| | |  | Sports and Outdoors | Home » » Tamron AF 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di-II LD SP Aspherical (IF) Zoom Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras | | | | | | | Description: | | L1) 17-50MM F2.8 DI II F/CANON | | | Features: | |
• 17-50mm aspherical zoom lens with f/2.8 maximum aperture for Canon DSLR cameras
• Delivers fast shutter speeds and natural soft-focus effect to produce sophisticated results
• 3 elements of XR glass, 2 hybrid aspherical lens elements, and 1 element of LD glass
• Minimum focus distance of 10.6 inches; internal coatings eliminate ghosting and flare
• Measures 2.9 inches in diameter and 3.3 inches long; weighs 15.2 ounces; 6-year warranty
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 5.3 inches | | Product Width:
| 4.1 inches | | Product Height:
| 4.1 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.25 pounds | | Package Length:
| 5.91 inches | | Package Width:
| 4.49 inches | | Package Height:
| 4.25 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.41 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 230 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 230 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
127 of 130 found the following review helpful:
 Talk about bang for your buck!Oct 09, 2006
By Leetsauce
This is the kind of lens that makes me wish Canon would understand their market better. Instead of putting out a 17-55mm zoom that everyone can afford, they put out a EF-S non pro lens at a pro price, which has serious quality control issues. Tamron, however, responded.
This lens is quite sharp. It could definately be used for professional purposes. Sharp at 2.8 and much sharper above. After using this lens, the 17-40mm L, as well as the new EF-S 17-55mm, I can honestly say that Tamron beat out Canon in their own game in terms of quality for the money. Great optics, great range, affordable, and a SIX YEAR warranty, as opposed to Canon's weak 1 year warranty. Buy me.
214 of 227 found the following review helpful:
Best wide angle zoom lens.Jul 20, 2006
By Linan Chen
I tested canon 28-105 3.5-4.5, sigma 24-70 2.8, canon 50mm 1.8, canon 18-55 3.5-5.6. I would say this Tamron 17-50 2.8 is my dream lens. I bought canon 28-105 3.5-4.5 for the focal range but was very sad about its softness and returned it. Then I went to sigma. That's a huge, heavy lens and very solid. Based on reviews, it should be very sharp. however, it was not true in my case. No matter how hard I tried, I never got sharp image. I guess I was not lucky enough to have a good copy and returned it in one week. Finally I bought Tamron 17-50mm 2.8. It surprised me from the very first picture. The sharpness is as good as canon 50mm 1.8 prime, the benchmark. Contrast is very good and color too. 7 blade aperture makes very nice blur background. I care so much about sharpness so the lens is my taste. The focusing is very accurate and fast enough, even though not as fast as sigma. Now I never touch canon 18-55 kit lens, the difference is huge. It's true this lens has no IS. But for 17-50mm range, IS is not as useful as for tele lens. The price is excellent considering the top optical quanlity. Now I am feeling I am a pro. :)))
The reasons I choose this lens are:
1. widest angle in the class(most important thing for 1.6X cropping factor sensor camera
2. Very sharp and top quanlity glass
3. light weighted and small and easy to carry
4. 7-blade aperture makes nice background(if you own canon 50mm 1.8 II, you will see its 5-blade aperture makes harsh background)
5. big constant 2.8 aperture through the whole range
6. excellent price
104 of 111 found the following review helpful:
 This len has lots of potential, but quality control is questionableJan 03, 2007
By orangejulio
I felt like I was taking a gamble when I bought this lens, because I was not able to find many reviews of it. Given that the equivalent Nikon was almost 3x the price, I decided to take a chance. At this point I still can't give a solid thumbs up or down, so I opted to give it a 3. Here is a short history of my experience:
1) Bought lens from Amazon to use on my D50. It was a joy to have an f/2.8 zoom lens, but I was not totally convinced about the sharpness (which the few reviews I could find said was supposed to be really good). After comparing it to my other lenses and a rented Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 (great lens, but much bulkier and heavier), I determined that it front-focused so much that the subject would always be very slightly out of focus. It wasn't obvious right away, because the front-focusing meant that the background went out of focus really quickly, making for a great depth-of-field effect. The heavily out of focus background essentially made the subject look more focused, even though it really wasn't all that sharp. After much deliberation, I sent it back to Amazon to try another copy.
