Finally after months of waiting I got the 17-35mm and 28-75mm AF (D) new lenses to test from KM UK. They have been round the press and lens caps and stuff are missing, but anyway, I got em eventually.

I am a bit knocked back. I have used maybe a dozen older Minolta lenses on my 7D, and been concerned variously about back focus, slightly poor definition, and sometimes a little disappointed with shots while very satisfied with others.

But these lenses - especially the 28-75mm - have sobered me up because NONE of my previous results had been anything like as good as these are. I'm getting pinpoint definition of extremely fine detail even on enlarged (uprezzed) files, and my first reaction on viewing a 28-75mm shot was that I had forgotten to set Photoshop CS Raw to upscale to 5120 pixels (which I do for my picture library submissions). In fact I had.

Not ONE of my older lenses - including the 50 and 100mm macros - comes close to matching what I am seeing from these new (Tamron-China-derivation) lenses. I did use them at photokina, but at 1600 ISO (etc) and this is the first chance I have had to use them on proper subjects with low ISO and excellent light. Nor do any of the Sigma lenses I've been trying match the 28-75mm; the 17-35mm is a little less impressive but not much, it's so far superior I am now quite upset I didn't lay out for this pair from the very start, but shot hundreds of images using lenses which clearly were not delivering the same quality.

I will make a slightly difficult comment - if Phil had shot that stamp using the 28-75mm at 50mm, instead of a pre-digital prime 50mm, I'll bet it would have blown away the Canon shot!

I'm surprised no-one else has noticed the difference or said much about it. I, like most D7D buyers, had hopes that my entire old lens collection would be 100 per cent fine on the digital format. I realised very quickly that all but five (two new lenses, one xi 35-200 and my macros) were not really delivering the goods. It did not stop me shooting and sticking to the lenses which I knew worked best, and using them in a way which worked.

Big difference is these new lenses seem to focus with far better accuracy, much faster, and deliver the best performance (equal or better to the best shots I've had) at every setting and in many circumstances. Anyone who has invested in these, expensive though they are, probably wonders why some others are a bit critical of D7D performance. The cameras is transformed by them and I don't think it is any accident it was shown with these lenses first and has generally been released for test along with them.

David