Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II PZD for Sony/ Minolta (Part 2)

I’ve done a test shot indoor and outdoor using this lens at selected focal length at their widest aperture. The picture was sorted starting from 18mm, 35mm, 50mm, 70mm, 100mm, 200mm and 270mm.

 Indoor  (shot done using a flash, bounced) Generally, I think the sharpness of this lens is quite acceptable for each focal length.

 Outdoor (shot not using flash, handheld) The sharpness is well maintained although there might be some motion blur cause by camera shake since I’m not using tripod

 Bokeh (shot not using flash, handheld) Bokeh generated was quite ok. Please beware the effect of bokeh might vary since the factor of you foreground and background need to be considered. For my case, my background was quite far from the subject, so in theory, the bokeh should be easily obtained.

  My verdict: This lens was quite versatile in term of range and the quality of the picture was not as bad for superzoom lens. Good for travel and for those who want to upgrade their kit lens. The Piezo Drive was surprisingly smooth and silent although the lens do hunting a bit in low light condition. With this Piezo Drive, i’m thinking of testing a Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 lens

Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II PZD for Sony/ Minolta (Part 1)

 I manage to get a 1 day testing of Tamron 18-270 f3.5-6.3 Di II PZD lens for Sony/ Minolta mount. This lens should be the longest superzoom range ever made for Sony/ Minolta mount to date as it beat Sony SAL 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 by only 20mm. While ‘Di’ is easily identified as digital, this new Tamron also bring ‘PZD’ tag with it. What is PZD? PZD stands for Piezo Drive; a newly developed motor design to give a smooth focusing operation compared to screw-driven motor used in previous version of lenses. I can give credit to this Piezo Drive because it was quite fast and silent too, although in low light condition, the lens struggle a bit to lock the subject (and it was expected). This lens didn’t come along with Vibration Compensation (VC) since Sony/ Minolta has their in-body stabilizer unlike Canon and Nikon. What’s in the box; the lens, petal hood and documents

And it comes with focus lock too. Very handy if you’re on travel

For comparison, it sits almost the same height with my Konica Minolta 17-35mm f2.8-4.0 lens, but at full length, the height was almost double from the original height. This lens has 62mm lens diameter, which is same as SAL 18-250mm f3.5-5.6 The aperture reading for this lens reads as follow:

18mm – min aperture is f3.5

24mm – f4.0

35mm – f4.5

50mm – f5.0

70mm – f5.6

150mm – f6.3

**end of Part 1. Wait for the second part; test shot using this lens.

(C)an (Z)hat be True!

This is 1680ZA lens. produce by the legendary Carl Zeiss (CZ) company exclusively for sony alpha range. its full name: SAL16-80 f3.5-4.5ZA


this is the best APSC zoom lens for sony alpha camera. i have to say, i was impressed with its sharpness, color and the range was really useful. since my A550 was sold, it was no point i should keep this lens, although it was the first CZ lens i ever own. so i have to say goodbye to this also...

*i may buy this lens again if i ever bought an APSC camera again. only time will tell

Goodbye : A550

last month, i have to sold off my gear to my friend. it was my A550 that have to make way. although it was hard to let it go, i have to since i really that money to fund for another thing. just before it was sold to my friend, i manage to take a few shot of my ex-camera


it was my 5th DSLR camera that i bought (now i only have one!) and i must say this camera has a good reputation. it was the fastest fps camera i ever own (at 7fps), good handling of high ISO and what i will miss most is the tilting LCD that help me lot especially during a nature outing


what make it stand out compared to earlier Alpha's DSLR is the ON and OFF switch was changed from left side of camera body to its shutter button. almost like nikon camera.


it also has the HDMI port, in which i never use!


unlike earlier Alpha, this camera use SD card and Memory stick (MS) as its medium of storage. lucky me, i have my MS during my purchase of A850, so i dont need to buy another MS.


from top, you can see all the button (almost!) are placed at the right side of camera. for me this is good as i can access the button in one hand only. the magic function that i admire most is MF Check LV. this is really useful for extreme closeup photo that require spot on focus. for macro lovers, this feature are to good to be missed


one thing for sure, i definitely miss my camera so much. lucky the buyer was my officemate. so i may get a chance to keep hold of it again!

