On 31 Mar 2003 06:12:44 -0800, jxbjxbjxb@yahoo

On 31 Mar 2003 06:12:44 -0800, jxbjxbjxb@yahoo.com (Jaxon Bridge) wrote:

>i bought yesterday the tamron 28-200. while i was at B&H, i also

>tried out the sigma 28-300 and the nikon 28-105.

>i can say right off the bat that the sigma 28-300 lens is best used

>for kindling when trying to start a fire. or, if you are in a real

>tight bind, say, listening to Saddam's suicide speech, and don't have

>anything to jot it down in shorthand, just take your fingernail and

>without any effort at all, you can write the whole thing down into the

>plastic outside of this lens. other uses? great as a mini-football

>for kids, or as a prop to position inside the crotch of your pants

>when trying to impress the ladies.

>seriously this lense had a fish-eye effect going in a major way. it

>ain't that wide, so that was unacceptable. plus the zoom apparatus

>felt like it might break exactly 1 day after the warranty expired.

>the nikon 28-105 seemed like a good lens, certainly had the least

>distortion at the wide end and probably the tele end as well. but

>frankly it didn't have the reach i wanted in a zoom and wouldn't

>really take care of the need of swapping lenses for my purpose.

>so, the tamron was somewhere in-between these two. in optical nature

>and in price. so i bought it.

>i got home and discovered that it performed worse than what i noticed

>in the store. i think they pump oxygen into the room at B&H so as to

>make everyone feel better about their purchase.

>truth is, the tamron 28-200 is not that good. i'm not sure what the

>word "pincushion" means and i am too lazy to do a google search on the

>term just at the moment, but i assume it refers to the effect of

>vertical lines not being straight around the edges. or is this what

>the call barrell distortion? perhaps i'm not spelling any of these

>words correctly and everyone is clueless as to what i'm talking about?

>i debated taking the lens back but decided to hold onto it. since the

>distortion is really noticeable at the edges of the frame, and i tend

>to crop my pictures away from the edges, i am keeping my fingers

>crossed that it won't be a major problem. i also shoot almost

>exclusively black and white, so hopefully reports about weak colors

>from this lens won't affect me.

>interestingly, i got home and decided to compare the "pincushion" if

>that is what it is on this lens to my other lenses: a tamron 70-300,

>a nikon 50mm 1.8 series E, a nikon 100mm 1.8 series E. i had never

>noticed major distortion on these other lenses, but now actively

>looking for it, i saw that in fact all these lenses had a little bit

>of this non-vertical lines effect, so that made me feel a little bit

>better about my purchase -- but still the 28-200 is much more

>pronounced in this regard.

>it's a cute lense, and feels good in the hand, feels solid and secure

>unlike the sigma, so that is a big plus.

>but if you are doing art photos or serious photography, stay away from

>it. me, i bought it for voyeuristic, journalistic-style photography.

>also, i live in NYC and wanted a general lens to carry with me all the

>time to capture any kind of craziness that this city might come to

>face during these times.

>so that is my report.

There is more (oh, MUCH more...;-) to lens performance

than linear distortion. Most zooms have lots of it

(the "barrel" ["fisheye"] type is preferable to

the inward-curving "pincushion" type or combined

"wavy-line" or "moustache" type, since we actually see

with barrel "distortion" - see:

www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/perspective-correction.htm

www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/articles.html#perspective).

BTW, most newer camera viewfinders have some pincushion

distortion built-in, making the VF often not accurate

for judging linear distortion (which, BTW, can change

considerably away from the frame edges, sometimes getting

worse there...). Only a few zooms are really low in

linear distortion - the 28-105mm Nikkor and 100-300mm

Nikkor are two that are. More important is lens

sharpness, and with the zooms, particularly at wide

stops, this is what separates the bad from the good,

and from the rare excellent... BTW, the Nikkor

24-120, 28-105, and 28-200 are reviewed at:

www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/articles.html - with these

and MANY other lenses evaluated at: