Lens Reviews

Tamron has always been a pioneer in the do-everything zoom lens category and their new AF18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD lens is no exception. Don’t be intimidated by those initials—it’s all good stuff—and I’ll get to them shortly. The 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 is part of Tamron’s Di II family of lenses that are engineered specifically for digital SLRs with image sensors measuring 24x16mm, typically referred to as APS-C. The sensor size of the Canon EOS 50D I tested the lens with measures 22.3x14.9mm so I guess that’s close enough. The 15x zoom range of the lens provides a 35mm focal length equivalency of 28.8-432mm with the Canon EOS 50D’s 1.6x multiplication factor, but that will be slightly different for the Nikon and Sony versions that are also available. Shooting full frame? Check out Tamron’s Di lens series for 35mm film cameras or digital SLRs featuring larger (24x36mm) sensors.

When it comes to lenses, the name Carl Zeiss is synonymous with optical perfection or as they say around the Hallmark store, “when you care enough to shoot the very best.” Zeiss continues to expand its line of interchangeable lenses for Canon, Nikon, and Pentax cameras to include two new wide-angle lenses, the Distagon T* 18mm f/3.5 and Distagon T* 21mm f/2.8.

The...

The new Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) joins a growing community of wide-zoom lenses. In contrast to an earlier version of this lens, which is available in several mounts, this APS-C Tamron optic (designated Model B005/$649 street price) is only available in Nikon DX (with built-in motor) and Canon mounts. Given that I mated this lens to a Nikon D300, that effectively...

Nikon’s entry into past universal 80-200mm f/2.8 lenses started back in 1978 with a manual focus, push-pull lens checking in at 4 lbs. Ten years later the autofocus model arrived sporting ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass; ’92 marked the “D” package. In ’96 the AF-S version came along, followed by the new generation of front motor drive “G” models. Now we...

If, like many Shutterbug readers, you have a film SLR camera plus several interchangeable lenses, you might be wondering if you can use those lenses with your new D-SLR camera of the same, or even different, brand.

Long considered the focal-length sweet spot for macro work, the 60mm focal length of the new Tamron 60mm f/2 lens ($569 MSRP) converts out to 96mm for Canon and 90mm for Nikon APS-C D-SLRs.