Ryan, one of the best, real world comparisons of two lenses that I have seen. Without showing any bias, you have let the viewer draw their own conclusion -wow! I would love to see more comparisons like these, please! Also, a comparison of the new Sony 20mm against the 24 GM would be of interest; if one already has the 24GM, is there a good reason to pick up the the 20mm? Same question if one has ,say, the Tamron 17-28 f2.8 lens...... Thanks for all your hard work on these tests.
I am a cityscape photographer, and i am fully happy with my tamron 20mm purchase. i dont care about autofocus as i use manual focus always, for the price the image quality is excellent
Great review. I got my Tamron 20mm and it just does not match up against the tech in my Tamron 28-75. It is much slower auto focusing in low light and overall autofocus. The barrel distortion is really bad but can be compensated for in post. The noise is really loud as well. I am going to return it and spend the extra for the Sony faster lens and better auto focus. The lens just did not seem good enough for the $300 price. The Sigma $300 dollar lenses are a great value, but this does just not hold up. Not worth the $300 dollars. You will always be compensating for this lens; its not worth your time and effort in my opinion.
Great review! I was already considering the Tamron as my needs aren't as sophisticated. At 2:55 I prefer the Tamron's distortion pattern. I never liked skewed objects in the corner.
I agree with you 100% regarding the distortion at 2:55. This is the biggest factor to consider for me in regard to anything 24mm and less. I have seen youtubes with lab/chart tests showing wild barrel distortion of the Tameron, but in a real world test the it is the edge stretching on the Sony that looks awful in terms of distorting those trees, where as the Tameron does just fine with no noticeable edge distortion, (truer depiction).
Ryan - excellent presentation! You put a lot of time and talent into making this video. Two comments: (1) You might mention that the Tamron lens weighs a lot less. I'm more likely to carry and use a lens that doesn't weigh me down, especially since the difference in image quality is so minimal. (2) There's also a question of lens flare for the Tamron. I find that the lens performs poorly with street lights at night, producing an image spoiling "smear" rather than a pleasing "starburst". If you can overlook the lens flare, the Tamron is a the clear winner in my book - cheaper, lightweight, excellent image quality, and amazing macro ability. Thanks for a great lens review!
Really well done! Although, I would've loved to hear your final thoughts about who should consider each lens. Seems like the Tamron is a no-brainer though at those prices unless you really need the 1.8. Personally, the much lower price and smaller size seal the deal for me: Tamron it is! Thanks for posting
First I bought the Tamron, but distortion is too much and although it is corrected in post, correction affects the quality of the corners of the image. So I bought the Sony and it is way superior. Well, that' s only if you care about 20mm lenses otherwise, I understand that the price difference is too much. But I waited until Sony offered me a 20% discount and I just paid 770 for the Sony.
I just bought the Sony lens. It's well worth. This is the lens is all you need for most of the time, unless you need to take Telephoto or serious macro.
Such a great content. Thanks to "SonyAlphaRumors" for recommending this video. For a stills only use-case on a hobbyist camera, I see Tamron is good enough. Should be very good on a 24MP sensor like A7ii and A7iii
Basically you get what you pay for in this case. More light, faster auto focus, most buttons on the Sony lens, sharper and better corrected but also bigger heavier and more costly. Although if someone is spending money of a7RIII or a7RIII I would not cheap out on lens.
So now I am torn between the Tamron 17-28mm vs the Sony 20mm f/1.8. The reason for wanting the f/1.8 is I like shooting day time wide portraits, however, AT A DISTANCE. Would shooting f/2.8 vs f/1.8 actually make a difference in subject separation if my subject was say, 20 feet away? I love to shoot "little person in a big landscape photos" Thank you, Ryan! Great work.
I have had a 20mm Lens for full frame cameras for many years, but I have only used it rarely, it is not a focal length that fits my eyes for full frame, it can be very good for APSC mode. Now I use 14, 24 and 35mm wide angle Lenses. I am though interested in the Tamron 20mm 2.8 because of the close focusing which will be great for nature which I only will be using in APSC mode (26 megapixels on Sony A7RIV). I hope for more wide angle Lenses with very close focusing.
I use the Tamron 20mm F2.8. It's good enough, really light, uses my existing filters, and was $200. If I shot most of my images UWA I would look at the Sony, but I just can't justify F1.8 when most of my occasional 20mm shots are at F8. Thanks for the interesting content! I'm surprised at the huge difference in effective focal length up close.
2:57 Thats kind of weird - watched over twenty testvideos for the sony now but there was never such a visual distortion in the corners. Did you accidentally swap the pictures there? 😃 Also the tamron looks much more natural or already "corrected internaly" at 3:33 🤔 Did you shoot/choose JPG´s with the tamron or both raw?
I agree there is a stark difference in the distortion seen in the images from the two lenses compared in the segment starting at 2:55. There are few things that don’t add up with the notion that the image labels are switched, (The belief is the more distorted images are actually from Tameron and the no/minimal distortion is from Sony). He is saying the Tameron takes in a wider field of view. I think the less distorted image is a wider view, consistent with the Tameron. There are other comparisons in the other segments. The images labeled “Sony” seems to exhibit similar distortion.
