PENTAX-DA* 50-135mm vs Tamron 70-200mm Comparison and Shootout

It was rainy all day today, and I needed something to do while the boy was napping... so I fell to this :p.

Edit: The validity of the comparison photos below has been called into question by several folks on DPR. They claim and I can't dispute that they get better results than I present here from their copies of the DA* 50-135 Like I say below, it's possible that some error in my focusing or methodology caused the DA* 50-135mm to look weaker / softer than most peoples experience shows it to be (or perhaps I have a weak copy of this lens). Regardless of these results, I think it can be assumed that based on everyone's experiences the DA* 50-135 is a stellar lens, whether or not mine lives up to the general population. I feel that the Tamron 70-200/2.8 is too, and what I'm really just trying to highlight is that the choice between these two lenses (and probably the Sigma 70-200/2.8 - which I've never used myself) comes down to usage / needs / preference rather than image quality.

Edit 2: After finding that my DA* 50-135 needed a -2 focus adjustment on my K20D, I've figured out why those photos looked worse than those from the Tamron 70-200mm... So the photos are removed, but the discussion is still valid.

We see the questions all the time... "which should I buy?" Which is a question I asked before getting the first one, but now having handled both it seems such a silly question - they're so different, they're almost incomparable.

Pluses for the Tamron:

• much more tele reach
• much better "macro" ratio/magnification
• slightly sharper :eek: (photos below for those who doubt - though you'll still doubt - I know you ;))
• you can fit your hand in the hood to put on and remove the lens cap
• tripod collar
• six year warranty

Minuses for the Tamron:

• much bigger
• noisy focus
• much bigger
• lacks quick shift focusing
  

Pluses for the DA*

• smaller / less intimidating when pointed at someone
• SDM / quickshift focusing
• weather sealed
• 50mm is very handy indoors or when mixed in to the crowd (weddings etc.)

Minuses for the DA*:

• annoyingly small hood / hard to put cap back on (wah... wah.. I know)
• "long end" is still pretty short (for me)
• close focusing capability very lacking (1:5.8 according to B&H)

If I had to give one up...

If I were a wedding shooter, I'd hem and haw and give up the Tamron... The Pentax is well suited to event shooting as long as you can get in fairly close when needed.

Since I'm more of a landscape / nature shooter... I'd drop the Pentax if necessary. The closer focusing and the longer long end are both sorely missed when I use the Pentax, and these are areas the Tamron shines in (I'd miss the wx. sealing though).

Unless I get a layoff notice or let this itchy LBA trigger finger do something rash, I'll keep both and have options :D.

[Photos Removed]

I hope this helps someone out there make a decision ;).

P.S. - If anyone out there wants to mail me a Sigma 70-200 or a Sigma 50-150, I'll throw those into the mix too :D.

Alien Robot Flowers?!?!?!?!?!

Ok, I suppose they're just wind turbines...

Taken near Tehachapi California today.

K20D, Tamron 70-200/2.8, converted in Lr. I don't know how I settled on this tone for the monochrome conversion, but I kinda like it...

Yosemite Sunset from Glacier Point

Two days ago I wanted to shoot the largest full moon of the year rising over the Yosemite high country. The weather looked iffy but I had nothing better to do, so I headed up to Glacier Point high on the west rim of Yosemite valley and set up next to several like minded shooters... The moon never showed but some nice light from sunset peeked through before we were forced to leave by a ranger as they were closing the road for the season and had to be sure none of us were locked in (the ranger was a really nice guy - gave us about 30 extra minutes while we all waited, hoping the moon would peek through the clouds)...

All shot with the K20D, RAW, with the Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 and processed to various extents in Lightroom.

lightroom presets for the Pentax K200D

Since Adobe yanked back their support for the K200D (I assume it'll be back soon...and work right), I've been playing around with development settings in Lr, trying to get a presetting which makes my raw (dng) files from my Pentax K200D look more like the out of camera jpegs (rather than a bit washed out or... hmmm, hard to describe how they looked I'll post some examples below). Without this my photos need a lot of individual attention to look properly toned and saturated. I'm pretty happy with these settings, they're not quite a perfect match for the camera's jpeg settings, the but much better than nothing (for my taste). In addition to the camera calibration settings, I've turned up the "clarity" slider, and a touch of vibrance and saturation.

I've developed these for outdoor/daylight shots, but they seem to be work as a good starting point for indoor shots around my house, after a white balance adjustment.

If you want to try these settings you can download the file here and unzip it. You'll need to move it to the user presets folder which on a mac is at (your home directory)/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Develop Presets/User Presets (and i think would be somewhere within the application data folder on windows), and then restart Lightroom.

Here's a sample (click thumbnail for 640x428 version). The only processing (other than application of the preset) done here was exporting from lightroom as small jpegs.
as imported: vs. w/ preset applied:

this one was cropped somewhat then exported as above...
as imported: vs. w/ preset applied:

There you go. You should of course develop your own, but this might provide you with a starting point. If you want to share your settings with the world let me know and I'll post 'em here (I can host the files too if you need).

later...josh