2) 2nd copy. This one was much sharper but back-focused, which I found to be even more annoying. This would manifest itself by someone's eyes and nose being out of focus and their ears and hairline being razor sharp. After trying to force myself to live with it, I decided I couldn't and sent it off to Tamron for calibration. Several people in lens forums mentioned that this did the trick, so I decided to give that a shot rather than send it back to Amazon (they were out of stock at the time anyway, so it made the decision easier).
3) Tamron told me that they were running slow, so it would take 5 weeks to calibrate it. Again weighing the extra $800 I'd have to pay to buy the Nikon, I decided to send it in. It actually took 8 weeks! And when I wrote them to inquire at the 7 week mark, they said they had no record of it. I think that was just because they had already shipped it, but it did scare me at first.
4) Calibrated lens. My first impression was wow, this thing really is sharp, and I was really glad that I has sent it back in. And that's when I started noticing something strange... many of my shots were looking massively overexposed. I was out on a nice, evenly-lit overcast day, so I wasn't able to figure out why the camera was having such a difficult time metering. After a few more shots, I realized that anything taken at an aperture smaller than f/2.8 would be overexposed, which led me to suspect a problem with the aperture blades. Sure enough, they were stuck wide open, so every picture was at f/2.8, regardless of the actual setting. At this point in the story, I was very unhappy.
5) Tamron customer service. I expressed my frustrations to them in an email over Christmas weekend, and I am happy to say that they responded positively the next business day. They gave me their Fedex #, so that I didn't have to pay return shipping. They also promised that they would keep it for only 2 or 3 days and ship it back right away. That made me feel a little better.
6) ???? I have not received it back yet (should be soon), so I don't have a final recommendation on this lens. My sense is that it will follow the "worth what you pay for it" adage. It will have taken a large investment of time (actually, waiting), but in the end I hope to have a pretty good lens at a relatively bargain price. There have been several times that I wanted to give up and just go buy the Nikon, but not being a professional, it's really hard to justify paying $1200-1300 for a single lens.
Otherwise, the lens is really nice. It's nice and compact for what it does, and what several have complained about as a "really loud focus noise" doesn't seem bad to me at all. It does have some pretty serious distortion, especially at wide angle. It's a complex moustache distortion which isn't correctable with Photoshop's built in correction. I did send in photos to the creator of PTLens, and he calibrated the lens and integrated it into the PTLens plugin (and standalone version). With that, your photos can be essentially distortion-free. It's really impressive how well it works. Of course, I used the lens for weeks before I really noticed the distortion. I took a picture of brick wall and couldn't believe how bad it was. Unless your photo has a continuous horizontal element, you're unlikely to even notice this.
I wish my review could be more conclusive, but I'm feeling ambiguous at this point. Hope that this helps someone trying to decide on this lens.
121 of 131 found the following review helpful:
 Great budget lens for upgrading your kit lens, but not as good as Canon's 17-55 ISDec 24, 2008
By Raivyn
"Raivyn"
Alot of people are choosing between the Tamron 17-50mm and the considerably more expensive Canon 17-55 IS. Canon obviously believes this focal length will appeal to the broadest group of consumers, hence why the 18-55 IS is included with the XSI kit. I personally have both the Canon 17-55IS and the Tamron 17-50 and like them both for very different reasons. There are alot of technical reviews that discuss barrel distortion, vignetting, etc, but my review is focused on how well the lens performs if you're a first time DSLR owner like myself who has barely a clue about photography.
What I like about the Tamron 17-50:
-Very small and lightweight. I have it mounted on my Rebel XT, so it makes for a very compact DSLR with a range great for wide angle shots and portraits of people.
-Images are VERY sharp, pretty comparable to the 17-55IS. I shoot in RAW, so I can't comment on color quality much.
-I like the lens cap; its easier than the Canon lens cap to remove while the hood is on.
-Barrel lock: you can lock the barrel so if the lens is stored facing down, it doesn't extend. My Canon 28-135IS does that, and it is annoying.
-It has a maximum constant aperture of 2.8. It is very difficult to find a zoom lens that is this fast for as price as low as this Tamron (the Tamron 28-75 being the other lens that comes too mind). Definitely, NONE of the fast Canon zoom lenses with a constant aperture are in that price category. I think the closest may be a f/4, of you're looking at consumer grade lenses that have apertures that change with the focal length (i.e. f/3.5-5.6).
-Price: It is less than half the price of the 17-55IS. If you have the skill to coax the best out of the lens, your prudent purchase will reward you handsomely, and you'll have money left over to buy a nice camera body.
What I don't like about the Tamron 17-50 as compared to my 17-55IS:
-Autofocus isn't as precise as with the 17-55IS. I have a higher percentage of blurry photos with the Tamron than I do with the Canon.
