Yet another "spec me a lens"

Creepy Nick · 2 Dec 2014 at 13:30

I recently sold my old Canon 550D along with the 18-55 kit lens that came with it, so i'm looking to replace it.

Budget is limited to around £150-£200 (A second hand lens is fine with me!)
Wide angle is a must and manual focus is a must.

Looking at Canon 17-85 mm f/4.0-5.6 Lens, but f/4.0 puts me off a little.

CGrieves · 2 Dec 2014 at 13:55

Creepy Nick said:
I recently sold my old Canon 550D along with the 18-55 kit lens that came with it, so i'm looking to replace it.

Budget is limited to around £150-£200 (A second hand lens is fine with me!)
Wide angle is a must and manual override is a must.

Looking at Canon 17-85 mm f/4.0-5.6 Lens, but f/4.0 puts me off a little.

Easy. Tamron 17-50 f2.8 XR Di II.

You can select manual focus via a switch, but there's no FTM (i.e. grab and change focus with autofocus enabled).

EDIT: Sorry, might have misunderstood, are you looking for just a lens, or a lens+body?

Creepy Nick · 2 Dec 2014 at 14:25

CGrieves said:
Easy. Tamron 17-50 f2.8 XR Di II.

You can select manual focus via a switch, but there's no FTM (i.e. grab and change focus with autofocus enabled).

EDIT: Sorry, might have misunderstood, are you looking for just a lens, or a lens+body?

I should have clarified this, just the lens as i bought a 7D

a1ex2001 · 2 Dec 2014 at 16:53

Sigma 17-70mm will come in budget it's a great lens for the money or as has ben said if you want something faster the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 is hard to beat for the money.

Creepy Nick · 3 Dec 2014 at 22:09

Although the Tamron 17-50 looks appealing, the alternate zoom direction looks...like a annoyance! also I watched a review complaining about the softness of this lens (Image stabilized version)

CGrieves · 3 Dec 2014 at 23:44

Yeah the optics on the non-VC version are demonstrably better. The zoom direction never really bothered me, but mileage may vary!

a1ex2001 · 4 Dec 2014 at 01:07

I can honestly say I never even noticed the zoom worked the other way when I had a tamron lens, in fact I didn't realise until your post they did!

There is a lot of rubbish spouted about the sharpness of the vc version of the tamron lens, it is a good lens with a decent level of sharpness the trouble is the non vc version is an outstanding performer and is stupidly cheap for the performance which has lead to the vc version being very harshly judged in comparison.

CGrieves · 4 Dec 2014 at 10:31

a1ex2001 said:
I can honestly say I never even noticed the zoom worked the other way when I had a tamron lens, in fact I didn't realise until your post they did!

There is a lot of rubbish spouted about the sharpness of the vc version of the tamron lens, it is a good lens with a decent level of sharpness the trouble is the non vc version is an outstanding performer and is stupidly cheap for the performance which has lead to the vc version being very harshly judged in comparison.

There's a comparison here. In real world use you're not going to disappointed with the VC version, but there is a difference, particularly in the corners.

Also if you're going to be doing hand-held low-light shots of static subjects, the VC version will obviously give you a better percentage of usable shots.

Creepy Nick · 4 Dec 2014 at 23:29

a1ex2001 said:
I can honestly say I never even noticed the zoom worked the other way when I had a tamron lens, in fact I didn't realise until your post they did!

There is a lot of rubbish spouted about the sharpness of the vc version of the tamron lens, it is a good lens with a decent level of sharpness the trouble is the non vc version is an outstanding performer and is stupidly cheap for the performance which has lead to the vc version being very harshly judged in comparison.

I noticed after looking it up, after using cannon lenses for a few years, I think this would annoy me when i'm switching between the Tamron and canon lenses.

I'm looking more towards the Sigma 17-50mm 2.8 OS even though its a stretch of budget, and if I can be lucky enough to find one for around £200.