Spread the love
A little over a decade ago, Tamron rebranded their lenses in a way that made them look and feel a lot more premium. Back then, they celebrated this with launching their 35mm f1.8 Di VC. At the time when we reviewed it, it had some focusing issues. And this was also a time when I really started to realize that Canon and Nikon majorly played with the autofocusing algorithms to other company’s products when attached to theirs — to a point. But when this lens delivered its top tier image quality, it did so with real gusto. What do I mean by that? Well, at the time, you could say that this lens was a bit more spicy than others.
The Tamron 35mm f1.8 DI VC boasted really beautiful colors and nice bokeh. In today’s world, that’s not hard to do. I, and the other reviewers that work for the Phoblographer, would say that that just makes this a lens. But if you were to buy this lens and adapt it to your camera today, you’d really enjoy the character that it delivers. The copy that I tested had fringing, some sharpness issues, etc. But if you adapted it to a mirrorless camera and used the scene detection to make the autofocus better, this lens would help you deliver images that make everything look incredible.
Unfortunately, today we live in a world where brands are creating lenses that feel soulless and fetishize reality. Tamron generally isn’t like this — but some of their latest lenses have indeed felt soulless. If you picked up the 35mm f1.8 off of Amazon and adapted it today, you’d experience the color output and then combine it with in-camera profiles to get something more in-tune with what you want.
For example, on Canon cameras, I’d probably be able to get something that looks more like film if I combine it with Thomas Franson’s film profiles. Though at the same time, Canon’s EF to R adapters I know have problems with third party lenses. So too does Nikon’s F to Z mount adapters. I’d know, I’ve tried them. And when I ask the brands about the issue, they state that they can’t comment on third party lenses.
Truly, I just think that those brands have way too much of an old-school mentality. And that’s quite sad, because third party lenses from this time period really did look better than anything Canon could make.
