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Tamron AF 17-50mm f/2.8 SP XR Di II LD Aspherical [IF] (Canon) - Review / Test Report - Analysis |
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Lens Reviews -
Canon EOS (APS-C)
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Page 2 of 3
Distortion
The AF 17-50mm f/2.8 SP XR exhibited average distortion figures for a lens in
this class. As expected there is pronounced barrel distortion (2.5%)
at 17mm which even out around the 24mm setting. Beyond the images show a moderate
degree of pincushion distortion (0.84% @ 50mm).
17mm:
24mm:
35mm:
50mm:
The chart above has a real-world size of about 120x80cm.
Vignetting
The AF 17-50mm f/2.8 SP XR is a reduced image circle lens and these lenses tend to
produce higher vignetting figures. The lens is no exception to the rule but the
issue remains relatively well under control. At f/2.8 the lens shows pronounced
vignetting of 1EV at 17mm, 0.9EV at 50mm and a little less in between. When looking
towards the competition this is comparatively moderate.
Stopping down helps to reduce the problem and from f/4 and up it shouldn't be field
relevant anymore.
MTF (resolution)
Many dedicated APS-C lenses suffer from performance problems towards the corners
of the image field but, surprisingly, the Tamron AF 17-50mm f/2.8 SP XR is one of the
few lenses that which are capable to break this trend - at least within its
focus plane (more on this later).
At 17mm the lens was even able to reach some of the highest measured LW/PH
values ever tested in the center of the image (@ f/4). Even wide open
the quality is already very good. At 24mm the quality remains basically on the
same high level. At 35mm and 50mm there's a really marginal decrease in center
performance whereas the border quality remains exceptionally high.
On the downside the extreme corners showed a very strong degree of field curvature
at 17mm and a little less so at 24mm. This means that the focus plane isn't flat
but it bends towards to corners.
As a consequence you will end with out-of-focus corners when shooting
flat or very deep objects at large aperture settings (see the 17mm f/2.8 sample shot below).
The problem will be reduced when stopping down thus increasing the depth-of-field around
the curved focus plane.
Please note that the MTF results are not directly comparable across the different systems!
Below is a simplified summary of the formal findings. The chart shows line widths per picture height (LW/PH) which can be taken as a measure for sharpness.
If you want to know more about the MTF50 figures you may check out the corresponding Imatest Explanations
Chromatic Aberrations (CAs)
Chromatic aberrations (color shadows at harsh contrast transitions) are relatively well
controlled except at 17mm at large aperture settings where the issue is very pronounced
with a peak of 2px on the average at the image borders. Stopping down reduces the issue
but you will need to stop down to f/8 in order to suppress the problem to uncritical
level. At the other focal lengths CAs are a far lesser problem. Please note that CAs
can be quite easily corrected in most modern RAW converters or via tool support.
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