-70.  Eventually, I found the standard zoom focal length to be too predictable, so I used it less and less, and after a while I sold the 24-70 because I could not justify the cost for the infrequent times that I used it.

Although I could not justify the ~$1500 or so (used) for a Nikon 24-70 that I would not use very often, I wondered whether the Tamron 28-75, which costs only a fraction of the Nikon 24-70, would be a practical alternative for those occasions when I might use a fast standard zoom.

TAMRON 28-75 ON FULL FRAME
Just because the Tamron 28-75 was pretty good on a 10mp APS-C sensor camera doesn't necessarily mean it would do as well on a camera with a full frame sensor, especially one with a higher resolution.  I couldn't find any comparisons between the Tamron 28-75 and either the Nikon 28-70 2.8D or the 24-70 2.8G so I had to take a leap of faith.  This time the version I got was the one without the built-in motor (because Tamron 28-75 users said that the non-BIM version focused faster than its BIM counterpart).

Body

The Tamron 28-75 is dwarfed by the Nikon 28-70

If you are familiar with the Nikon 24-70 and 28-70, the first thing you notice about the Tamron 28-75 is the size and weight.  It's very compact compared to the 24-70 and 28-70, which is surprising considering that it covers the same focal range as the latter and has the same constant f/2.8 aperture.  It is also much lighter (510g) than the 24-70 (900g) or 28-70 (935g).

With the lens hoods attached, the size difference is even more apparent

The 28-75 has a polycarbonate body with rubberized focus ring and zoom ring, and a metal mount.  It comes with a petal-shaped hood and a center-pinch lens cap. The build quality is somewhat similar to those of more recent Tamron lenses I've tried (18-250, 17-50 VC, 70-300 VC), although I would say that it seems slightly less solidly built than the 17-50 VC and 70-300 VC but better built than the Tamron 28-105 2.8.

There is a physical aperture ring with full stop detents.  The minimum aperture is f/32.  Because it has an aperture ring, it is possible to change the aperture in real time during live view with the D600 (or other mid- and low-end Nikon DSLRs).

The 28-75 has an internal focusing design, meaning that the front element does not extend or retract when the camera focuses, nor does the front element rotate.  The filter size is 67mm.

The lens extends from 3.6 inches (92mm) at 28mm to approximately 5 inches (127 mm) at 75mm.  There is a zoom lock to prevent zoom creep, although even without the lock engaged, I did not find any issues with zoom creep (unlike the Tamron 28-105 2.8).

Sharpness
When the Tamron is stopped down to f/4.0, it is quite sharp, not just in the center, but almost to the edges.

Nikon D600 + Tamron 28-75.  f/4.0, 1/1600, ISO 100. 52mm.

Nikon D600 + Tamron 28-75.  f/4.0, 1/1000, ISO 100.  52mm.

However, a constant 2.8 lens is intended to be used wide open at least some of the time.  In this regard, the Tamron 28-75 looks reasonably sharp wide open at about 12mp.

However, when images are viewed at 24mp at 100%, the Tamron doesn't look very sharp.  On the other hand, for real world shots, I find the sharpness is acceptable to me for photos of people (as opposed to objects or still life, for example), as long as you don't intend to print them at very large sizes.

COMPARISON WITH NIKON 28-70 2.8D

It so happened that after I got the Tamron 28-75, I saw a Nikon 28-70 for a very good price, so I repurchased it as well.  Here then are comparisons between the Nikon 28-70 and Tamron 28-75.  For each of them I showed the Nikon 28-70, then the Tamron 28-75, first at f/2.8, then at f/4.0.  I tested focal lengths from 28mm, 35mm, 50mm and 70mm.  In the case of the Tamron, I also showed 75mm.  All the shots here are available at their full resolution.  You can go to the web album instead.

Entire frame:

Web album here.

To me, the most obvious differences between the Nikon 28-70 and the Tamron 28-75 are the color cast and pattern of vignetting.  So far, all the Tamron lenses I've tried have a warm color cast, and this one is no exception.  The effect is somewhat similar to using a warming filter.  The Tamron is much warmer than the 28-70 (as an aside, the Nikon 24-70 also has a much warmer tone than the Nikon 28-70, although I don't recall it being as warm as the Tamron 28-75).

The Tamron has a little more vignetting than the 28-70, and when both lenses are stopped down, the vignetting on the Nikon 28-70 evens out, whereas with the Tamron, the vignetting remains noticeable.

