M. Gilden
Canon DSLR Moderator
They are both AF.
GH3 Mid-range zoom suggestions?
- Thread starter dishan
- Start date
They are both AF.
Ah, sorry, I misinterpreted the flow of the conversation.
GrahamH
Well-known member
Oops, my mistake. My lens is with golden letters over a black band, as seen on the left hand photo above, yet, it's printed on it: "Made in Japan".
Unless I was mistaken by what you meant by 'gold band', possibly the band color isn't an indication of the manufacturing country.
Unless I was mistaken by what you meant by 'gold band', possibly the band color isn't an indication of the manufacturing country.
GrahamH
Well-known member
Well that's interesting - yet another permulation: it seems we have With/Without aperture ring X Gold-band vs Black-band X China vs Japan .... with no clear pattern emerging among any of those.
At this point all I can say is that the two Japan/Goldband lenses I've had, one with aperture ring and one without, were both sharper than the two China/Blackband lenses I tried. But maybe that's just chance, rather than an actual pattern? Sorry I can't help more ....
M. Gilden
Canon DSLR Moderator
Well this is all rather frustrating and unnecessarily complicated. There is no doubt 2 versions of this lens, one that is a "Good" and another that is not-so-good, strictly speaking wide open. Apparently some folks with ones made in China have reported their being "good copies" in this forum:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/128148
The ones made in China, btw, are still actually made in Japan and just assembled in China. The one I sent back to KEH had printed on the barrel Tamron Japan, but with an additional line that I missed at first saying "Assembled in China". The forum above speculates that perhaps the first edition lenses that were assembled in China had production discrepencies, because it seems that more modern iterations of the lens are good from both China and Japan. I don't know what to think know, honestly.
I like this Nikkor 35-70 I picked up, images are nice and sharp wide open. Here's a quick snapshot I took in my yard after opening the box, taken at 75mm f/2.8:
I'm actually fairly impressed with the image quality in general on this zoom, but I'm not sure its a keeper. Not only does it lack the range of the Tamron 28-75, but more importantly, this Nikkor zoom is a push/pull one. That makes zooms very jumpy and unpleasant to work with in documentary / event coverage video. I even have a shoulder rig with FF gear I sometimes attach to the zoom barrel to get smooth transitions on those kinds of shoots, and its just not possible with this sort of lens. Its also hard to keep it in the middle of a zoom (lets say I want to stop at 50mm), since it really likes to be at the extreme wide or extreme tight end.
This particular "bargain condition" version of the lens will be going back regardless because it actually has a minor ding that keeps filters from screwing in properly. So the question is, where to go from here? Get another Nikkor because of its consistently excellent optics, and just deal with the wonky zoom functionality? Or try another Tamron 28-75 and hope I get a better version this time??
And just from a curiosity perspective, we still don't know why some Tamron zooms have the gold band versus the black one. So many unknown variables!
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/128148
The ones made in China, btw, are still actually made in Japan and just assembled in China. The one I sent back to KEH had printed on the barrel Tamron Japan, but with an additional line that I missed at first saying "Assembled in China". The forum above speculates that perhaps the first edition lenses that were assembled in China had production discrepencies, because it seems that more modern iterations of the lens are good from both China and Japan. I don't know what to think know, honestly.
I like this Nikkor 35-70 I picked up, images are nice and sharp wide open. Here's a quick snapshot I took in my yard after opening the box, taken at 75mm f/2.8:
I'm actually fairly impressed with the image quality in general on this zoom, but I'm not sure its a keeper. Not only does it lack the range of the Tamron 28-75, but more importantly, this Nikkor zoom is a push/pull one. That makes zooms very jumpy and unpleasant to work with in documentary / event coverage video. I even have a shoulder rig with FF gear I sometimes attach to the zoom barrel to get smooth transitions on those kinds of shoots, and its just not possible with this sort of lens. Its also hard to keep it in the middle of a zoom (lets say I want to stop at 50mm), since it really likes to be at the extreme wide or extreme tight end.
This particular "bargain condition" version of the lens will be going back regardless because it actually has a minor ding that keeps filters from screwing in properly. So the question is, where to go from here? Get another Nikkor because of its consistently excellent optics, and just deal with the wonky zoom functionality? Or try another Tamron 28-75 and hope I get a better version this time??
And just from a curiosity perspective, we still don't know why some Tamron zooms have the gold band versus the black one. So many unknown variables!
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