Minolta 28153 f4-4.5 : The so-called "Hidden G" - My review

over the past week, i have a chance to own this lens, better known as Secret Handshake among Minolta users. at first, i refuse to close the deal, as i think my current lens served me well. after a while, i think i have to reshuffle my lineup again and this lens comes to my mind. this lens didn't cost me a single RM since i trade it with another stuff but straight away i feel i made a good decision that i wish i never regret!



the lens was very solid as it was made by metal. lucky me the lens was in good condition even the age of this lens might be as old as me! it weight around 750g (quite heavy compare to other lens in it range)





















the lens will extend when zooming, but the filter will not rotate when focusing; made it suitable for CPL filter to be used






















i put it next to my HVL-F56 flash. it was almost the same height as my flash








it has a macro mode, although the magnification is not that great (maybe 1:2 or smaller). but honestly i enjoy the macro mode the most. the only downside is, it cannot fit equipments like raynox dcr250 coz the filter size was 72mm






what i like the most is, the grip was not like the current sony lenses grip which are dust magnet. i can easily get rid of any dirt that sticks on the grip compare to sony lenses grip











it has 5 contact points compared to newer lens that have 7 contact points. prior to this, the lens are not working in ADI flash mode. only the one with 7 contact points will work with ADI flash mode








the blue line indicate the lens are in macro mode. how to switch it? just push the macro switch upwards while rotate the zoom ring beyond the 28mm limit. while using macro mode, the lens cannot work in AF but just in MF. you can see the MFD of this lens is around 1.5m, but in macro mode, the lens can get as near as 25cm! to release the macro mode, simply push the macro switch upwards again and turn the zoom ring into 28mm limit









some say this lens are prone to flare. this because of there are no hood provided. even the hood thread are not there unless you use the screw hood. but so far, the flare didnt cause me a big trouble






need more? wait for my part 2 review. for the next review, i will try this lens for some photographic test. stay tune...

unbox the box pt. II

maybe some of you have read about what i received in my previous post.
http://yusrihussain.blogspot.com/2010/05/unbox-box.html

ok..many asked about what it is. i don't want to reveal it last week coz it still under testing. but i will uncover it now. it was Minolta 135mm f2.8 lens

you can refer the preview of this lens at this website: http://www.dyxum.com/lenses/Minolta-AF-135-F2.8_lens75.html

since sony is a rebrand name of the old skool Minolta, all Minolta mount lens will fit nicely into any Sony Alpha mount (or we used to call it A-mount). Sony itself has its own 135mm lens namely 135ZA f2.8 and SAL135 STF. while the price of SAL135 STF (smooth trans focus) are well over my budget and the 135ZA ('ZA' mean it produced by the legandary Carl Zeiss) is sure beyond reach, the opportunity to own this lens is hard to turn down. the sizes maybe small, but it do bring a big reputation

the size is almost like u stack up 2 50mm lens and almost the same height of my 1680ZA lens

another shot at the lens. still looks great although the lens itself age almost 20 years.

i done a test shot of this lens for the whole weeks, with my sons as a subject. what can i tell u is this lens were really a gem;
since it was a fixed focal length lens (or popular known as prime lens), it should have the best sharpness output compared to zoom lens. i test at widest aperture (f2.8) up to f4 (normally at f4, many lens will start producing a nice aoutput).

this is taken at f2.8. i focus at my son's right eye. the output was sharp enough at f2.8 although there are some CA at its widest aperture.

this shot was taken at f4.0, in which i think the output was at its best. what do you think?

Unbox the box

Last week i received a parcel from Penang.

i was excited; and decide to open it straight away using my super sharp knife

when i open the box, there are all rubbish...all the way from Penang and i only got rubbish? when i look closely, i found something..

...here it is...

my knife was called for action again...

..and it got message in it..

wonder what it is? wait for the next entry. hehehehe