| Review of: Tamron Di LD Macro 70-200mm F2.8 by Stoogie on Tue September 16, 2014 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
Views: 330011
Reviews: 87
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This lens is, without a doubt, my favourite telephoto zoom I've had the pleasure to use. I rented the 50-135 before I bought this, and found it to have better colours and arguably more pleasing backgrounds (and also it feels like it's less than half the size), but I found it to be slow as molasses to focus. The Tamron is a heck of a lot louder, but it focuses quickly and accurately on the K-3. The lack of a tripod collar on the 50-135 is also an annoyance (I like to shoot on a monopod, and the tripod collar makes it really easy to switch from landscape to portrait). The Tamron also has a shorter minimum focusing distance, which really appealed to me given my love for getting right up close and personal with my subjects while using a telephoto. IQ is pretty stellar; good wide open and nearly unbelievable at f4.
The only real complaint I have with the lens is the manual focus clutch system the Tamron implements, which is an ergonomic nightmare. To change from auto focus to manual, you have to not only flick the switch on the body, but also grab the focusing ring on the lens and pull it back. This two-step process might be forgivable, but the clutch mechanism is sometimes tricky, and it can take a little finesse to get it to disengage, which slows the whole process to a crawl. Even worse, disengaging the clutch moves the focus, so you have to start from scratch focusing. That being said, I'm sure that with practice the process will get easier, but every time I go through it I appreciate quick shift a little more.
Overall this lens is just about perfect for a budget 70-200. Silent focusing would be nice to have in some scenarios, but for the most part the screw drive is fine, and as I said it's fast and accurate. The manual focus clutch really sucks, there's no point sugar coating it, and I have to wonder why it was engineered that way, but other than that one sticky point I'd have no issues recommending this lens to anyone.
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| Review of: Sigma / Carl Zeiss Jena (AF and MF) IF MC multic 400mm F5.6 by Stoogie on Wed December 4, 2013 | Rating: 6 | View more reviews | |
Views: 82873
Reviews: 7
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I had both this lens and the Pentax FA 80-320, and I found that in just about every situation, the Pentax lens produced better results. Shooting wide open with the sigma produced absolutely horrendous fringing, and a pretty soft image. It sharpened up a bit when stopped down, but the fringing was still just atrocious. So bad that I sold the lens as soon as I could.
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| Review of: Sigma APO DG Macro 70-300mm F4-5.6 by Stoogie on Tue August 20, 2013 | Rating: 7 | View more reviews | |
Views: 197918
Reviews: 43
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This lens is overall decent. Decent sharpness (from about 70-250mm) Decent IQ (when stopped down), decent bokeh and autofocus (though the lens feels like it's knocking the camera around when it hunts, which it doesn't do as often as you would think). My favourite point about this camera is actually that it's quite nice to focus manually. That and the price. For what you pay, if you don't need pro quality IQ and are looking for longer focal lengths, this lens is a winner. The 1:2 macro is nice to have as well, it's enough for larger insects like dragonflies and butterflies, and the working distance is pretty good as well.
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| Review of: Ricoh XR Rikenon 50mm F2 by Stoogie on Fri August 16, 2013 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
Views: 87864
Reviews: 20
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I got this lens in a thrift store package with a makinon 135mm f/2.8 which was utter crap, an old Ricoh film body, grip, a vivitar flash, and a hard case. I paid $40 for everything, but the only thing I still use is the Ricoh 50mm. (The 135mm became a set of DIY extension tubes, since I found that the image quality was better with no glass in it)
As much as I hate to say it, every time I reach for my Pentax M 50mm f/1.4 I find myself grabbing this lens instead. It's certainly slower, and the manual focus feels nowhere near as nice, but there's just something special about the images it produces. It's not, in my experience, necessarily sharper than any other 50mm I've used, but it does have some kind of esoteric, almost magical quality to it's colours :o
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| Review of: Tamron SP AF XR LD Aspherical IF Di II 17-50mm F2.8 by Stoogie on Thu January 10, 2013 | Rating: 8 | View more reviews | |
Views: 323391
Reviews: 90
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Since I got this lens, I've pretty much not taken it off my camera. The IQ is FANTASTIC (yes, it deserves to be in caps), bokeh is good, fast constant aperture is wonderful, and the autofocus is deceptively quick. Unfortunately, the AF accuracy isn't great, and at least with my copy I needed to use AF adjustment in order to get halfway decent results. Further, my copy of the lens seems to need about a -15 AF adjustment, and I can only go down to -10, so I'll probably be sending my copy in for readjustment/repair. I'm not too upset though, because other than the AF, this is pretty much a perfect lens, especially considering the price. I'd recommend testing a few copies before you buy and taking the one that needs the least amount of AF adjustment on your body though. If it weren't for the AF issues I would have given it a 9.5 (if I could).
Edit: Having bought the Pentax 16-50mm, I've been forced to reconsider this review. The sharpness score still stands, but other than that I've found the Pentax to be vastly superior in terms of colour, contrast, bokeh, overall rendering, and handling. The Tamron still wins for sharpness and value though.
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| Review of: 2x Macro Focusing Teleconverter: Vivitar, KAX, Telemore...et al by Stoogie on Tue October 30, 2012 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
Views: 61270
Reviews: 21
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I recently picked one of these up, to use with my M 50mm f/1.4. I had been using extension tubes before, and I was getting fed up with the extremely close MFD. When I shoot macro, it's mostly of live bugs, and always out in the field, so more often than not, if my subject was at all skittish, I wouldn't get the shot. The main reason that I wanted this teleconverter was for the increase in MFD over using just tubes, and I couldn't be happier. With the lens I use, I don't notice much in the way of negative effects, except for a bit of reduced contrast in some situations, which is easy to fix with post processing. I have tried it with a few other lenses and the results were somewhat less impressive, but you can't really expect a teleconverter to improve the performance of a lens.
One thing I didn't care much about before I bought it, but have come to really appreciate in the short time that I've had it, is the ability to change magnification without removing your lens and either adding or subtracting sections of tube. Being able to change your focusing distance, and even focus to infinity if you have to is great!
I did notice on my copy that the infinity position is a bit out, so if I just set it to infinity, I'll get out of focus shots.
Overall, I would highly recommend this teleconverter to anyone who likes macro, but wants to keep a bit more space between them and their subject, and maybe most importantly, has a good quality prime lens to pair it with. It's a great gadget, but it's definitely only as good as the lens you use it with.
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