SteveBoker's reviews

Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD Aspherical IF SP AF

This is has been a great walk around lens for me. I took it to Europe for this last month along with several other Nikon lenses. This lens was on my D200 80% of the time, to my surprise. The filter does not rotate during operation, which makes a circular polarizer easy.

The wide aperture means I don't miss VR. The zoom is enough to catch street scenes and frame most travel shots. And the trade between having a longer zoom like a 18-200mm relative to the versatility of the wider aperture made me keep this lens on the camera most of the time.

The main negatives I have found are that there is some noticable vignetting at 2.8 and that you must switch to manual focus on the camera to be able to tweak the focus. Others mention the focus noise, but I don't find that particularly bothersome. But not being able to grab the focus ring quickly is a definite negative, but not enough to justify the cost difference between this and the 17-55 2.8 nikkor.