Looking at buying the 7e, and reading the forum has convinced me to pay the extra for the Canon 28-105 USM lense versus the 28-90 or 28-80. But I've also seen some kits bunding the Tamron 28-105 lens, and it's quite a bit less than the Canon. How does it compare?

-- James Adair (jadairNO_SPAM@email.com), January 04, 2001

Answers

Here's a purist answer, James. Actually, I'm a Nikon-using purist, but the principles are the same whatever system you decide to use.

Buy off-brand lenses only when you know that you are going to get something special by doing so.

Canon goes to a lot of effort to make sure that its system of lenses has a common feel, a common quality, and a common colour balance. Its cheapest lenses do seem to be made to a price, but the one you propose is not one of these: it's a serious mid-range zoom intended for the enthusiast.

You won't save that much money by buying off-brand. My perception is that Canon and Nikon charge about 10% to 15% for ensuring their lenses meet their common standards. An off-brand lens costing 10% less than a Canon will likely be of a similar quality: an off-brand lens costing 40% less won't be.

You run a small risk of compatibility difficulties by buying off-brand. There have been occasions -- particularly with a technologically advanced system like Canon -- where off-brand lenses haven't worked with a new camera. But this risk is small: Sigma, Tamron and Tokina don't make junk, and they work hard to make their lenses work smoothly with all major marques.

Sometimes there is a good reason for buying off-brand: you are going to get something special by doing so. Taking your suggestion of Tamron as an example, the Tamron 90mm macro lens is very highly regarded. A specialist in close-up photography (amateur or professional) might well, after close consideration, decide to buy it instead of the Canon equivalent.

And when you decide you need a lens outide the 20mm to 300mm band, you too may be unable to see how you can afford buying a Canon lens.

But for most of us the marque's efforts to maintain common feel, common quality and common colour balance mean that second-hand Canon is more appropriate than buying off-brand.

Oh, and by the way, by all accounts the Canon 7e is a fine enthusiast's camera, but don't forget to look at the Nikon N80 as well. :-)

Later,

Dr Owl

-- John Owlett (owl@postmaster.co.uk), January 04, 2001.

One thing you don't get with the Tamron lens is Full Time Manual Focus (FTM). FTM has is of the big reasons for buying Canon in the first place. FTM when used with custom function 4 (moves the AF activation to a different button) is a real asset to an autofocus camera.

Nor will you get any kind of Ultrasonic/Hypersonic focusing motor. so it likely won't focus as fast or as quietly.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), January 04, 2001.