Thinking about going away on holiday and taking as few lenses as possible.
I love my 10-24 and that will be going with me. I also have the 16-80 and the 70-300. But can I reduce that to 2 lenses (for the two X-T5 bodies I have)? Has anyone used (and can comment on) the Tamron 18-300? Or the Fuji 18-135? Or something else?
Thoughts appreciated on lens quality etc. compared to my existing lenses.
I have no direct experience with either but I have a local friend — a retiree — who swears by the 18-135 as the versatile “one lens” he generally uses on his (now) XT4. Supplemented by the 100-400 for birds — though he has curtailed the use of the heavy lens recently. You may find this recent discussion from another forum to be of interest. 18-135mm R LM OIS WR - Experiences & images please, preferably on X-T1 or T-2 | FujiX-Forum
I owned the 18-135 for a while and was hoping it would negate the need for a tele zoom but 135 was just too short, so at the time I sold it and stuck with the 18-55 and 55-200 combo for a while.
I recently did a two week trip to New Zealand and took my XT3, 16-80, 70-300 and the 27/2.8 on my XT30-II. The 16-80 brought home most of the photos by far, the 70-300 was for an event for which it did quite nicely. The T30 with the 27mm was a nice small setup for walking around the towns.
There are some photographers over on that other forum that are very happy with the Tamron 18-300. Maybe paired with your 10-24 if you think you need it and a small fast (ish) prime and you'd be set.
Enjoy your holiday.
I've ordered an 18-300 - if it doesn't come up to scratch, I'll send it back. Sorted. Especially as there's £100 off it this month.
Alan
This review makes the 18-300 seem pretty good. It include MTF chart at 18 and 300, and interesting conclusions.
dustinabbott.net/2021/10/tamron-18-300mm-f3-5-6-3-vc-vxd-b061-review/
I believe it's generally accepted that the Sony E 18-135 OSS is better than the XF 18-135.
I picked up the 18-300 today (a story in itself). Only taken a couple of pictures as the weather is horrible, so I'll do some proper testing (to my standard) tomorrow.
It's quite a heavy beast for its size.
Alan
Went out to my favourite pond where birds congragate - only to find no birds at all. So I came home again, but not before taking this picture.
I ran some standard tests and I think it's going back. It is really soft on the right hand side, much less so on the left.
Alan
Hard to say from your posted photo. I'll take your word for it. Where did you focus? Topaz Sharpen says Motion (very blurry) which seems odd at 1/680 sec.
This is the focus point - it was AF-S, single point. No motion at all. You can't really see any softness in this picture as it's in the clouds.
On the other hand. it's easy to see in this picture at 100%
Yep, a bit off-center according to my analysis**:
** in the GIMP, Laplace Edge Detection, followed by Levels to bring out the edges.
Cool technique, Laplace Edge Detection! I've seen it in GIMP but didn't know it could be used for that.
To the eye, I thought lower right was worse than upper right, and at the extreme corner it is, but upper right gets worse faster.
Reviews of this lens say it gets worse above 200mm.
