Tamron 85mm VC

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Got this new lens in the mail this evening. I had a chance to take all of a couple dozen frames, but some first impressions:
- It's neither large nor small, but it's lighter than I expected for its size. I guess I'm used to Sigma packing glass into every crevice. It makes it handle very easily, and even well with the SL1.
- It appears to be as sharp as I'd hoped. I can't wait for daylight to really test whether that crazy MTF chart is based in reality. From the pictures I took tonight, it seems it might be.
- I was specifically looking for color aberration in the corners, as that is the weakness of the 35mm little brother. I was able to cause CA, but only when I really went out of my way to do so, with bits of metal shining, etc. It is really quite decently controlled in these first examples, all correctable. Significantly better than the 35mm, at least in my small sample.

 

[TeT]

the 45 is the CA monster of the bunch... look forward to your daylight opinions and maybe a few samples...

 

[manofiron]

According to optyczne.pl and lenstip review, there seems to be noticable spherical abberation ( just like in Canon 50 1.2 ) - i.e. when stopping down the plane of focus changes, degrading quality at apertures of about 2.2-3.5 - because object may fall out of DOF. It improves again in narrow apertures as DOF increases, therefore "hiding" the effect of missed focus. Hope it will be corrected in firmware, because just like in Tamron 24-70, it's a major optical flaw, albeit it may not be noticeable to someone who shoots wide open.

Their copy also had good accuracy when shot in close distance, but some ff/bf was present in near infinity shots.