Ottawa Rambler

NaBloPoMo I hardly knew ye. I missed a day and it entirely killed my momentum. I was so close!

Indeed it seems that 2009 has almost come to a close. New Years is but a couple of nights away.

Christmas has just past and I got many nice things, but $100 in GCs at the local camera shop sent me out today to spend them on a new lens. The purchase was planned and had come down to the Nikkor AFS 16-85mm f3.5-5.6 VR or Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 VC.

I found the Tamron sharper in the center, but the Nikkor sharper in the corners. The Nikkor was also wider and longer, and weighed slightly less than the Tamron. I also found the AF of the Nikkor to be quicker and quieter.

Otherwise the Tamron was an excellent lens. The constant 2.8 apeture is a boon for certain types of photography. The VC was just as effective as the VR in my limited testing, but the Tamron implementation visibly shook in the viewfinder as it worked. Odd but that’s the way it works. Nikon’s VR does not shake the viewfinder. The only other con is that I found it’s metering to overexpose. The first few shots were OK but then the entire viewfinder darkened (though the lighting didn’t change) and it borked the in camera meter and overexposed a few shots.  That was odd.

If I didn’t want to do landscapes where border sharpness is critical I definitely would have got the Tamron.

Instead I have the extra mm on the wide end and extra 35mm on the long end. Combined with the 70-300mm VR I bought in July I have a nice two lens kit, with 35mm f2 and 50mm f1.8 primes for low-light situations.

I may buy the Tokina 11-16 or make due with 16 on my wide and wait to go FF.  I also want the 85mm f1.8 or may opt for the 60mm AFS F2.8 Macro to get me close to the 1.8 and give me macro capability.  Anyway a first sort of the new lens at 16mm.  Given the relative darkness of the room, I used VR down to 1/2 sec shutter…  This was quite sharp given it was handheld.  VR can be quite useful, its too bad it also doesn’t stop motion.

New Lens