Second Follow Up: The Tamron 20-40mm f/2.8 Di III VXD.

Respectfully what the heck? In short order this lens has shown itself to be a bit of a minor revelation. Let me open with a dose of cut and paste.

I recently wrote a post about this lens change.

The goal was to replace the lenses above with the 20-40mm.

While I am happy with it I am still getting my head around the 20-40mm.

And we are back.

I brought it along as a side mission while tryng another lens with film. Here are sample images followed by some elaboration on my opening statement.

Well… I can make one point with this first image from the day with this lens. I tend to use wide lenses at their widest. So 17mm with the 17-28mm. But… <ahem> …20mm is still pretty flipping wide.

But then this lens can turn on its heel and hit 40mm.

Here is why I say “What the heck?” above. These last two photos do not look like they should be able to be taken with the same lens. Yes, I have had sort of wide to kind of tele lenses before. But there is a significant difference between 24mm or 28mm and 20mm. To my eye anyway. Case in point here is a pic taken immediately after at 20mm from the same location.

I like this. This is a level of flexibility in one lens only rivaled by… well… another Tamron lens. That can go from this…

…to this.

I see what they have done here. Tamron has shifted my thinking.

For starters, a lens can cover different focal lengths while doing a decent impersonation of prime lenses across the board.

As a result I now realize that 90% or more of my needs can be met with a lens duo…

…instead of a lens trio.

And back to the 20-40mm pics taken this day.

Ok. Let me break in for a minute here and post a film pic taken with a fast M mount lens.

The preceding pic with the 20-40mm at 40mm makes a strong bag of primes case for itself. Shown both I would not be able to tell the difference and I took them both. And back to the pics for the day.

Closing thoughts.

In addition to my thoughts above this lens has also launched an attack on my obsession with fast, f/1.8 or brighter, prime lenses. With the high ISO performance of modern cameras and post editing tools like AI Denoise f/2.8 does fine with low light. And as proven by the images above bokeh, while not a top feature here, is plentiful enough to keep this background blowout obsessed photographer happy. Especially when I pair that with an ability to capture a solid wide angle photo at the twist of a wrist. And that is the major difference when compared to the 17-28mm. A fine lens but 28mm at the long end does not provide near as much flexibility.

And it is smaller.

And it is less expensive.

And it has the new USB-C port for firmware updates and adjustments.

And it carries the new and improved Tamron design language, materials, and ergonomics.

And do not get me wrong. I still like the 17-28mm. But similar to the Tamron 35-150mm compared to the 70-180mm and 28-75mm, I just like this lens better.

At this moment this is my favorite Sony FE lens. Not because it is best at one thing. Because of its flexibility.

In the past, I have been tempted to pick up one or two of Tamron’s f/2.8 primes but never did because I could never choose which ones to get. But now Tamron has helped me out by housing them all in one lens.