New Tamron is (NOT)a dud

[Tannin]

Curiously, the Tamron lens was reasonably priced via official Australian sources (I used Digital Camera Warehouse) and very dear from my normal Hong Kong retailer (DWI).

DWI don't stock the Tamron dock. In Australia, it is as dear as bloody poison - around the $180 mark. Out of the question at that price. But you can get one from B&H, including postage, for close to half that price.

Nevertheless, I don't plan to buy one. I only have the one Tamron lens, no particular plan to buy any other ones - the 85/1.8 was just about the last hole in my rather-too-extensive lens collection ... er ... except for a 400/4 DO II of course ... and ... er ... one or two other things - and it's no hardship to switch off the anti-vignette function for this particular lens-body combination.

Admitted, I haven't had the lens for very long - only the one soon-aborted session with it so far - but now that I know how to work around this issue, in all other respects it seems just fine. It's sharp, it focuses nicely, the IS seems to work well. That'll do me.

PS: Arthur, I see you have been promoted to blue ink. Would you be so kind (if policy allows this) as to change the thread title to something like "New Tamron is NO dud"? The lens seems pretty much blameless here and the headline seems rather unfair to it now.

[arthurking83]

Thread title edited:

... The lens seems pretty much blameless here and the headline seems rather unfair to it now.

I think the lens still is to blame, but not fully entirely.
I know my last post re the lens hex code was arduous(tl;dr), but it is what it is. The forgiveness aspect comes into it because almost certainly the lens is older(in tech/model/epoc) than the camera, hence the main reason why thirdparty lenses can be a bit of a lottery, where manufacturer lenses most likely won't be.

Other options for the TapIn dock could be to locate an accommodating member that may have a Canon dock you could use, if the retailer or importer end up being more difficult to deal with.

Speaking of difficulty in dealing with product issues, back in more ideal times, when I was a courier, we used to have Maxwells(out in BoxHill area) as a customer.
I had(still have) my old Tammy 28-75/2.8(old model) and it backfocuses at the 75mm end.
I once asked Maxwells(the Tammy importer at the time) about getting it looked at and the chap at the dispatch department was obliging, called out a tech to have a chat.
They were massively helpful, and simply explained to bring it in, they'll look at it and get it sorted.
Firmware for lenses was a service department process only back then .. no such thing as docks and such like.
Never once asked in the convo, if I have receipts, or of the lens was brand new/under warranty .. etc.
Stupid me tho, never took them up on the offer.
Now I have to send the lens to WA, and .. well it's going to be a massive muck about.

Then I had two issues with Nikon products.
80-200/2.8 lens backfocused at 200mm, took it in to the authorised Nikon service centre(will remain nameless for now) and they explained .. it'll take a few days(maybe 5 or so, can't remember) and it'll cost a min of $50 to have it looked at, but I also need to leave the D300 for them to calibrate it to my camera or some carp!
My question was, why can't you just calibrate it to focus correctly on any body? .. err ... came their vague response. Absolutely not interested in customer satisfaction/assistance at all these people.
Ended up selling the lens, as I didn't want it to work only on the D300, what about the D70 .. and any future camera I know I'll end up with. To me is smelled a lot like BS.
Later I had trouble with my D800, and Nikon only wanted to know how much money I was willing to donate to their CEO's new Rolls Royce

Got it repaired at a nice independent shop(at considerable expense tho).

[Tannin]

Other way around, Arthur. The lens is a new model; 5D IV has been around for a few years now. I daresay there will be a 5D V next year, or possibly the year after - Canon's 7D II is their oldest frontline model, followed by the 1DX II and the 5D IV. They have recently replaced the 6D with the 6D II and the 5D SR with refreshed models. By rights, the 7D II -> 7D III upgrade should be next, but Canon seem to run the pro-grade APS-C line on a slower upgrade cycle than the other two.

(Have to run. Back to the rest of your post later. Thanks for changing the thread title.)

[arthurking83]

Aha! I'm not really up to speed about exact release dates, I do remember the Tammy 34/45 f/1.8 VC lenses came out roughly 4 years back.
but you're right, my bad, I wrote it the wrong way round.

So like you said, and as I was s'pose to write. The newer lens won't be included in the older camera lens database, which could result in certain anomalies.

Are you planning to get it looked at to work properly fully?

Other than the retailers, I don't know where the Tammy service centre establishments are now.

[Tannin]

I don't think so Arthur. Not unless it happens to be cheap and easy for some reason. It's not something I'd bother buying a dock or packing a lens up in a box and it sending off to a service centre for.

I mostly use that lens (or the 60 macro before it, which served the same role) around f/8 or f/11, very seldom under f/4, and it is perfectly OK at those apertures. It only does it at f/2.8 and below. And I'm just as likely to use it with the 5D II as the 5D IV - it's only the 5D IV that does it. And I can always switch off the anti-vignette function and (if desired) achieve the same result in post. And it only affects the in-camera JPG, not the raw file.

