Hey James

Here is a quicky test I did at home as it was a dark and dismal overcast day .. I locked the gain/iso at 18db (ISO1280) but otherwise let the camera expose the image. The stock lens actually does remarkably well is the low light considering it was at F5 and the 17-50 Tamron is a F2.8 constant.

With more area and further back like in a Church the Tamron will be a lot better I think as shooting in a limited space doesn't allow it to get to it's full potential.

tamron test - YouTube

Chris

Looks great Chris, I was just going to say you need some distance with the Tamron as that will show it's real potential lighting up things properly BEHIND the subject your focused on i.e. if people are grouped up talking, you'll be able to see faces behind the people your focused on clearly too.

Thanks James

It's Winter here ..I have no weddings until next month so I'm pretty limited to their use ...brides don't like getting married in the cold and wet (it rains here in Winter) and the fact that it gets dark at 5pm!!

I start again on the 27th July (yeah we have a short Winter too!!) and my first wedding is Greek one so I'll be using the lens there.

On a slightly different topic, does anyone use a fisheye during the reception on the EA-50 ...I go down to 11mm but that's a corrected lens so no curvature at all ... I was wondering about dance floor shots with a really wide angle and some distortion too but have never got around to going for a fisheye lens.

Chris

tamron test - YouTube (http://youtu.be/B7y6jsTfFP0)

WOW, using a faster aperture makes a world of difference.
thank you for sharing this man!

Hi Chris

Thanks! My actual super favourite lens is my Tokina 11-16 F2.8 that I use on my Nikons for Realty Photography. On the Sony it open up a new world for property videos! I do rental condition reports on video and need to cover walls, ceilings and floors of rooms quickly and the zoom at 11mm and focus locked at 2.5 feet means that I can essentially use the 50 as a handicam.. no focus and auto exposure and the results are awesome and save me tons of time! Even at F2.8 the DOF is plenty enough at 11mm for me to be in focus all the time!

Chris

Chris do you ever use the EA50/Tamron hand held? If so how does it cope with no OIS?

I'm still searching for a wide lens for my EA50/VG20 with OIS and no luck so far - in busy receptions I need to get in amongst the crowd so I need a wide lens but quite often the space is too crowded to put my VG20 on my Merlin - also I quite often shoot from above or below so the constant trimming would slow me down - the shot would have gone before I managed to trim adjust the steadicam.

Pete

Hey Pete

To be honest no!! So far I have used it only for wedding speeches on the tripod mount camera but I use my 11-16 Tokina handheld all the time and it's just as steady without OIS.

Then again I have been using shoulder mount cams for 23 years now so I can hold it fairly steady anyway so even with the stock lens I don't bother with OIS as if I put the same cam on a tripod and forget to turn OIS off it gets the jitters. I think we make way too much fuss about handheld anyway. Watch top class BBC productions and watch the top frame of the TV and see how much the camera moves..people just don't see that and I do also incorporate camera moves when hand held so it's never static anyway!

On the steady cam it also doesn't like OIS too much so I turn that off as well...come to think of it I don't think I have ever used OIS!!

Chris