Quote Originally Posted by Sheiky
About a week ago I decided to sell my tamron 17-50 2.8, because I was tired of it. I liked the imagequality but the longer I used it the more I hated the af performance, speed and accuracy, especially in low-light and or party-environment.

I hope "decided" doesn't meant you did. The 17-50 f2.8 is an great piece of glass.


Low light parties are sometimes too low light even for the best L glass with USM. I'm still confused as to why people always want to blame it on the lens. I get more hunting with my 70-200 f2.8L in a low light situation than I do with the Tamron 17-50.


Primes are great for low light. I love the EF 50 f/1.4 @ f/2.0 for low light indoors work. That however is on A FF 5D. Maybe someone knows of a high quality 30 or 35 1.4 that would fit the low light party need of a APS-C sensor.


Sheiky, I think you'll find when shooting in low light with low number apertures AF will always be hit and miss. The dof at f2.8 and below gets very narrow and just a little movement toward or away from the camera can cause an OOF result. IMHO, I would suggest if you buy something that you would put it in a head to head test with the Tamron before selling that lens off. You might be suprised at the test results. It could save you some considerable coin.


Otherwise, I vote for the 17-55 f2.8 IS.


The last consideration is to buy a 430 EX II andshoot bounce flash. The external will give you focus assist in low light and with flash you can shoot at higher apertures resulting in sharper more "in-focus" images. If you feel like flash is to intrusive, set the flash not to fire and just use the AF assist.


My thoughts, good luck.