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<\/a>The Test<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
I set up my camera on a tripod, angled to the scene (near infinity) to allow for comparison at the extreme corners at the plane of focus. I took a quick series of shots with each lens at 17mm, 23mm and 28mm, from wide open through f\/8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The full scene is below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Below are 100% crops from each image in the series. First up, 17mm:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you can see above, the Tamron is consistently sharper than the Sony at the wide end of the zoom range. It’s especially pronounced at the widest apertures, where the Tamron at f\/2.8 is as sharp as the Sony at f\/4 in the center, and even sharper than the Sony in the corners, despite being shot at a stop faster aperture. With both at f\/4, the Tamron increases its lead. At f\/5.6 and f\/8, the Sony catches up quite a bit in the extreme corners, but never quite equals the Tamron, while also losing out in the center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 23mm, the Tamron still shows itself to be a bit better, though the differences aren’t as pronounced as at 17mm. At 23mm, the Tamron is a bit sharper than the Sony at similar apertures in the center, and perhaps a hair sharper in the corner at small apertures. The Tamron still shows a substantial lead in the corners at the widest apertures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 28mm, the lenses are definitely closer to one another than at any other focal length. While the Tamron still shows a slight corner edge at f\/4 the two lenses are nearly identical in the corners at f\/5.6 and f\/8. Tamron still holds a slight edge in the central part of the frame at all apertures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>