Originally posted by Nicolas06 If you search for it, you should be able to find the tarmon used for even lenss than 600€ maybe not right now, but search for it for sometime and you should find for something like 450€. That already less than half the price of the 70-200 f/4. I seen a few advertisement for it over time. It should not be too difficult.
The reason I want to get the Tamron new is, as far as I've heard differences from lens to lens might vary quite strongly so I want to have the option to return the lens if it may be misaligned. Also the warranty only extends to the first owner so this is an added bonus.
Originally posted by Nicolas06 The alternative is a 70-300 or a 55-300. This can go as low as 80-150€ used and quite capable lenses. The issue would be that theses lenses need to be closed down to f/8 to really deliver and would still perform worse than the tamron at f/2.8.
I tried the 55-300 and didn't like it, too plasticky. Also at 300mm IQ wasn't on par with my K200/4 cropped.
Originally posted by Nicolas06 If the size/weight is not an issue for you, that tamron is a very great investment. You could compliment it with a 17-50 for 300€ (or 200€ used) at some point and get a complete and very capable setup.
That's pretty much the plan :-) Add a HD 1.4x TC and the only thing left is UWA before the really really expensive long lenses to start looking attractive.
Originally posted by Nicolas06 As for wider apperture lenses performing better, this is not always true. Some f/1.2 lenses (that cost more than 1000€) don't perform as well as some f/1.8 that cost 300€. Some slow lenses like the DA16-85 or DFA 28-105 are all around as sharp as their f/2.8 counterpart but significantly smaller/lighter.
Ok the f1.2 might be an extreme case, but here the interest really lies in the f1.2. The brand's own lenses are always more expensive than third party additions if only for build quality or WR. What I would like to see would be a Tamron 70-200 f4 priced below the f2.8. Let's say at 450 :-)
That's at least what I thought of when speculating that f4 lenses might be uneconomical for certain manufacturers.