Tamron 28

May 16, 2023

Tamron has established itself as a true value lens brand for Sony mirrorless photographers. We praised its first low-cost F2.8 zoom for the system, the 28-75mm F2.8 Di III RXD, when we reviewed it a few years ago. Tamron's engineers saw some room for improvement, though, so the company is back with an updated edition, the 28-75mm F2.8 Di III VXD G2 ($899). The G2 uses a new optical formula that promises more pleasing bokeh and sports a snappier linear focus motor for better accuracy. At around $900, it remains a compelling (and more affordable) alternative to Sony's premium FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM, and a good fit for photographers who can't stretch their budget to get our Editors' Choice winner, the $1,099 Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN Art.

On the outside, the G2 edition of the lens doesn't stray far from Tamron's first take. It's slightly larger at 4.6 by 3.0 inches (HD), but weighs the same (1.2 pounds) and supports the same size of front filters (67mm). One of the few changes is that the lens design team tapered the contour of the barrel; this makes the lens feel a bit more natural to hold.

Despite a few functional changes to the exterior, the black, composite plastic aesthetic remains. The G2 feels far from flimsy, however, and features some defense against the elements: Internal seals prevent moisture from getting inside, while anti-smudge fluorine protects the front glass.

Photographers who bought the original 28-75mm F2.8 RXD early on got it for $799, but Tamron later bumped the price to $879. At $899, the G2 costs a little more, but you get updated optics, a more aggressive focus motor, and a USB-C port for firmware updates and fine-tuning its controls.

Tamron sells the 28-75mm G2 exclusively for Sony E mirrorless cameras. It covers full-frame models in the a1, a7, and a9 lineups and is also compatible with APS-C models in the a6000 family.

The 28-75mm F2.8 balances well on full-frame bodies and is lighter than 24-70mm F2.8 alternatives. It's not the smallest or lightest lens of its type, though—Sigma's tiny 28-70mm F2.8 DG DN Contemporary is a couple of ounces lighter and half an inch shorter, but not as well protected against the elements.

The zoom control ring sits toward the front of the lens and features the same rubberized ridges you see on most zooms. It turns easily, moving from 28 to 75mm with a 90-degree twist. The lens doesn't include a zoom lock, but I didn't find creep to be an issue—it stays set at 28mm even when held facing straight down.

Tamron's claim that the G2 delivers snappier autofocus performance than its predecessor holds up in testing. It racks from close-up to distant subjects in an instant with our Sony a7R IV, and works as well with Sony's tracking and subject recognition autofocus modes as first-party glass. The only caveat is one that it shares with every other third-party option—using the lens with a stacked sensor camera limits the fastest capture speed to 10fps with an a9 or 15fps with an a1.

Manual focus is an option, too. The focus ring sits farther back on the barrel toward the mount and uses the same textured finish as the zoom control ring. It turns with a little bit of resistance, a plus for making careful adjustments to focus.

You can configure manual focus for a linear or nonlinear response, as well as set the direction that it turns, via the Tamron Lens Utility software app that's free to download(Opens in a new window) on macOS and Windows systems. The application also enables you to update the firmware of the lens.

Photographers are likely to opt for nonlinear focus, in which slower turns make fine adjustments and quicker ones rack across the focus range more aggressively. If you're more into video, choose the linear response option. In this mode, the change in focus depends on the amount of adjustment, not the speed. The linear focus mode is useful for making repeatable focus racks from take to take.

Focus breathing, the effect in which the angle of view blooms and shrinks along with the focus adjustment, isn't completely absent, but is minimal—it's noticeable only when you change the focus from very close subjects to very far ones or vice versa. In any case, I'm comfortable using this lens for focus rack shots. As a third-party model, the 28-75mm G2 doesn't benefit from the breathing compensation that Sony first introduced with the a7 IV, however.

The lens focuses very closely (at a distance of about 7.1 inches) and the best macro results are at 28mm (1:2.7 life size). The minimum focus distance increases to about 15 inches at 75mm, but that's still good enough for decent, 1:4.1 macro results. The Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 offers similar macro capabilities, but the smaller 28-70mm F2.8 Contemporary doesn't focus as close—its best macro results are 1:3.3.

The lens doesn't feature any image stabilization, though all but the earliest compatible a7 cameras include 5-axis in-body image stabilization (IBIS). Your experience will vary based on your camera and the steadiness of your hands, but I was able to get sharp results at up to 1/4-second handheld exposures with the Sony a7R IV.

I paired the 28-75mm G2 with the 60MP Sony a7R IV and Imatest(Opens in a new window) software to get a handle on its optical performance. It delivers good results with the high-resolution sensor at 28mm and f/2.8, showing around 3,400 lines. Resolution ticks up at narrower apertures, and the lens nets results toward the top of our scale (4,700 lines) by f/8. Image quality remains strong through f/16, but details soften at the smallest f-stops. Take care not to stop down all the way to f/22 unless you're going after landscape shots with multi-point sunstars—the lens draws them most crisply at its narrowest f-stop.

Wide-open resolution is a little better (a very good 4,200 lines) at the 50mm focal length, and the lens delivers similarly strong results stopped down as at 28mm. Resolution at 75mm is right in line with what we see at 28mm, f-stop by f-stop. That's all good news—you can get sharp results on Sony's most demanding image sensor and get close to maximizing its potential by narrowing the aperture only a bit. The lens won't have any problem keeping up with the more mainstream 24MP sensors in the a7C and a7 III.

Mirrorless cameras leverage automatic corrections to compensate for distortion and vignette. If you use your camera in JPG mode, you don't have to worry about either. That said, raw images show some barrel distortion at wide angles, the inward pincushion effect when zoomed in, and a vignette when making photos at f/2.8. If you use Adobe Lightroom Classic to process files, you can apply fixes for those issues with a single click and retain the extra editing flexibility the Raw format provides.

Tamron paid attention to the bokeh quality with this upgrade. Some photographers were turned off by the onion ring effect in highlights that the first edition of the lens showed at 75mm. (Onion rings are a result of molded aspheric optics, and show as a faint pattern of concentric circular lines in defocused highlights.) The G2 optics minimize the effect and draw highlights more cleanly. It's a subtle change, but worth mentioning.

In the few years that the 28-75mm F2.8 Di III RXD was on sale, it was the lens of choice for Sony photographers who either couldn't afford the high-end FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM or valued a lightweight kit.

The new 28-75mm F2.8 Di III VXD G2 offers the same focal range and fixed aperture as the original, but updates the optical formula and swaps the RXD stepping focus motor for a snappier VXD linear drive. It's well made, too, with moisture protection and anti-smudge fluorine glass. The sealed, on-lens USB-C port also comes in handy for firmware updates and fine-tuning the manual focus response.

For around $900, the 28-75mm G2 offers a strong value among standard zoom lenses, but falls just shy of our Editors' Choice award because of a crop of new competitors. Most notably, photographers who want the smallest and lightest F2.8 zoom can get the Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 DG DN Contemporary for the same price. We also think that the $1,099 Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN Art is worth the extra cost because of its wider angle of view—24mm adds a lot of versatility.

Tamron's 28-75mm F2.8 Di III VXD G2 lens doesn't cover the 24mm focal length like other standard zooms, but it offers a strong value for Sony photographers because of its F2.8 optics, fast focus, and moisture-resistant construction.

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