Canon or Tamron

Thanks to a good friend, I was given a superb set of Tamron lenses to go with my 350D body - 28 to 80mm and 70 to 300mm, and each is superb. For their price, and considering I have used Canon lenses on another camera, I can't really find a visual comparison of one better manufacturer than the other.

Few lenses are so bad that you'll notice much visually (except the canon kit lens!).

Here's a few experiments if you have lenses to compare:
1. take a picture of a branchy tree against the sky (preferably whiteish sky). In your software of choice blow up the tree to full resolution. You should just see the sharp small branches of the tree. What you may see is a blue glow around the branches.

2. Repeat the above but go through all the f stops. Compare the images and see which is best. Even with perfect focus you'll probably find that some shots are 'softer' (looks like the focus could be a little sharper) than others. This is handy to find the sweet spot of your lens. Its usually somewhere near f8 (or always is for me anyway). Then rather than using the P mode for you snaps use Av and set it to this f number.

3. Repeat 2 but across the focal range. This will show how well the lens performs at different lengths. Its harder to compare wide and telephoto images, but you should still be able to see if there is any softness.

Interesting tips Al, thanks for those.

btw www.photozone.de/8Reviews/index.html is a pretty good review site for lenses.

That's a big difference in price. The L glass is going to be top quality and this can pay off for use elsewhere. Tokina lenses really vary a lot in quality. Best thing to do is to read as many reviews as possible or ask at one of the photo forums (e.g. www.eos-forums.com/ ).

For sharpest pictures, most low and mid priced lenses perform best stopped down a bit. For long, guided exposures, having a very fast lens doesn't really matter while optical quality does.

That said, I'd second the 50mm f1.8 Mk. 1 (older, best, hard to find) or Mk 2 (nearly as sharp as L glass, rediculously cheap and plentiful). Another option is the F1.4.

I'd finally say that having wide angle lens of 50mm or less is going to show a lot of sky!

I spent ages trying to decide between that lens and the Sigma 17-70 and the 24-70mm f2.8. Went for the Sigma in the end due to it's longer reach and fantastic reviews. So I can second Albert's suggestion, it's quite a nice lens.

The downside is that it's not as wide at longer focal lengths, but I generally use a 50mm f1.8 for that, which is a really fast, really sharp and really cheap lens.

Trev

I have the Canon ef 24-70mm f2.8 'L' Superb lens, but I have no experience of the Tamron's...

Keith.