> At f/2.8 for both lenses I can see that the Sony produces sharper corners with more resolution than the Tamron Unfortunately the images do not illustrate that. In the extreme corners images are all but identical and just a bit toward the center the Tamron becomes much sharper than the Sony. I've tried to highlight that: i.imgur.com/qnY7bCw.jpg Was that just a bad shot? I would suspect the images were mixed up if not for the f/1.8 pointing out the Sony.
Great comparison except one thing: when you compare the AF speed, you should use the A9, because when comparing lenses, you want to remove as many external factors as possible and try to compare only the lens, the A7Riv itself might have been the bottleneck here. Same thing when comparing IQ, you should use the R4 to see which lens exhibits the best image quality at high resolutions, which you did :)
@@RyanMenseWildlife LOL... I agree, not all youtube watchers are on A9. If I can afford an A9, i'll get the expensive lenses too. Not saying that Tamron is bad, but from my experience with GM vs Tamron, i'll stick to GM.
Sony- better image better low light and bokeh Tamron- light weight option with a macro punch One is not necessarily better than the other, just depends what you need. I have the tamron but also own a 14-24mm sigma which is lovely but a bit heavy so for me so the lighter weight of the tamron is attractive.
Ryan, I think you have done a fantastic job showcasing the low light capabilities of the new Sony 20mm F1.8 GM. I liked the video and subscribed to your channel. Do you think the low light capabilities of the 20mm F1.8 GM outweigh the 16-35mm F2.8 GM for outdoor low light video conditions drastically? I do a lot of low light virtual walk tours with the 16-35mm F2.8 GM right now (Using A7iii body + Zhiyun Crane 2 Stabilizer). I usually set the focal length to around 17mm or 18mm to compensate for the Sony 4K video crop and Adobe Premiere software stabilization crop while still providing a true virtual wide angle experience. Despite being absolutely blown away by the 20mm F1.8, I am concerned it is simply not wide enough for my style of videos. I definitely welcome your opinion if you know any better alternative. Anyway I would greatly appreciate if you could check out my recent videos and provide HONEST feedback. Subscribe if you enjoy :)
Clearly the Sony is better in almost every way, Sony has less distortion, sharper, better low light, more accurate colors, better focusing, quieter focusing, and better build quality. The only downside of the g lens is it’s more expensive and larger
Based on the video at 2:55 I’m not seeing how you can say Sony has less distortion. The trees of the Sony lens look very much so distorted in comparison to the Tameron.
Sony obviously delivers the best results in every aspect and every way, and a plus bonus: Is really a 19mm... Fact on Tamron is the price, but AF, vigneting, distortion are terrible
That end part is confusing. So at the same close focus distance, (mfd for sony and still not minimum for Tamron) , the subject looks bigger for sony? How is that possible?
It is very clear from the specs that the Sony is well worth the extra cost. They are not even in the same league. I have read quite a bit about how 3rd party lenses are not as fast to autofocus than native lenses, when used on rapidly moving subjects in challenging conditions. This is why some fast-action photographers have chosen to stick with the lenses that their camera body manufacturer makes. I think this is why the tests with your dog that start at 5:30 are so important. I am surprised that the Sony didn't perform noticeably better than the Tamron in these tests. Kudos to Tamron for being able to reverse-engineer a system to perform as well as a native system performs!
the tamron seems better in the corners coz the trees are less distorted. And on the vignetting test the sony’s look bad compared to tamron. They almost reach the center of the frame lol. Looks like the Tamron is the winner based on what you showed. The only advantage of the sony is 1.8 aperture , smoother bokeh and more silent AF. The tamron had less vignette, less corner distortion, closer MFD and almost 50% lighter. Plus its 50% cheaper.
I've used the 24mm, but it was long ago when it was first announced and can't compare them in my head from memory. If I happen to get another look at one I can let you know.
I didn’t use either for astro so I can’t say, sorry. It was cloudy on the nights I was available to try them for that. They are both new lenses now, but I’m sure soon enough as more people buy them someone will have a comparison that can better answer that for you.
2:55 Sony’s distortion correction looks awful! Look at how stretched the tree looks in comparison to the Tameron image. Optical superiority is why one would pay the extra money (more than double the price), to get the Sony lens but I’m not seeing it here. Also, people argue better optics is why the Sony lens is larger than the Tameron at this focal length. Looking this terrible I can’t see why one would pay the extra money and put up with the extra bulk for the Sony.
nice review. I have question - what lens for Sony A7iii for streaming? Cost $200-300... with AF sure. I need smooth background, beauty bokeh. Tamron 20mm good choice or maybe something else?
In the comparison at 2:56 it looks like the Sony has quite a dramatic distortion in the trees as compared to the Tamron; why is that? Is it possible to correct in software, and if so, how? I'm thinking of going with the Sony just because i like the aperture ring and it's better for astro and aurora, but I am concerned about that distortion I'm seeing here. Thanks for the review!
Thanks! was a great review, its a hard choice, but for me I have to go with the Sony, just an overall better product. However, they are both great lens depending on specific application.
I got her when she was a 1 year old and she already had the name Luna. I wasn’t offended enough to change it, so it stayed. So good thing it wasn’t “Sprinkles” or something haha.
@@RyanMenseWildlife I had the opposite problem, ours was already named Sarah, which also happened to be the name of our downstairs tenant.. So that wasn't going to work!