Third Party Lenses
Derek Smith • 31 May 2024
Poppies
Sony NEX 3N with Sigma 60mm f/2.8 lens by Derek Smith
Bollards
Fuji XS-20 with TT Artisans AF 27mm f/2.8 lens by Derek Smith
Girl and Horse
Sony 5100 with Tamron 18-200mm lens by Derek Smith
Sam
Olympus OM EM5 II, with Sigma 56 f/1.4 prime lens by Derek Smith
Choosing a lens for a camera system is never an easy task, selecting the right focal length for your needs, whether to buy a zoom lens, or prime lens and then what aperture is required. For some camera systems the manufacturer may even provide a different aperture in the same focal length as an example a Canon RF 50mm prime lens f/1.8 can be purchased for around £200 but choosing the 50mm f/1.2 version might cost ten times this.
Many cameras when purchased new will be available with a “kit” lens, these are very often good value for money, and get you started with the new camera. The “kit” lens supplied with a camera system can often be of an inexpensive build quality, sometimes the widest aperture will be f/3.5, and have a lower optical quality than more expensive offerings. I used the Sony 16-50mm PZ compact zoom lens for many years on my APS-C cameras. At that time Sony did not offer much in the way of E-mount APS-C lenses, just a longer zoom 55-210mm, and a 35mm f/1.8 prime, and this is where a third party lens can be of a real benefit, I bought a Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5 – f/6.3 zoom lens, (when Sony introduced a 18-200mm f/3.5-f/6.3 lens it was rumoured that it was manufactured by Tamron), and a Sigma 60mm f/2.8 prime to add to my camera kit.
Tamron, and Sigma dominated the third-party lens market for many years and provided lenses that often filled gaps in a propriety manufacturers offerings. Sigma has produced a widely acclaimed trio of f/1.4 lenses the 16mm, 30mm, and 56mm available for many APS-C mounts. As an example when Canon introduced the M mount mirrorless series of cameras, such as the M50, as far as I am aware Canon developed only 2 zoom lenses, and a nice 22mm prime pancake lens, this system had a lot of potential, but Canon dropped the system in favour of the RF mount digital mirrorless cameras, all three of the Sigma f/1.4 prime lenses are available for the M mount cameras, filling the gaps that Canon left in the system.
Samyang manufactures a wide range of lenses for various mirrorless camera mounts, the 12mm f/2 APS-C wide angle lens is well renowned for build, and optical quality, and I’ve used this lens on my Sony A6300, and now on the Fuji system, I’ve created some incredible images with it such as at Mam Tor, Whitby, the night sky images, and all of the last years churches project. For full frame cameras I used the Samyang 45mm f/1.8 on my Sony A7 ii and took some amazing portraits with this lens.
Chinese lens developers have come to the fore with some very inexpensive third-party lenses to fit various mirrorless camera mounts. Viltrox, 7 Artisans, TT Artisans, Meike, and Pergear are some of these Chinese brands, initially a lot of lens offerings were, and still are manual focus, but many more autofocus lenses are now being produced. Sigma, and Tamron manufacture quality products in Japan, and Samyang are a South Korean company.
Currently, I’m using the TT Artisans AF 27mm f/2.8 pancake lens with my Fuji system, the lens is on sale for around £160, and I’ve just purchased the TT Artisans AF 56mm f/1.8 bought for £130, which I’m very pleased with. I replaced my Fuji 18-55mm f/2.8-4 lens (the optical quality of this Fuji lens was superb) but the Sigma 18-50mm lens has a constant f/2.8 aperture, is smaller, lighter, and focuses closer making it a great little travel lens.
In summation then a third-party lens may have the advantage of providing more choices of lenses for different camera mounts, at a competitive price point. The disadvantages of choosing a third-party lens could be a reduced resale value, less reliable product support, and may have inferior image quality, but if I can get 90% of the image quality at a third of the price then it’s a choice I’m prepared to make.
Louth Photographic Society
A print competition was held last night with the categories of; "Monochrome" and "Open". Diane Seddon from Cleethorpes Camera Club was the judge for the evening, Diane is very skilled, and thorough in her judging, providing useful insight, and critique of the prints. Many of her comments centered around the best cropping of an image to optimise the subject within the frame, and giving the subject "room to breathe" in the framing. Congratulations to David Whitehouse placed first in the "Monochrome" category, with his superb rendering of a face sculpture, and Dave Turner placed first in the "Open" category with his stunning print of the sunrise over Whitby Harbour. Thanks to Diane Seddon for a great evening, and as she remarked at the end of the competition all the prints were of an extremely high standard. The Competition Page has been updated with the highest placed images, but currently the score sheets for the competition are unavailable.
Good Morning All Last week Dave Bennett came to the club again, it has been a while since we have seen his photography but well worth the wait. Dave's photographs were excellent and his story telling along with AV's made it a very good night. This week, Wednesday 15th October, we are holding a print competition, with the categories of "Mono" and "Open", our judge for the evening will be Diane Seddon AFIAP CPAGB BPE3* she is well qualified to judge our prints. The following week we are going to try a retro night again, with Transparencies taken prior to the year 2000, please let me know if you want to take part and have a time slot allotted, time will depend on the numbers wanting to take part. Regards Graham
Last night Dave Bennett came to the club to show us AV's and narrate other sets of photographs on a theme. Dave started with photos along the Humber and then carried on the evening with AV's on nature, flowers and transport as well as talks and photographs showing us Grimsby docks including detailed photographs of fish smoking and engineering. Dave's photography is of a very high standard with strong colours, lot's of use of depth of field and they tell a story. A great night, thank you Dave.
Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a local PDI competition with a category of "5 Minutes From Your Home", we had some very good entries in each category with myself, and Dave Turner judging on the night. All the results are on our website, but well done to Derek for his mobile phone picture of a remembrance seat in Horncastle and Harry for his hellebores in the "Open" category. This week, Wednesday 8th October, Dave Bennett is coming to the club to show us what he has been taking lately, Dave does quite a bit of AV so as usual it will be a very good night. A reminder, send your print titles for the next print competition to Dave Turner by midnight Wednesday and bring your prints in this Wednesday night as well please. If you have any more N&EMPF Exhibition PDI entries send them to me by midnight tomorrow (Monday) please. Regards Graham
Our PDI "Local" competition was held last night, with the categories of "5 Minutes From Your Home", and "Open". Dave Turner, one of our members began the evening with judging the "Open" category, always a difficult category in my opinion because of the variety of subjects entered into the competition. Dave had previewed the images on his home computer, and had notes on each of the images, he provided excellent feedback on each image. After the break, Graham Harrison began judging the "5 Minutes From Your Home" category, this was a very unusual subject category which stretched the creative ingenuity of members, and it was particularly interesting to see what members had submitted. Graham judged the entries very fairly, and provided very good critique of the images. The standard of images submitted was high, which makes judging a competition such as this difficult, and as always is subjective, but a big thank you to both judges, it was an interesting evening. The first placed images, from each category are shown on this post, "At the Going Down of the Sun" by Derek Smith, "5 minutes from your home", and "Hellebores" by Harry Kerman in the "Open" category. The website Competition Page has been updated with the top three placed images, and the scoresheets.
Good Morning All Last week at the club member Tony Gaskins gave us an excellent presentation of his recent trip to Kenya on safari. Tony showed us the animals and birds he had encountered on his trip. It was an evening of excellent wildlife photography as well as a very informative talk, thank you Tony. There is also a report on our website blog. This week, Wednesday 1st October, we are holding a local PDI competition, with the subject categories of "5 Minutes From Your Home" and "Open", Dave Turner has kindly offered to judge the Open with myself the subject, and you have until midnight tonight to enter. Dave Turner is also asking members to send him the titles of their prints for the next print competition, the categories for this are "Mono" and "Open". Regards Graham
Our member, Tony Gaskins presented us with an illustrated talk on his visit to the Kenya game reserves last night. Tony's talk was perfectly timed, and his description of the trip held our attention throughout the evening, the images he captured were indeed stunning. The variety of wildlife he captured with his camera were amazing, all of the photos of birds were incredible, and the fact that they didn't fly off like they do here in the UK. On Lake Naivasha Tony captured a sequence of a fish eagle swooping down to catch a fish, just look at the way those deadly talons are outstretched to capture the fish. The lodge Tony stayed in at Tsavo West was beside a watering hole, look at this capture of a Kirk's Dik Dik, taken from the balcony of the lodge. Images of Hippopotamus, Lions, Impala, Ostrich, Giraffe and Zebra kept us enthralled through the evening. Thank you and well done Tony for an interesting evening.
Good Evening All A little late as just got back late this afternoon from the golfing trip, I didn't take my camera other than phone as I wouldn't have really had time but there was some interesting wildlife about including Swallowtail butterflies which was a first for me. Last week you had the monthly PDI competition, Long Exposures and Open, Derek has done a blog on our website and the competition page has all the results. Some excellent photography on show judging by the top places. This week, Wednesday 24th September, we have member Tony Gaskins entertaining us with one of his talks, Tony is well travelled so as usual it will be an excellent evening of photography. Regards Graham
Last week we held our first PDI competition after the summer break, and what a superb evening it was. There were some excellent images submitted into the competition, and over half of the submitted entries were "held back" for awarding higher points, Tony Houlden was the judge for the evening. This week, Wednesday 24th September, Tony Gaskin will be giving an illustrated talk on his recent visit to the Maasai Mara game reserve in Kenya, it will be an interesting evening, with some stunning photography. Harry will be taking entries for our next PDI competition, with the categories of "Local 5 minutes From Your House", (in this case the "Local" applies to your house, not the 25 miles from Louth) and "Open". Harry is also taking entries for the LPA Competition, he's looking for 6 entries in this competition, from each member. I've been out, and about as usual, this photo is of an abandoned garage forecourt on the road to Spilsby.
This was our first competition after the summer break. The categories for the competition were "Long Exposure", and "Open" and our judge for the evening was Tony Houlden. We began the evening with the "Long Exposure" category, something of a surprise in this section were the amount of night time images, more typically were the images of flowing water, either of the sea or in rivers, Tony judged these images skillfully, and with his usual sense of humour. Dave Turner was placed first with his excellent "Saltburn by the Sea Morning", Keith Rossington took second place with his beautiful night time image of the river at York "From the Bridge", Harry Kerman showed the "River Dee, Cairngorms, Scotland" the flowing peat laden waters stilled in this carefully composed image. After the break, Tony began the judging of the "Open" category, I always think this is the more difficult category to judge because of the variety of images presented, Tony judged these thoughtfully, providing excellent critique. Dave Turner took first place with his monochrome view of "Scarborough Bay", I was pleased to take second place with "Sunset Jetty" taken on my holiday in Corfu, and third place with my monochrome "Haworth Main Street". It was an excellent evening, with some amazing images, Tony's critique was very helpful, highlighting unwanted distracting items in an image, haloing from excessive sharpening, and cropping errors. Thanks to Tony for judging, and Dave Mann for the refreshments.