The Lightroom lens profile for Tamron slightly overcorrects the vignetting, although the vignetting correction can be adjusted.

Crop from center:

Web album here.

The Nikon 28-70 is consistently sharper than the Tamron, though the Tamron is not bad, except at 35mm it gets a little soft.  There is a significant improvement in the Tamron by stopping down to f/4.

Crop from edge:

Web album here.

Wide open, the Nikon 28-70 is generally sharper at the edges than the Tamron, except at 28mm when they are both soft.  The difference in sharpness at the edges is most noticeable at 35mm where the Nikon is reasonably sharp while the Tamron is soft.  Stopped down to f/4, there is a significant improvement at the edges in the Tamron, and the Tamron becomes more similar to the Nikon at 28mm and 35mm, and actually is sharper than the 28-70 at 50mm and 70mm.

Color:
As mentioned above the Tamron 28-75 has a warm color cast.  When I'm taking photos of people, I find the extra warmth is more flattering for subjects, so I don't mind the color cast.

white balance with no adjustments - in an indoor gym

no adjustments to white balance - fluorescent lights

Focus Speed and Accuracy:

The Tamron 28-75 that I got was the one without a built-in autofocus motor, therefore AF speed depends largely on the body.  On the D600, the Tamron 28-75 focused quickly.  It's not quiet like the newer lenses with ultrasonic motors but it's fast.  As for accuracy, after I had dialed in the AF fine tuning, it focused reasonably well, although not always with critical accuracy.

Usually the Tamron 28-75 has accurate autofocus

Slightly backfocused

The Tamron 28-75 can autofocus while in live view on the D600, including full-time autofocus during movie mode.

Distortion
At 28mm, the 28-75 has noticeable moustache distortion (barrel distortion in the middle but flat at the edges).  The distortion is reduced at 35mm (slight moustache) and 50mm (slight pincushion).  There is pincushion distortion at 75mm.  Lightroom 5 has a lens correction profile for the Tamron that corrects the distortion. (I believe older versions of LR have the profile as well, but I don't know in which version the profile was introduced).

Here is a slideshow with the uncorrected shot, followed by the version corrected in Lightroom, at 28mm, 35mm, 50mm and 75mm.  Web album here.


Flare resistance:
The Tamron 28-75 has amazing flare resistance.  Even when the sun is in the frame, I only get a tiny blob of lens flare, with no observable reduction in contrast.

Here is a video that shows the Tamron 28-75's flare resistance.

no flare

Bokeh:
I find the Tamron 28-75's bokeh to be pleasant and smooth.  Bokeh is subjective so you don't have to take my word for it -- you can check out the shot below which is representative of its performance.

front and rear bokeh

CONCLUSION
If you want a fast standard zoom but have a limited budget, the Tamron 28-75 is a decent alternative, as long as you have reasonable expectations.  In my case, I very rarely make large prints (often, my images are only for the web) so the Tamron has adequate sharpness for me, even wide open.  As a bonus, the Tamron 28-75 is very compact and lightweight.  I also appreciate that it has very strong flare resistance, which is helpful for backlit images.  In my humble opinion, it is more than capable of providing me with good photos.

Before I show you some more samples, just a reminder that Google Reader will end on June 30.  You can transfer your RSS feeds to another aggregator such as Feedly (the process is relatively pain-free while Google Reader is still working).

RELATED POSTS:
Nikon 24-70 Review
Nikon 28-70 Review
DXOMark's Test Results for Tamron 28-75 for Nikon
DXO's Comparison with Nikon 24-70 and Nikon 24-85 3.5-4.5 VR

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The OM-D Visits Europe - Part 1 (Stockholm)

Västerbron Bridge, Stockholm

It has been a long time since my last post, and I apologize, the past couple of months were quite hectic, and I traveled a lot, both inside and outside of Egypt. In this series, I will be telling my story about my recent visit to Europe, and I hope you will enjoy it, and forgive my lack of posts. Hit the jump for the full post.

INTRODUCTION

This is my second visit to Europe, the first time, I traveled to Sweden in November 2009, and stayed there for 2 weeks, in a lovely and quiet town called Kista, just 20 minutes by train from Stockholm, and as you can imagine, the weather was horrid in November, gray clouds all day long (I saw the sun twice during 2 weeks), lots and lots of rain and it was very cold (around 2 degrees Celsius) , but it didn't snow, add to that a late sunrise ~ 8 am, an early sunset ~ 5pm, and I was depressed and desperate to see the sunny weather I am used to in Egypt. My week days were spent at work from 8 to 5, when I left work it was already getting darker than the usual gray-dark. I only had a small time window (5:30 to 7:30 pm) to have dinner and do any activity outside of the hotel room, before all shops are closed. In Egypt, shops usually stay open to at least 12 pm.

