Lens Comparison: Tamron 35mm f/1.8 VC vs. Canon 35mm f/2 IS

Having been very impressed with the Tamron lenses that I’ve used over the past few years, I was a little surprised by what I found when comparing the Tamron SP 35mm f/1.8 Di VC USD and the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM. Neither one turned out to be The Perfect 35mm lens, but they both stand out in their own ways. If you’re the impatient type, you can skip to the conclusion.

Image Sharpness

Both of these lenses are wonderfully sharp and capture excellent detail, and even in the most obvious instances, the differences in image quality between the two lenses is very modest. That said, the Canon was consistently sharper in the center of the image until about f/8 (where they’re probably both diffraction limited), while the Tamron was sharper than the Canon away from the center and particularly at the borders of the frame.

The Canon optics do a remarkable job at controlling chromatic aberration (magenta or green color-fringing) in high contrast areas, eliminating it entirely in most cases. Before corrections, the Tamron suffers from a moderate amount of fringing across the frame, even in the center. I found this to be true on the Tamron lens that I used in the comparison video, and also of the first lens that I tested at the PhotoPlus Expo in the fall of 2015, so I don’t take this to be an anomaly with the sample I was testing.

Auto-Focus Performance

The autofocus on both lenses was fast and accurate in my tests. Neither lens had significant front or back focusing problems, and neither missed focus at an unusual rate.

Shot with the Tamron 35mm f/1.8 VC. Matthew Gore | Light And Matter

Stabilization

In my tests, the both lenses had no trouble providing 2-stops of stabilization at the bottom end of the shutterspeed range. Beyond that, it was a percentage game: the Tamron rarely produced usable images at 3-stops below 1/40th of a second, but the Canon did pretty regularly. The Canon dropped off further beyond three, but both lenses produced occasional good results. I consider the Canon to perform better by about 1/2 to a full stop.

Bokeh

Bokeh evaluation is a completely a matter of personal taste, so it only makes sense to show the results here and mention a couple of details. First, the highlight balls produced in the bokeh of both lenses have thick, contrasty edges, which is generally not considered ideal. Second, the Tamron produces slightly smoother bokeh, with larger details, but the highlight balls do exhibit “onion rings”, concentric circle artifacts produced by the aspheric lens elements.

Vignetting

As can be expected with a shorter, lighter lens, the Canon doesn’t have very even performance across the frame, and it displays very strong vignetting. In the corners at f/2, there’s a drop-off of at least two f-stops of light, and the vignetting remains quite visible at f/2.8.

An overview of the vignetting from these two lenses. Matthew Gore | Light And Matter

The Tamon, on the other hand, controls vignetting very well. The corners show a very modest drop-off at f/2, with hardly any change when opening up to f/1.8. At f/2.8, there’s no significant vignetting.

Body and Build Quality

With this comparison, we’re comparing a Tamron SP lens, part of the company’s professionally oriented line, against a non-L Canon lens… a consumer-line lens, so it’s no surprise that there are some differences in build quality.

The location of weather sealing gaskets on the Tamron 35mm Lens Image Courtesy of Tamron

Most importantly, the Tamron 35mm f/1.8 VC is a weather sealed lens, while the Canon 35mm f/2 is not. In addition to several rubber gaskets in the Tamron construction, its front element has a fluorine coating to repel water and oil.

The Canon is the more compact lens, shorter than the Tamron by about 1/2 inch, and 5 ounces lighter. Both lenses are quite a bit lighter than their f/1.4 counterparts, like the Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L or Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART series lens.

Downloads

Use the links below to download RAW files for a closer look. These images may not be reproduced, displayed, or published in any form.

Downtown Space Needle

Conclusion

Neither lens is optically perfect, but very few are. For my money, I’d prefer the across-the-frame sharpness of the Tamron lens, as well as its weather-sealed construction. That said, the Canon lens is slightly sharper in the center of the frame, and in high-contrast shooting, it controls color-fringing better than the Tamron. Canon’s image stabilization works a little better than Tamron’s Vibration-Control, but they both work well down to speeds at which subject movement is much more likely to be a problem than camera shake.

For optimal performance, both lenses will require shots to be corrected in post processing: vignetting will require correction from the Canon, and chromatic aberration will require correction on the Tamron.

However, both lenses offer impressive optics, all things considered, and are good options for those photographers who want a compact lens and stabilization. I’d recommend either lens to traveling photographers for whom weight is a serious consideration and tripods are not always at hand.

Editor-in-Chief
  1. One wonders WHY the manufacturers persist in releasing lenses that fall just short of what we really want when we know (from other lenses that they make) that they have the knowledge and skills to give us what we really want.

    These are both brilliant lenses, but:

    Canon can control LoCA really well. Why cannot Tamron?

    Canon makes excellently weather sealed L-lenses. Why could the 35 f/2 IS not have been weather sealed?

    1. Why could the 35 f/2 IS not have been weather sealed?

      Because then you’d be less likely to spend an extra thousand dollars on the L-version, I suppose :-)

    1. Hi Alvin,
      I don’t really shoot video… at least, not professionally… so I can’t give you an informed opinion about that. They both seem like they’d work well, to me; the stabilization works on both, and they’re nice and quiet focusing.

  2. Nice review, Matthew. I was debating between these two lenses and eventually bought the Tamron.

    Another nice thing about Tamron is its semi-macro capability. It has a shorter minimum focus distance (20cm), which gives it an impressive 0.4x reproduction ratio, as compared to Canon’s 0.24x.

    1. Thanks Zahn :-) You’re the second person to mention that about the Tamron lens and close-up photography, and it took me a little by surprise the first time, since it never really occurs to me to use a wide-angle lens that way when I actually have one on my camera. I always want a little more working space, I guess :-) Anyway, it’s something I’ll keep in mind in the future… I guess I did compare the MFD on my Tamron 15-30 f/2.5 video, so it’s already floating around my mind somewhere.

  3. Which would you prefer more for family photos? I have a 50mm but catch it not focusing as well on family photos and was told a 35mm would be best! not looking to spend 1000$ on a lens tho. Which would you prefer for those type of photos?

    1. Hi Courtney,
      In part, it will depend on the camera you’re using… a full-frame sensor will give you a different field of view than a smaller sensor. I’ll assume that you have an APS-C sensor (since most people do), though. That means that a 35mm lens is equivalent to a 56mm lens on a full frame sensor, and that makes it a good, standard lens.

      Either way, it sounds like your 50mm isn’t meeting your needs, so it’s as good a time as any to try a 35mm. As I mention in the video, I’d probably opt for the Tamron, but the Canon is a little more compact and a great lens, too… so it’s hard to go wrong.

  4. Fair review, but why is the onion rings bokeh mentioned for the Tamron lens, when it is the sample from the Canon lens that shows the most prenounced onion rings?

    1. Hmm. I don’t see any onion rings on the Canon side, so my guess is that either we’re talking about a different phenomenon, or maybe there’s some confusion about which is the Tamron sample. I’m updating the image set… maybe that will help clear things up.

      – Matthew

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