Tamron SP 17mm f3.5 Adaptall - Sample Pictures

It has been a while since I last used the Tamron Adaptall 17mm f3.5, so I decided to take a walk during my lunch hour, instead of my normal bike ride. The 17mm lens is an ultrawide angle on full frame, but on NEX-6, it's not that wide, at roughly 26mm. Still, it's wide enough for most wide angle needs. Anything wider than 24mm (35mm equivalent) tends to be difficult to compose, as the lens sucks in so much visual information.

As far as ultrawide angle goes, the Tarmon SP 17mm f3.5 performs quite well, at least on the NEX-6. Adam said that it didn't work quite as well on the NEX-7, so I guess the sensor density has quite an affect on the optics. I tried a different copy of this lens on the 5D classic and the image quality was quite good. Perhaps I should give it a go on my 5D II and see how it compares to the NEX.

Lenses this wide tend to have problems with distortion and edge sharpness; even the Zeiss Distagon 21mm f2.8, regarded as one of the best wide angle lenses, has distortion issues, though it's sharp as heck. I find the Tamron 17mm f3.5 is well controlled on the distortion front, if the camera/lens is not tilted, but it's still very hard to keep lines straight.

In all, a nice lens that still performs well with most digital cameras. You may want to reconsider if you have a high density sensor like the NEX-7, or D800.

All pictures below were taken with the Sony NEX-6 and Tamron SP 17mm f3.5 Adaptall.