So when I knew I'd be visiting Sweden again, but during the summer sunny weather, I was very excited, I wanted to see how beautiful the country is, and this time I'd be staying in Stockholm as well. In my previous visit, I went to Stockholm twice, but never had the chance to really look around.

It was a business trip hosted by an American-Swedish company, and the itinerary looked something like this:

• Sunday: Travel from Egypt to Stockholm, transit in Frankfurt, Germany, arrive 2 am.
• Monday: Meetings till 3 pm, then doing a tour around Stockholm.
• Tuesday: Same as day before.
• Wednesday: Travel to Krakow, Poland, then a 2 hour car drive to the country we're staying at, Mielec (pronounced "Mielets" in English, I have a story regarding the Polish language coming in the second part).
• Thursday: Meetings till 3 pm, then back to hotel, dinner in a nice restaurant at 7 pm.
• Friday: Meetings till 1 pm, then the 2 hour car drive back to Krakow, where we stay at a downtown hotel.
• Saturday: Free day, lots of shopping and a little sight seeing, however, we had to change rooms because of availability issues.
• Sunday: Check-out (from the new room) at 11 am, then roam the streets until 4:30 pm, where the taxi takes us to the airport.
• Monday: Arrive home ~ 3 am.

It was a packed schedule, with lots of bag packing/unpacking, check-ins and check-outs, but we decided we will enjoy it to the max nonetheless, so here goes part one of the story.

My absolutely brilliant ThinkTank Retrospective 5 bag

CAMERA GEAR

When deciding on the camera gear, I knew I wanted to pack light, so my first decision was to just take the tiny, but rather excellent Sony RX100, I knew I'd be mostly shooting landscapes or streets, and hardly any portraits. But then I was worried about the rain, I already have a tiny Lowepro camera pouch for the RX100 with a rain cover, but I wanted to be able to shoot in the rain, which would be something new to me, so I decided to take my splash-proof combo consisting of the Olympus OM-D and the Olympus 12-50mm lens instead, I sort of hate the 12-50 already, it is not as sharp as I like (neither was my 24-105 Canon), but it is splash-proof, and the flexibility of the zoom, especially the wide angle, will be crucial to get the pictures I want. I ended up using it for 70% of the pictures I took in Stockholm.

I tossed in the brilliant Panaleica 25 f/1.4 in the bag for casual shooting, and at the last minute, I also tossed in the tiny Zuiko 45 f/1.8, which almost weighs nothing. Other than my small table-top Slik tripod, a couple of spare batteries and memory cards, I didn't take anything else with me, no flashes, no large tripods, nothing. The camera and the three lenses easily fit inside my brilliant ThinkTank Retrospective 5 bag with lots of room to spare, I have yet to review this bag, but in the meantime, here is one of the reviews that convinced me to get one in the first place, the bag doesn't scream "I am a black plastic-nylon camera bag carrying expensive equipment" like my old Lowepros & Vanguards used to do, instead it looks fashionable, and easily passes as a regular hand bag, which is how I used this bag during the trip, it held my umbrella, travel documents, passport, keys, phone, accessories, wallet, etc...

In a nutshell, it is the best camera bag I ever had. It can be very slim when you're not heavily packing, and it can hold quite an astonishing volume whenever you wish to stuff it. It also has a nice rain cover that I used a couple of times in Stockholm.

Rain cover deployed, sorry for the quality, a very quick snap with my phone

THE FLIGHT & ARRIVAL

My first flight was an easy one, hosted by Lufthansa, it was delayed for almost an hour, and it took me to Frankfurt's airport for a 2 hour transit, which was then reduced to one hour because of the departure delay, fair enough, one hour is a long time to get through the checkpoints and reach the other gate, turns out it's not. First, upon departing the plane, we found three German officers checking the passports of everyone departing the plane, huh? Secondly, for some reason, I was delayed for more than 30 minutes at the passport checkpoint because they couldn't find my fingerprints on the system, I had a friend traveling with me on the same trip, we had been at the Swedish embassy together for the interviews, and they found his fingerprints, anyway, we were taken to the airport police office (imagine that), and were cleared quickly after reviewing our travel documents, talk about first impressions of Germany.

