BielsasBucket's reviews

  • Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC

    8 out of 10 points and recommended
    Light and Small for an 18-200 Great Price Good vacation lens Seems reasonably well built VR works well
    Soft image quality, needs a fair bit of work in post to get usable images

    I bought this lens (Nikon fit) for vacation use when I don't have the space or inclination to take all my other lenses. For that purpose, it works quite well. Image quality is as you would expect at this price point, fairly soft. It's sharper at the short end than at the long end. The corners are a bit muddy at all focal lengths.

    OOC results are a bit disappointing at first glance, and need some work in post to get images that are usable for anything other than family snaps. A bit of work is rewarded, though, with images that are decently usable online or in smallish prints.

    CA is definitely present, as is distortion (barrel at 18, pin everywhere else). Both are corrected well either by Lightroom or DXO - both have lens profiles for this lens.

    Overall, good value for money.

    reviewed September 20th, 2018

  • Fujinon XC 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS

    3 out of 10 points and not recommended
    Light, cheap, quiet focusing. Sharp in the center.
    Not sharp anywhere else.

    It may just be the copy I had, but the edge sharpness of this lens is truly awful. "Worse than a Tamron superzoom" awful. It starts about a third of the way from the center (horizontally) and gets worse from there. Details start to smudge and smear. Even deliberately out of focus areas get an 'oval ring' bokeh which is really nasty to look at and ruins the image.

    Obviously this lens is built to a price, so I wouldn't expect it to be a Summicron. I think the problem is probably in the quality control area, as others' experiences and reviews seem to be better than mine. After returning my copy I didn't want to go through it all again trying to get a good copy. I would recommend that you save up and get the 18-55 XF zoom instead.

    reviewed October 31st, 2018