Lens faulty? Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8

[alexellisuk]

I bought a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 for my Canon 350D just before Christmas. I shot a bit over a week's worth of family/friends and holiday kind of photos using this lens and at times an external flash: Canon 440EX. The results were not impressive with shots focus off the mark and looking like they were taken with my little IXUS P&S camera.

The problems I had

* While using the flash, 95% of the shots were out of focus and very soft (compared to my kit lens which was spot on)

* Although this isn't a problem with the lens.. a rather high ISO was required even at f/2.8 shooting with plenty of light inside -- must be the time of year.

* Bokeh was much harder to get than with the 50mm f/1.8 -- which seems to "pick-out" focussed subjects from a scene.

In general most of the shots taken were disappointingly out of focus and I am wondering if it is because it's a third-party lens, whether it is a "faulty copy" or what!

Has anyone in this forum experienced similar problems with this or another lens?

Could someone please advise me what to do? I should be able to return the product under the 30 day return policy.

Regards,

Alex

[dang]

Can you post some example shots in a gallery with the exif, so everyone can take a look? It would help you get answers.

[alexellisuk]

All resized from the 8mp original jpegs, you can still see the out of focus areas. I can upload larger if required.

EXIF shooting in P mode with settings set by flash unit: is around 1/60 and f/2.8.

Follow the link and click on the image for it to be displayed in "full size".

I went away for the weekend and took the 18-50mm kit lens only, the shots I got were spot on with the focusing every time compared to the Tamron.

Can you post some example shots in a gallery with the exif, so everyone can take a look? It would help you get answers.

[adz929]

Auto or manual focus?? The images shot at f/2.8 are most definately softer than the ones shot at f/4, however, they are all still very soft. Almost seems as though the lens if suffering from a case of front focus as I'm having a lot of trouble picking the exact point of focus.

[alexellisuk]

They were all shot with auto focus set to the centre focus point. I have don't nothing different to when I used to shoot with my kit lens which produces very well focused images with the ext flash.

This is my flickr page, the latest shots until the "Santa claus" image are shot with the Tamron. These are the better results with full EXIF data, yet still not what I would hope for from such an expensive lens comparatively. Some of these photos look as bad as my 5MP point and shoot.

http://flickr.com/photos/alexellis/

Auto or manual focus?? The images shot at f/2.8 are most definately softer than the ones shot at f/4, however, they are all still very soft. Almost seems as though the lens if suffering from a case of front focus as I'm having a lot of trouble picking the exact point of focus.

[adz929]

They are certainly better, however some are still very soft. Hmmm, have you tried manual focus across a range of f stops? Set up a little test scene, focus manually on the closest subject and try different apertures, stop down one stop at a time, i.e 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16 etc. and see how you go. Do you have any filters attached at all?