I love wide angles.
When it comes to portraits, events etc I like to ‘keep it real yo’ and use a focal length closer to the human eye (35mm to 85mm, say. The human eye is somewhere around a 45mm field of view). When I’m making landscape images, though, I’m all about that wide angle. I want to create something that your eyes cannot normally see, be it a panorama, long exposure, whatever it is, and part of that is using a wide angle lens to see the world from a perspective that our eyes cannot stretch to.
16mm image. Love that broad sweep of the scene and the epic feel it creates.
This post is partly me going on about wide angles, but also a look at the new Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8 lens for the Sony E mount system. At an eminently reasonable $899, it’s a huuuuuge chunk cheaper than my previous wide angle stalwart, the Sony 16-35 2.8 GM, which comes in at a colossal $2,198.
That’s quite a difference.
The Tamron is also significantly lighter and smaller than the Sony. I’ll admit, I’ve been a little sceptical of concerns over lens weight in the past, and I still believe that if your camera gear is heavy enough to injure you, that’s a problem with your movement and strength, not the gear. That said, the sheer heftiness of the Sony 16-35 just became less than fun to carry around, and that was making me less likely to take it anywhere that involved walking.
Here’s a comparison from cameralabs.com. The Sony lens on its own is almost as big as the Tamron mounted on a full frame camera, which is bonkers.
Surely there’s a stark difference in quality though, given the difference in price? Well… not really.
This is actually one of my favourite images that I’ve made, and the Tamron doesn’t let it down at any point. The colour rendition, the sharpness across the frame, the micro-contrast that give it that ‘punch’, it’s just a brilliant lens and I’m super excited about it.
I can understand some people not liking the shorter range of focal lengths (17-28) compared to a standard 16-35 wide angle zoom, but that makes no difference to me. The change from 16mm to 17mm is minute, and I’ve found that I almost never go above 20mm for landscapes anyway, so I don’t need that 35mm end on my wide angle lens. If I’m going closer than 20mm, I’m going to be using my Tamron 28-75, which is better suited to what you might call documentary style images.
This was made with the Sony 24mm 1.4, an unquestionably fantastic lens. But I ended up trading it in because I just don’t like the 24mm focal length - it feels too close for anything wide, and too wide for anything close! It’s all about knowing what feels natural to you, and that takes a bit of experimentation.
Anyway, I’m very happy I went for the Tamron as my wide angle choice. I’m excited to see the images I can make with it this autumn and winter!