Tamron lense AF and Meter performance issues?

I had a canon rep say a few things about off brand lenses.

1. "you use a flash with that Tamron?" "How's it metering?"

And went on to say it'll be off.

I've heard of Canon brand Flashes doing better metering, but not lenses. Isn't AF and metering almost entirely the camera body's job? I realize there can be issues like "front focusing" that are the lenses fault, but not sure where the line is drawn. Logic would suggest that the flash metering wouldn't care what lense was used as long as it knows the focal length, f-stop, and shutter speeds. The light meter is in the camera, not the lense.

2. She also mentioned that "Tamron only uses the center AF". It can be rechipped to work OK but ... "It'll look like its using the others but it doesn't really".

I use my Tamron 28-75 f2.8 about 90% of the time. I use center AF more than not but hadn't recalled a problem.

Upon trying it; all of my 9 AF points work as I would expect. If I select the far right one, focus on a series of objects at varying distances, it focuses immediately on the one at the right dot.

3. She said that Tamron has the same owner as Nikon and they share specs to make the Tamron work well on Nikon (Mitsubishi). The suggestion was that only Canon lenses would be 100%, and that Canon doesn't share its specs so they would have to reverse-engineer the lenses to work (sounds fishy - wouldn't Canon want their bodies to be the best and not be blamed for lense problems?).


Was this just sales talk or is there really something to it? My BS meter was waving its hand, but these things usually have some element of truth too.

I hate people who lie like this. I was at Ritz's (ducks from flying objects)... yeah I know, but I don't live in NYC so it was the only place I could go to actually lay my hands on some things before buying.... Anyway, I was looking at the Canon camera's there and he was trying to push the Nikon and one of the things he pointed out was how Nikon was able to maintain focus on a moving subject, and Canon couldn't. Aparently he wasn't aware of AI-focus and AI-servo focus modes... He then went on to tell me that I was foolish for looking into buying the 50mm f/1.4 because zooms were so much better these days and I should get just as good a photo from that Q-Ray 28-80mm lens he was wanting to package in with the Canon and Nikon camera's. Either he didn't know what he was talking about, or he was purposely misleading me for the sake of a sale. Needless to say, I bought my Canon from Adorama.

sounds to me like sales hype with a grain of truth. here are the grains that I can see....
1. metering with flash -- a few canon lenses report distance information back to the camera, which affects ETTL-II metering. This is very few lenses, and the effect is miniscule. I'd guess that flash metering with the tamron lens in works the same as flash metering with any canon EF lens that doesn't report distance info.

2. "only uses center AF"... you have demonstrated this is false. no grains here.

3. reverse engineered -- this is true. Canon doesn't release the details of how EF works, but reverse engineering can't be that hard to do since Sigma, Tamron and Tokina have all done it.

my BS meter starts quivering when any sales rep is nearby (any product), and it redlines when they start talking.

kind regards,

forkball wrote:
I hate people who lie like this. I was at Ritz's ... He then went on to tell me that I was foolish for looking into buying the 50mm f/1.4 because zooms were so much better these days and I should get just as good a photo from that Q-Ray 28-80mm lens ... Needless to say, I bought my Canon from Adorama.

Consider the source. Ever look at their sample photo album that's supposed to impress people? Not exactly a pro shop although I'm sure some very knowlegable people work there too.

However; this was the Canon rep. The one who makes the rounds to local stores and is supposed to have a hot line on the real scoop!

One thing she is good for is to bring a 24-105L next Friday for me to give it a try.:p

I'm really curious if there was any truth to these? Next time I see her I'll call her on it if she's just using me to start such rumors - but only if I'm armed with the truth. Particularly about the flash metering issue.

- Hey, they can only lie when their lips move. Oh wait; there may be those knowing eyebrow expressions too.

Know anything about who owns Tamron and Nikon? Is it the Mitsubishi conglomerant?

Tamron appears to be a publically traded company on the Tokyo stock exchange (TMRNF.PK), selling for about 33.25 per share. It could be that Nikon (NINOF.PK, 12.50) owns some shares, but they don't own Tamron. If you want, you could own a little of both. Or you could buy canon (CAJ, NYSE depository shares).

I've gone to a meeting where a technical rep was going to be present, and I knew that there was going to be some fibbing going on. As soon as the meeting started, I pulled out a tape recorder and set it out on the table. All of a sudden, there was no fibbing.

Actually, they weren't going to be fibbing. They were just going to practice some deceit and deception.

If you hear somebody who you think is fibbing, just ask them if they are willing to go on record.

---Bob Gross---