Through plane window, 25 1.4 wide open

The nice thing was that the time difference between Egypt, Germany, Sweden and Poland is zero, I never had to adjust my clock. But, the wacky thing was the sunset times, I remember taking a photo through the plane window on our way to Stockholm at around 10:30pm and there was still sun light in the sky, I checked the sunrise and sunset times in Stockholm when I landed, and it was something like 3:30 am for sunrise, and 10:30 pm for sunset, it was very weird and it threw my balance around, imagine being in the street with full sun light at 9 pm, you don't feel you have to sleep anytime soon.

The plane landed at Arlanda airport, and we took a taxi to the hotel we'll be staying at in a place called Nacka Strand, we arrived at 1:30 am, now if you don't know about modern Swedish architecture, it is quite unique, very modern looking and very utilitarian, the famous IKEA furniture brand is of a Swedish origin, have a look at the hotel's entrance, very beautiful.

25 @ f/1.4, 1/50, ISO 800, hand held

My room enjoyed a spectacular window view.

View from inside, 12-50 @ 12mm, wide open at f/3.5

View from outside, just before sunrise, 2 seconds, f/8, ISO 200 @ 13mm

SWEDEN, STOCKHOLM AND THE ISLANDS

Did you know that Sweden consisted of 221,800 islands? That's a lot of islands, and you can see it clearly from the airplane, water and green forests everywhere, instead of finding desert and sand in Egypt anywhere that is not inhabited, you find green forests (not tropical forests, but densely packed green trees) and water everywhere.

Stockholm itself consists of 14 main islands, if you go to Google Maps, you can see how it looks like. The different nature of the land creates a totally different lifestyle than we're used to in Egypt for example, owning and driving boats is common, you see lots of ferries used for transportation, a lot of buildings in Stockholm enjoy direct sea view, there are more than 30 bridges in Stockholm alone, there are also lots of tunnels, etc... It was quite an interesting place to observe.

After finishing our business meetings on day one, we went on a 2-hour boat trip that took us around the main attractions of Stockholm, this is where I took the most number of pictures, the differences in architecture are massive, it was very hard to tell the identity of architecture in Stockholm, nothing looks like the other, and I observed very different building styles during the 2-hour trip, there are very old buildings, cottage-like cabins, modern buildings, glass-clad buildings, very colorful buildings, deep red brick buildings, etc...

Below I will show you some of my favorite building pictures I took on the boat trip, observe the different building styles.

The other two things that fancied me during the boat trip were the bridges and the flood gates, you already saw my favorite bridge image at the top of the post, I will post it here again in B&W along with another one of my favorites.

 

If you don't know what a flood gate is, it is sort of a controlled sea pathway that's used to support ships and boats moving between two different water levels. During the boat trip, we crossed from a lake to the sea and then back again, both places have a different water level (height), so both times we had to cross through a floodgate, imagine there is a huge wall separating the water on both sides from merging, and there is a pathway in the midst of this wall with two gates, imagine you're coming from the higher water level, you enter through the first gate and you park the boat, there is another gate in front of you that is still closed, next the gate you just got through behind you closes, then the gate in front of you opens slowly, allowing the higher water level in the pathway to go through the exit gate to the lower water level, the boat goes down with the lowering water level (something around 1 meter) until the exit gate is open completely and you're ready to exit to the lower water level. It is a very simple concept that's been used for decades.

The other way around is very similar, except that by opening the gate leading to the higher water level, the boat is raised upwards. Below are a couple of pictures of one of the floodgates we passed through.

Next I will show you some of the scenes I enjoyed capturing during the boat trip.

Drinking Tree, easily one of my favorite shots of the trip

Boat park, these are quite common

Viking Line, see those people standing at the top? That's a huge ship

Typical Swedish Humor (if you haven't watched "The Pirate Bay" movie, I encourage you to)

Sail-less Boat

Stockholm Amusement Park

 

GO-KART STOCKHOLM

I am a speed freak, I like speed, fast cars, fast bikes, racing and everything related, but I never raced (on a track, that is) in anything larger than go-karts, there is that place in Egypt where I am used to racing with my brothers and friends, here is a picture of me racing there:

El Wadi Karting, Ain Sokhna, Egypt - Canon 60D, 35mm f/2 @ 2.5, ISO 800, 1/80 sec

When our very generous and active host asked us where we wanted to go next after the boat trip, I asked him if there was a place where we could race, and he chose gokartstockholm.se, it is an indoor track, 420 meters long, and they have some very good cars, we went there and raced for 7 minutes, which is how long one round takes, I enjoyed myself immensely and tried achieving a quick lap time, but there were 6 other people racing on the same round, and I wasn't able to get except one clean lap, my best lap time was 38.x seconds. When I received the time slip, I saw that best times of the month ranged from 33.x to 35.x seconds, so I decided to play again hoping to improve my time, but alas, there was a long queue waiting and we could only play the next day.

