Tamron’s new 16-50mm isn’t perfect but offers a great combination of flexibility and price
Hot on the heels of Sigma’s 50-120mm F2.8 OS: a compact, fast, affordable tele option for APS-C shooters comes the Tamron 16-50mm F2.8 A, a similarly fast, even smaller, more affordable standard zoom that will make most APS-C cameras better.
We’ve been shooting with the Tamron for a week or so and have come to really appreciate its combination of range, speed, size and price. It’s not a match for the best own-brand F2.8 zooms, several of which cover a slightly longer 16-55 range and may include stabilization. But it’s also appreciably cheaper than any of those lenses.
Extending out to 16mm, even on a Canon body, where that only gives a 25.6mm equivalent field of view, makes the Tamron more flexible than the similarly-priced Sigma 18-50mm.
It’s approximately 5mm longer than Sigma’s 18-50mm F2.8, and is available for more of the common APS-C lens mounts, in that Nikon has licensed the production of a Z-mount version, in addition to Sony E, Canon RF and Fujifilm X.
It features an internal focus design powered by a voice coil motor, which seems to perform quickly and silently. We’re not out trying to shoot sports with a standard zoom, but there’s no obvious lag or slowness when compared with an own-brand lens on the Canon EOS R7.
Distortion has been corrected on this image but vignetting hasn’t. Stopped-down versions of this image appear in the gallery, letting you see how this vignetting cleans up.
There’s some barrel distortion at the wide end and some pincussion and the long end, both of which are corrected by profile, neither of which is particularly extreme but both of which are worth correcting. There’s little obvious image degradation in the corners to doing so.
Vignetting, especially at F2.8 and wide focal lengths, is recognizably present, though again you can correct this using the built-in profile. Correcting the distortion pushes the worst of the vignetting out of the frame and, depending on your subject, you may prefer to leave it uncorrected.
We’d generally suggest a prime lens for portraiture, but the 50mm @ F2.8 is definitely a step up, compared with the standard APS-C kit zoom
An F2.8 standard zoom is never going to be a bokeh monster, and you’ll need to think in terms of close subjects and distant backgrounds if you want very shallow depth-of-field, but the bokeh itself doesn’t seem too complex, fussy or distracting.
This shot, taken near minimum focus distance, shows the bokeh to be relatively smooth and pleasant, if you can get good subject-to-background separation
Close focus distance ranges from 15cm (6″) at the wide end to 29cm (11.5″) at the 50mm end, with a maximum magnification ratio that doesn’t stray too far from a relatively modest 1:4.5. Corner performance and vignetting are much more of an issue at these closest focus distances, particularly at the wide end of the lens. So, given the maximum reproduction ratio isn’t much lower (1:4.8) and the sharpness and brightness are more consistent, we’d suggest using the long end of the lens when you want to focus close. This also has the advantage of a minimum object distance that’s further from the front of the lens.
16mm shot at around minimum focus distance
50mm shot at around minimum focus distance
The 16-50mm isn’t optically perfect, with it sharpening up distinctly as you stop down towards F5.0. But even then, the differences are small enough that you’ll typically only notice when comparing two images side-by-side at extreme close-up.
Corner detail holds up well, even after distortion correction.
As a day-to-day lens it’s a significant step up from most kit zooms, and gives a little more creative flexibility, thanks to its wider maximum aperture. F2.8 is two stops brighter than the typical F5.6 end of a kit zoom, which is a benefit you’ll notice.
It’s not necessarily going to open up new worlds of photography for APS-C owners (adding a fast prime lens in your preferred focal length may have more impact, in that regard). And it’s not likely to have too many own-brand F2.8 zoom owners kicking themselves at not waiting for its arrival. But as a small, sensibly-priced everyday and travel option, it’s probably going to make more impact for most APS-C users than upgrading their camera body will.
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