Tamron
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Tamron’s 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD is one of the bestselling lenses in the market, with a compelling combination of fast constant aperture, weather-resistant design and an impressive autofocus and optical performance. Photography News editor Will Cheung took it out for a pre-lockdown shoot to the Yorkshire Dales, with landscape and waterfalls very much in his sights SETTING THE STANDARD
F or most photographers, a high-quality standard zoom is their workhorse, called upon to deliver outstanding performance in a wide range of situations. Designed specifically for Sony E-mount cameras, Tamron’s 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD has all the qualities demanding workers expect from a leading standard zoom, and it comes in a compact body form. The lens’s focal length ranges fromwide-
angle to short telephoto is extremely versatile – suitable for all sorts of subject matter, from interiors and close-ups to landscapes and portraits. Its fast f/2.8 maximum aperture is constant throughout the lens’s range, which helps you shoot at camera-shake defeating shutter speeds even when the light is less than ideal. For a constant fast aperture standard zoom, the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD is compact and very
nicely balanced, not front-end heavy, as can be a characteristic of this lens type. It suited the Sony A7R IV full-frame model very nicely indeed for handheld shooting and is a combination that you can carry around all day without exhausting yourself. That’s evenmore important when the aim is to do some walking and shoot some scenic views, because I was going to shoot on a tripod tomaximise the optical skills on my 61-megapixel resolution camera.
Speaking of its optical skills, this Tamron lens sports a cutting-edge construction. Out of its 15 individual lens elements, five of them are aspherical or low dispersion tomake the most of fine detail within a scene and tominimise optical aberrations, plus Tamron’s BBAR (Broad-Band Anti Reflection) coating does a great job of defeating flare and ghosting.
Of course, an advanced optical design counts for nought if the lens’s autofocus system is not up to scratch. Tamron’s RXD (Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive) is used to give a precision, whisper-quiet performance, making it ideal for video as well as still image making. The AF system certainly meshed expertly with the Sony A7R IV, which probably has the most advanced AF system currently available, proving to be sensitive and impressively sure- footed with the camera’s eye/face detection features. I was very pleased to see that Tamron’s standard zoomhas weatherproofing on its long list of features. Withmy plan of shooting “Its smooth performance meant that it just integrated into the picture- takingworkflow”
LEFT This composition was made at Aysgarth Falls with the lens set to 43mmand f/7.1. The camera’sAF point was placed on the rock, and with somuch water in the falls after a very wet early spring, even amoderately slow shutter speed of 1/3secmeant there was plenty of blur within the scene – very impressive.
8 Photography News | Issue 76
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