Now this is interesting. Tamron announced their 16-30mm f/2.8 lens, basically the G2 update for their 17-28mm f/2.8 lens, which Nikon rebrands as a Nikkor.
It’s interesting because Nikon is allowing Tamron to sell this new lens directly instead of making it a new Nikkor. This new Tamron lens will now compete with two Nikkors (14-30mm f/4 S and 17-28mm f/2.8). We have an odd plethora of zooms in the really wide angle realm now, but no real primes (other than some Chinese options, most of which are manual focus).
FWIW, I wouldn’t put too much into the change from 17-28mm to 16-30mm. Lens specifications are always rounded (and measured at infinity), so in practice there might not be as much expansion of the zoom range as is implied. I’ll have to check that when I get around to testing the new lens. I’d put more weight on the “G2” designation, as this generally means that the optical design has been fully reconsidered and brought up to current state of the art at Tamron. The original 17-28mm first appeared in 2019 (in the Sony FE mount), and Tamron has clearly refined their optical designs since then. While the Tamrikon 17-28mm f/2.8 turned out to be quite a good lens despite being G1, I’d expect the newer model to be better in some small things, like spherical aberration, coma, and changes in corner focus.
