Tamron 28-80mm

[devores]

Hello all,

I have lurked this board for a while but never posted. I know you all are very good at what you do and have a question maybe you can help me with. For christmas I recieved a Tamron 28-80mm Lens and a Tamron 70-300mm for my Sony Alpha 230 DSLR. I realy love the lenses but have not realy had a chance to extensivly use them until yesterday.

When using the 28-80 at night or in low light conditions, it takes beutiful pictures. Clear, crisp, well balanced. BUT, when using it in well lit areas, such as outside with a clear sky and good sun, it blows out the pictures. What I mean is, the white consumes the picture to the point you cannot even make out what the picture is sometimes. An example is, at the MK around 1400, standing in the hub, sun to my back, I took a picture of the castle. The white from the sky seemed to overtake the picture. Is this normal for this lense? I tried all kinds of differeing settings, even going to the auto setting, and it still did it. To test my theory, I used my kit lense that came with the Alpha and the 70-300, and both produced good pictures.

It only does this in well lit areas.

Is the lense deffective? Am I too dense to figure it out? Would a filter help out? Im at a loss. I love the lense other than this problem.

I can put up some pictures to show you what Im talking about if it will help.

Any information about this would be extremly helpfull.

 

[oogieboogieman]

Without seeing a photo with EXIF data, it sounds to me that the Tamron lens is set to a different aperture setting. I'm assuming the Tamron lens is a faster lens than the kit lens.

 

[MICKEY88]

is it a 2.8 lens.. if shooting wide open in sun you would get blown out pics if your shutter speed is too slow or your iso is too high,

is it a new lens or used.. it's possible the aperture isn't stopping down when you take pics..

I had that happen a few times when I had bumped my iso for indoor shots, and then forgot to drop it back to 100 for outside sunny shots..

 

[devores]

is it a 2.8 lens.. if shooting wide open in sun you would get blown out pics if your shutter speed is too slow or your iso is too high,

is it a new lens or used.. it's possible the aperture isn't stopping down when you take pics..

I had that happen a few times when I had bumped my iso for indoor shots, and then forgot to drop it back to 100 for outside sunny shots..

its a f/3.5-5.6 Aspherical Lens. It was new in the box when I got it. I was just wondering if this was normal for this lens or if something could be wrong with it. I mainly got it because it came with the 70-300mm I bought. But it turns out I love how it shoots night photos, just not so much in the day light.

 

[MICKEY88]

its a f/3.5-5.6 Aspherical Lens. It was new in the box when I got it. I was just wondering if this was normal for this lens or if something could be wrong with it. I mainly got it because it came with the 70-300mm I bought. But it turns out I love how it shoots night photos, just not so much in the day light.

exif data on the pics in question would make it much easier to diagnose the problem, is it possible that you had upped your iso for night or indoor pics, and it remained high..

I haven't heard anything bad about that lens, but it is always possible to get a defective lens..

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

I agree with a PP that without the EXIF data it will be hard to diagnose. This scenario could happen if you are shooting manual but if you are in an automatic or semi-automatic (Tv, Av, etc.) mode, the camera should compensate for the exposure.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Posting a few pictures and the exif will definitely help us to see more what's going on. But the fact that your kit lens metered ok would seem to point a bit more towards the lens.

In the castle picture you described did it also blow out the castle or just the sky? I was kind of getting the impression that it was the sky which isn't completely uncommon at that time of day.

It also isn't uncommon to have a camera get the metering a little bit off. Some people have their exposure compensation set to adjust for that once they know how the camera meters. Also, what type of metering are you using since I think you weren't just using auto. If you have spot metering it will meter off of what you have in the center of your frame. Then there's center weighted and also multi segment that will try and account for all aspects of the scene.

 

[devores]

Posting a few pictures and the exif will definitely help us to see more what's going on. But the fact that your kit lens metered ok would seem to point a bit more towards the lens.

In the castle picture you described did it also blow out the castle or just the sky? I was kind of getting the impression that it was the sky which isn't completely uncommon at that time of day.

It also isn't uncommon to have a camera get the metering a little bit off. Some people have their exposure compensation set to adjust for that once they know how the camera meters. Also, what type of metering are you using since I think you weren't just using auto. If you have spot metering it will meter off of what you have in the center of your frame. Then there's center weighted and also multi segment that will try and account for all aspects of the scene.

It happened with all of the day photos I took. This was the first time I used the lens for daytime photos (I took allot of night and low light ones before this). Once I noticed that the photos were blown out, I tried varying things ending in full auto. I thought maybe this would correct for itself, but alas, it still did it. The sky seemed to be the main culprit, but every photo taken with this lense during the day looked as if too much light was being let in. Thinking back, I should have tried to dial that down myself, but I was frustrated with the shots I missed due to this lens. I switched to my 70-300 while shooting a stage show (didnt feel like fighting the crowds to get a few good shots) and all of those turned out good as did the ones taken with the kit lens.

I meter off the center of the frame. Im not sure if this is good or bad, but most of my shots have the focus in the center.

Ill post some of the photos when I get home so everyone can see and maybe determine better what is wrong. Thanks for the help so far.

 

[MICKEY88]

to test the lens, put your camera in manual ..

set your shutter at 1/60 iso at 400 if shooting inside, lens 28mm
then take pics of the same thing (something well lit) changing the aperture, going from wide open to stopped down all the way, the pics should gradually get darker, if this happens the lens sounds fine, if not, then there is definitely a problem..

 

[devores]

Here is one of the photos and the corrosponding EFIX info.

Photo: DSC06850
Date & Time: 2011:01:03 18:02:48
Exp. Time: 1/125
FNumber: 11.0
Exp. Program: Normal
Exp. Bias: 0.0
Metering Mode: MultiSegment
Light Source: Unidentified
Flash: No
Focal Length: 30.0
ISO Speed: 100
Orientation: Normal
Dimensions: 3872x2592
File Size: 2272 KB

 

[mom2rtk]

At f11, I wouldn't expect that blown out a photo. I'd have it checked on.

 

[devores]

to test the lens, put your camera in manual ..

set your shutter at 1/60 iso at 400 if shooting inside, lens 28mm
then take pics of the same thing (something well lit) changing the aperture, going from wide open to stopped down all the way, the pics should gradually get darker, if this happens the lens sounds fine, if not, then there is definitely a problem..

At f11, I wouldn't expect that blown out a photo. I'd have it checked on.

I thought the same thing so I tried MICKEY88s suggestion. I went through the entire aperture, and no change what so ever. Every picture was the same. So I took the lens off and low and behold, the aperture was stuck in the full open position.

I manualy actuated the aperture which was a litle stiff to begin with, but loosened up after 2 or 3 times and seems to be working good now. I will be contacting the company for a replacement tommorow.

Thanks for taking the time to help me work through this. I didnt think it was right.

 

[zackiedawg]

Glad you resolved it - reading through, I was going to suggest it was likely a stuck aperture, but then I got to the last few posts and it was already figured out! Definitely get it replaced - Tamron has usually quite good reliability, so if you got one of the rare lemons, get rid of it - chances are it'll just be a one-off bit of bad luck.