Photography News 74

First test

PRICE: £399

TAMRON.EU

This prime has a good feature list for travel, street and general photography, so should Sony shooters pick it up? Tamron 35mm f/2.8 Di III OSD M1:2

SPECS

› Format Full-frame › Mount Sony E › Construction 9 elements in 8 groups › Special lens elements 1x LD (low-dispersion) and 1x GM (glass moulded aspherical) › Coatings BBAR (Broad-Band Anti-Reflection) and fluorine › Filter size 67mm › Aperture range f/2.8-f/22 › Diaphragm 7-blade rounded design › Internal focus No › Manual focus Yes › Min. focus 15cm › Focus limiter No › Angle of view 63°26' › Distance scale No › Depth-of-field scale No › Image stabiliser No › Tripod collar No › Lens hood Yes, cap type › Weather-sealed Yes › Dimensions (lxd) 64x73mm › Weight 210g › Contact tamron.eu

so along with the small size, this is a very portable lens, and a good one if you need a pocket-friendly camera- and-lens combo. The barrel is made of smooth plastic, but it has a metal lens mount for durability. It also has a moisture-resistant construction, so it should take some rain or humidity, and certainly appeared to hold up to some rain in the time I was using it. The front element is fluorine coated so cleaning water and finger grease is easier, too. There are no switches on the barrel, and no measurements, just a manual focus ring. The AF speed is okay, though not brisk by any means. It took over one second to rack from near to far, and often jumps indecisively on the subject before settling, especially in low light. But it performed well with the A7R III’s eye-tracking AF, picking up an advancing subject around four out of five times, and without fail if they were stacking or moving laterally. Despite an Optimised Silent Drive motor which suggests silence, it’s not that quiet. Well, the motor is, but there’s an obvious click as the construction moves to find focus, so if you’re planning to use it alongside the Sony A bodies’ silent shooting, wherein the electronic shutter makes photography a lot less noticeable, be aware it will counter that.

This prime is part of a trio recently launched by Tamron for Sony E-mount full-frame mirrorless cameras, and we tested one with a Sony A7R III. With a 35mm prime you get a walk-around lens that’s slightly wider than standard, but still similar to the human eye in perspective. It therefore captures subjects relative to their environment for a more natural, documentary look than wide-angle or telephoto lens allows. The f/2.8 maximum aperture of the 35mm f/2.8 Di III OSD M1:2 isn’t the widest at this focal length, but it’s handy enough in terms of light gathering and subject separation to be useful, particularly in low light. Perhaps the lens’s most notable feature is its close focusing. The M1:2 designation in the name means you’ll get half life-size reproduction at the closest setting of 15cm, so while not true macro, it’s very handy for small, detailed scenes like food, still-life, small products, textures and small flora or fungi. The lens comes with a cap-type hood and this ‘letterbox’ design means it can’t be reversed, but it doesn’t obstruct the manual focus ring, or add much to the size, so you can leave it on all the time. 67mm filters can still be fitted as it has its own screw thread. Weight is very low,

There’s some vignetting, but nothing serious, and it disappears between f/5.6 and f/8. Fringing was only visible in the corners, and very minor, while flare was also well controlled by the Broad-Band Anti- Reflection coating, giving a high- contrast image in all but the most heavily backlit situations. KS

During testing, I preferred to focus manually, aided by the camera’s focus peaking and magnified views. The manual focus ring is non-linear, so adjustment can feel less ‘connected’ than a mechanical ring, but I found it still proved accurate, especially because the throw is long. Of course, while it adds accuracy, a long throw costs in speed. It took me 12 turns of the ring to go from near to far, and even from a focusing distance of 30cm to the minimum 15cm takes about three turns. When it came to image sharpness in our test, the Tamron 35mm f/2.8

Di III OSD M1:2 performed very well indeed. Shooting at the maximum f/2.8 there’s very good sharpness in the centre and edges. This improves, but only slightly to about f/5.6, where centre and edge sharpness were best. After f/11, results slowly tailed off, but were still very usable, even at f/22 where there is some minor diffraction. Our tests showed minor distortion, only visible when switching on the A7R III’s Lens Compensation feature, and comparing the uncorrected Raws to the JPEGs. We saw no significant loss of view in the corrected image, so the 35mm framing stays true.

Our thanks to Hire a Camera for the loan of the Sony A7R III used in this review hireacamera.com

Verdict If you’re after a small, light prime for your Sony full-frame body, you could do a lot worse than the Tamron 35mm f/2.8 Di III OSDM1:2. It’s not the fastest lens in aperture or AF speed, but it has excellent sharpness and close focusing abilities on its side, as well as weather sealing; and all at a pretty attractive sub £400.

ON TEST

F/4

F/5.6

F/8

F/11

This Tamron lens delivered a fine optical performance even wide open with f/5.6 being the best aperture

F/2.8

F/16

F/22

PROS Size, weight, price, sharpness CONS AF not all that fast or silent

54 Photography News | Issue 74

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