Replacing Tamron 17-50mm with Canon 17-50mm IS?

[GarethH]

I've had a 17-50mm Tamron 2.8 lens for almost a year now. Originally I wanted the 17-50mm IS from Canon but my budget was too small at the time.

Do you think the upgrade is worth it? How much is my Tamron worth?

[Nana]

I haven't used the Tamron but I've just go the 17-55 IS and I love it. It's majorly sharp and I can hand hold in some instances down to an 1/8 th. :D

Tamron's meant to be good but the things against it are that it's noisy, needs a fair bit of contrast to get good AF, not good bokeh, and not IS so if you shoot indoors a lot or in bad light you'll miss getting a sharp shot.

The good things are that the Tamron's relatively cheap, F2.8, for the most part you're likely to get a good copy, it's usually fairly sharp and it's probably lighter to carry round.

I chose the Canon because I do a lot of family portraits, indoor shooting, I wanted a very sharp lens, good colour, decent bokeh and accurate AF with F2.8.
Apart from the odd dust scare they seem to be one of the better quality controlled lenses which is again important to me. I wanted a lens that would be good for outdoor shooting in bad light in the winter, and I'm not much for tripods on the whole.
From everything I've read the Canon was the better choice for me.

[Tastydirt]

I have the Tamron and I do really like the lens, although I'm a Nikon user so I can't comment on the 17-55IS.

I find the AF to be very fast and very accurate on it (faster than some of my AF-S lenses), and it's only noisy if it hunts - which I don't find it doing that often.

The bokeh isn't that great on it, it especially doesn't like really busy backgrounds (think tree branches), but on simplier ones it's quite good although still not fantastic:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/211/464934383_7d248dc719.jpg

I don't find myself thinking I wish I had VR/IS on this lens too much, even when it's getting farily dark, although I do have a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 which I use when the light's getting really low so I suppose I haven't pushed it that much.

I suppose the only advantages you may find with the Canon is better Bokeh and IS. Although for me, even if the Nikon 17-55mm had VR and was half it's £1100 RRP, I'd still wouldn't buy it just because the Tamron is so small and offers so much. My camera bag is heavy enough!

[GarethH]

I never understood why people complained about the motor nosie on the Tamron. I love mine. I would def say that my Tamron produces slightly warmer images than I like. I tend to find my Canon 17-200 F4 and little bit richer on photos, but its an L lens so. The same goes for my Tamron Macro 90mm, with its excellent colour definition.

I really just want the best lenses, so thats the only reason I want the 17-55mm lol.

Thats a lovely shot btw!

[Radiohead]

Do you think the upgrade is worth it? How much is my Tamron worth?

If you find yourself shooting a low shutter speeds a lot where IS would help then yes, otherwise no.

If you do sell the Tammy I might be interested.

[RobDickinson]

Me too, looking for a tamron 17-50 myself..

[rick67]

No, it's not worth the "upgrade"...the Tamron's about as sharp a lens as you can get. Pointless upgrade-itis...

[RobDickinson]

Tamron is old & soft, IS rulez, get the canon, I'll help you out with a few quid for the old one.

[pauls2]

Tamron is old & soft, IS rulez, get the canon, I'll help you out with a few quid for the old one.

:lol:

ps - I love my Tamron 17-50. Managed to put it to use at Bletchley Park all day and very pleased with the results.

[ps2user]

Never had the tamron 17-50 but had the tamron 28-75 f/2.8 and was happy with it for the price. As mentioned did find that the AF motor noisy and a bit slow - hunted a lot in low light (this was with the 350D and 20D using the center af point) I upgraded to the 17-55 IS and found on a crop camera this was better due to being 17mm instead of 28 but found the USM motor to be much quicker in focusing and IS helps with low shutter speeds.

I think you need to decide if you really want IS, USM motor and of course if you got the dosh to pay for the additional features :) or use your hard earned cash and buy a different lens to compliment your tamron?

You can always pop into a local jessops if you have one nearby and try out the lens to see if there is any differnece.