-Focus ring turns in the opposite direction of the Canon lenses. This makes removing the lens kind of annoying.
-No IS. Some people say that you don't need IS at this focal range. But I do. Maybe I drink too much coffee, but I love IS. I have less blurry photos of my dogs using the 17-55IS than I do with the Tamron. I do get sharp photos with my Tamron, but you don't want to have to sort through literally hundreds of photos just to find a few sharp ones.
-Low light/indoor performance not as good as the 17-55IS. I've discovered I love photos with great depth of field/bohkeh, so I tend to shoot on wider apertures as often as possible. Even when its wide, the Tamron doesn't perform as well as the 17-55IS in low light situations. It is likely a result of a combination of its autofocus/lack of IS. If you're out and about on a sunny day, or are using a tripod, you will likely not experience this too much. But if you're inside on a rainy day, you'll notice this.
The Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens will certainly give you better photos than the kit lenses will. If you have a smaller DSLR like the Rebel XT, XTI, XS, or XSI, you'll appreciate the small size of the Tamron while giving you very sharp photos. However, I believe you need to have some skills in order to reap the benefits of this lens. Price is a considerable factor as well; you could purchase this lens and an XS body for about the price of the 17-55IS lens alone. We actually picked up this lens and highly discounted Rebel XT as our *small* camera because combined it was about the price of a G10. We bring our 40D w/17-55IS out when we want the low light performance, of we know we're going to take photos. We bring the XT/Tamron 17-50 combo out when we want a camera just-in-case, and we want the photos to be really good. We bring our Canon A570IS when we want something that's very small and don't really care about photos.
If you have the funds, or only want one lens, I would recommend the Canon 17-55 over this lens. It is better built (though its a considerably larger lens), has IS, and has the same optics that Canon's "L" series lens has. On average, the photos of family and friends that I take with the 17-55 turn out better and sharper (and I have fewer discards) than with the Tamron. My skill level is mediocre at best, so I need all the help I can get, and the Canon provides, while the Tamron emphasizes how bad I am at holding the camera steady, though it does reward me just enough that I kept it.
You won't go wrong with the Tamron lens, and for the money and size, it is a great lens. It is worth upgrading to this lens if you only have your kit lens. But keep in mind that after purchasing the Tamron, you'll still want the 17-55IS.
EDIT 12/9/11: I want to point out that Tamron seems to have recognized the consumer's preference for image stabilization (IS) or vibration control (VC), which I stated was one of the reasons I preferred the 17-55IS over the Tamron 17-50. Tamron now has a VC version of this lens.
I have not purchased it and still own both my 17-55IS and the 17-50, and I know there are plenty of reviews out there for it for those who are interested.
I have purchased a Tamron 18-250 that I've been using for a year now, and will hopefully post a review sometime this Christmas season.
116 of 126 found the following review helpful:
How does it rate? More importantly how does it rank?Jul 09, 2006
By Abdulrahman Aljabri
Update: I really think this lens is a godsend to the enthusiast, it performs well and is very light and compact. Carrying this lens for hours compared to the more professional and better built, but heavier, Canon Lenses makes it worthwhile to use especially if you consider the saving you get with this lens.
This lens is probably the most interesting among all the wide angel lenses available to Canon crop DSLR users. It offers the best of everything except for a couple of things here and there. Best of all it's price beats all other lenses in that range. But before I start comparing it to other options here is a basic rating of this lens.
RATING: The lens is well built and surprisingly light and compact. It doesn't have the solid L feel but still has a firm feeling that inspires confidence while shooting. Sharpness is at par with other top quality zooms, so much so that at F8.0 and above it matches many primes. Distortion like chromatic aberration and vignetting are about average. Meaning you would probably have to stop the lens down to 5.6-8.0 to eliminate distortions. Focus is quick and right on though a little noisy. Overall, a very good lens.
RANKING: With all of the above in perspective how does it rank? Compared to Canon's 17-40L 4.0 I think the Tamron come on top. Here is a breakdown of the Tamron strenghts and weaknesses compared to the Canon 17-40L.
Strengths
1. Faster lens (2.8 vs 4.0). That can make the difference between taking the shot or missing in a low light situation.
2. It has a wider zoom range (10mm at the telephoto end).
Weaknesses
1. Flare and chromatic aberration control lags behind the 17-40L.
2. solid build but not as solid as the tank-like 17-40L. Some may find that slightly objectionable after using any L lens for many years.
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