To confirm this just now, I looked at the raw files using Bridge and Photoshop. Interestingly, the thumbnail Bridge displays includes the error (if I remember correctly, the raw files contain a JPG thumbnail, which Bridge must be using) but after the whole folder has finished reading, Bridge must go through one-by-one again recalculating the thumbnails direct from the raw, because the thumbs change, one by one, to a non-corrupted version. (You might miss seeing this on a very fast system with an SSD, but it is easy enough to see on this five-year-old i7 laptop which has an SSD but stores most of the pictures on mechanical drives.)

So Bridge reads every file in a folder twice, and performs a CPU-hungry recalculation of the thumbnail for every single file! No friggin wonder it is so bloody slow and horrible! It shows impressive attention to detail, granted, but is horribly resource-wasteful and so very, very Adobe.

[arthurking83]

....

To confirm this just now, I looked at the raw files using Bridge and Photoshop. Interestingly, the thumbnail Bridge displays includes the error (if I remember correctly, the raw files contain a JPG thumbnail, which Bridge must be using) but after the whole folder has finished reading, Bridge must go through one-by-one again recalculating the thumbnails direct from the raw, because the thumbs change, one by one, to a non-corrupted version. (You might miss seeing this on a very fast system with an SSD, but it is easy enough to see on this five-year-old i7 laptop which has an SSD but stores most of the pictures on mechanical drives.)

So Bridge reads every file in a folder twice, and performs a CPU-hungry recalculation of the thumbnail for every single file! No friggin wonder it is so bloody slow and horrible! It shows impressive attention to detail, granted, but is horribly resource-wasteful and so very, very Adobe.

I was going to suggest that test too. Good to see you tried it.
That's the way Adobe's software operates.
It initially uses the embedded jpg preview file from a raw file, and it's updated as it then updates it's catalog. Lr works the same way.
Once done tho and no further raw files added to the system, it no longer uses those resources for that process. Still slow tho.

Curious if you can also see it in Canon's DPP.
It should have the ability to selectively turn the peripheral lighting setting on an off(obviously on a raw file only), no matter what the camera setting was.
That's how Nikon's software works, so I assume DPP has similar settings abilities.

[Tannin]

As per your suggestion, I tried it with DPP. On first sight, DPP simply displays a from-the-raw thumbnail (not the embedded JPG one with the error). But on more careful testing, by copying a folder to a new location, thus making sure it is not cached anywhere, you can, if you watch carefully as DPP populates the folder, just see DPP display the embedded JPG for a fraction of a second before it switches to the one it calculates from the raw. This is vastly faster than the sluggish Adobe method. It is doubtless more efficient in several ways (in programming terms, being more efficient than Adobe is like, in biological terms, showing more vital signs than a corpse) but the stand-out obvious one is that the Adobe method is guaranteed to create cache misses, thus forcing physical re-reads of the drive. DPP (like any sensible program) reads the file once. The Adobe method not only reads it twice, it reads the entire content of the folder between first read and second read of any given file, thus guaranteeing the lowest possible file system performance for it. Adobe at their classic blundering worst.

Why am I not surprised?

As for turning the peripheral setting on and off, yes, you can do that in any raw converter from any manufacturer. No, wait! I've got that wrong. Most likely you can ONLY do it in DPP (for Canon raws) or the equivalent other software for Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, etc. I don't expect that third-party raw converters would be able to read and honour Canon's in-camera post-processing instructions - though possibly Adobe does to at least some degree, they can be quite good at that stuff. In all other converters, you would expect it to be OFF no matter what - but, of course, you are always free to use that program's native anti-vignetting function.

One more thing. Adobe's second-guess-the-thumbnail process also resets the white balance and exposure of all the thumbnails! I reckon this is probably one of the many reasons I have never warmed to Bridge. Subconsciously, I have no doubt been turned off by the weird and ugly colours in the thumbnails as compared to the thumbnails I see in most other programs which are generated from the JPG and in consequence have (in 99% of cases) the correct white balance. (I generally get my WB right in-camera.)

Adobe is doing god-knows what with thumbnail white balances - possibly its own auto-WB at a guess. As near as I can estimate by eye, DPP honours the in-camera settings.

And another thing - neither one seems to provide an option to adjust the thumbnail size. This is a basic. Good image viewers (PMView, XNView, etc.) have had this for decades. The DPP one is good on a big screen (mine is 2560 x 1600), no good on a small screen - say 1360 x 768). The Bridge one is fine on little screens but hopelessly small on a big screen.

[kwaal]

Not techie at all but love my new Tamron.