I recently posted some sample photos from my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 in a thread where somebody was looking for a good portrait lens for taking pictures of their children with available lighting. I noticed that the pictures I posted didn't look quite right (slightly desaturated and the colors were off), and that's when I learned they needed to be converted to sRGB for viewing on the web. (Thanks jstevewhite for your help with that, and I've rep'd you!) I've now gone through and converted them, and am now reposting them in case they can help anybody else looking for a good, inexpensive zoom lens.
Most of these pictures were taken on my Pentax K-x, but there's a few that were taken with a Pentax K100D and a Samsung GX-1S (which I'm currently selling on eBay).
All of the pictures were taken with my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, which I bought used on eBay from Japan a little more than a year ago for around $300. The vast majority of the pictures were taken at f/2.8 with available lighting (no flash), but I've also included a couple shots from my home studio (one high key, one low key). Except for adding some vignetting on a couple of the photos, these images have not had anything done to them, other than the normal exposure/saturation adjustments made while developing in Adobe RAW.
For anybody looking for a good portrait or all-purpose lens that won't break the bank, I can't recommend this Tamron highly enough. Constant f/2.8 aperture, sharp across the frame at f/2.8, and ridiculously sharp when stopped down, with no noticeable vignetting or distortions. And since it will focus within a few inches of the front element, it's even good for some quasi-macro work. And best of all, they often go on eBay for around $300 used.
If you're inclined to pixel-peeping, I'll also be posting links to a couple of the full-size 12MP images in few minutes.
Last edited by Edgar_in_Indy; 05-28-2011 at 08:09 AM.