Originally posted by timw4mail 17mm? That lens must be pretty rare.
It's not that rare although I don't think there's tons of them around. Came in two flavors. I like the size of the lens itself, it's nice to focus, and seems pretty well made. For some reason they didn't cut filter threads into the end of the barrel so filters screw into the hood. The hood is really large in diameter but fairly shallow so I'm not sure how good it really is at being a hood. The hood is held on with set screws. They're harder to find than the lens itself. So it's kind of a mixed bag. It also doesn't do starbursts all that well although they aren't horrible.
Overall I prefer this lens to my Samyang 14mm f2.8 due to size and weight. They're both pretty nice to have in my collection. Tokina made a 17mm f3.5 around the same time as Tamron although it doesn't seem quite as good from an IQ standpoint. It probably handles a bit nicer due to a slightly better hood & filters situation.