The Pit Lane

Next day, we went there first thing after work, we had the option of playing one round, then if there were no queues we'd be able to reserve again, or instead, we could reserve a 3-round ticket, which is what I went for. So I played 3 consecutive rounds for a total of 21 minutes, and boy, that was a long time, the first round I had the three of my colleagues racing with me on the track, then the next 14 minutes I was all alone trying to get the best time possible. When I finished, I was dizzy, and my hands were all shaky, here is a picture taken of me as I was leaving the car and removing the helmet, it is all blurry, but it represents exactly how I was feeling.

Shaky shaky, Samsung Galaxy S3

So did my lap times get any better? The day before, my best lap time was 38.x seconds, and I was targeting 35.x seconds, however, my best lap time was 36.6 seconds, 0.6 seconds slower than my target, but a full two seconds improvement on my previous day. This lap time got the best time of the day, I was quite proud.

During the two days I drove three different cars, and the last one which got me the 36.6 seconds had the worst rear tires, and the rear-end was sliding more than I would have liked, but I still doubt better tires could easily get me to the 35 second mark. Anyway, the track marshal told me that no regular person could just come in and get a 35.x lap time, you had to be a trained professional to do it, and weigh less than I did, fair enough.

DAY 2, AMUSEMENT PARK

On day 2, after we finished the go-karts, our host invited us to the amusement park, it was packed with teenagers since it was summer vacation, and one of the rare sunny days in Stockholm, the general environment was quite energetic and full with music, game sounds, and loud screams from the youth riding the scary games. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I did like the tall sky ride (not as tall as the Texas one of course), and the different train tracks running all over the place.

Amusement Park, Samsung Galaxy S4

One thing I learned during the trip, is that my phone takes very good pictures in good light, very sharp, very low noise, and very good shadow dynamic range, and it is always in my pocket, more than 20% of the pictures on the trip were taken with my phone, the 13MP sensor in the Galaxy S4 is brilliant.

After we finished playing games, we had dinner (fish and chips) in the park on the seaside, I took a few pictures with the 25mm f/1.4.

Screams, 25 1.4 @ f/6.3, 1/250, ISO 200, this was 9 pm people, 9 pm!

Hanging Lights, 25 1.4 @ f/2.5

LIFE IN STOCKHOLM

This concludes the 2 day activities I had in Stockholm, so how was life like in Stockholm? I really can't tell, I have to spend more time on my own to get a real feeling, however, below are some of my impressions:

• Everybody speaks good English, it makes communication with others a non-issue.
• Life is very costly, the average 10-15 minute taxi trip costs ~ 60 Euros, food is expensive, I went to a few shops and the prices are not cheap.
• The facilities like transportation for example are top notch, when our host wanted to get a taxi, he used an app on his Android phone, it located his whereabouts, then he pushes a button to reserve a taxi, the taxi arrival time is sent (usually less than 3 minutes), and he gets a reservation number.
• The town is very clean and organized, there are no homeless people, you know you are in one of the more expensive places.
• Eating habits are way different than what I'm used to, early breakfast, lunch is strict at 12 pm, a late lunch would start 12:30 pm (for comparison, I usually have my lunch when I return from work, between 6 and 7 pm), and a very heavy dinner around 6 pm.
• I like the English accent of Swedish people a lot, I enjoy listening to them speak English. :-)

I didn't feel there was a certain identity to Stockholm, it looked like a mix of lots of things, and it is unique in that way. Below are some of my favorite street photos I took.

Close to the hotel, taken with the Galaxy S4

Again with the Galaxy S4, we had lunch at the restaurant below, one of the tastiest dish fishes

Ever Green

Stop

Per-Olow, our generous host, 25 1.4 @ f/1.8

It took me more than 8 hours to prepare the pictures and write this post, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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Part Two: The OM-D Visits Poland

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