Lens News

Tamron just announced a 50-300mm f/4.5-6.3 zoom for Sony E mount full-frame cameras, and Shutterbug had a chance to evaluate a sample for a few weeks before the new lens was unveiled. That's not a typo—she's a 50-300, not a 70-300—and that, as it turns out, makes a huge difference. Here is our hands-on review.

n lens development news, Tamron said it’s creating a new ultra wide-angle zoom lens for full-frame DSLRs with a fast F/2.8 aperture and VC (Vibration Compensation), which the company claims would be the world’s first in this category.

I thought that Tamron had outdone itself first with its 70-300mm lens and then with the 24-70mm f/2.8  and 90mm f/2.8 Macro lenses: all bearing the SP (super performance), VC (vibration compensation), Di (digitally integrated primarily for full-frame sensors), and USD (ultrasonic silent drive) monikers. There are of course other noteworthy lenses in the lineup, but these are the ones I tested for Shutterbug. Now comes the impressive Tamron SP15-30mm f/2.8 Di FC USD, which the company first previewed way back at photokina 2014. With this lens Tamron has created a near-flawless masterpiece in optics that simply blew me away!

The difference between a “constant” aperture zoom and other standard zooms is that when you increase the focal length on the standard zoom the maximum aperture narrows. This might make the difference between being able to hand hold or not when zooming in, and may indeed force the use of higher ISOs. Known as “fast” lenses, constant aperture zooms are pricier and bulkier than their variable-aperture counterparts. And to sweeten the pot, we’ve seen more and more fast lenses with built-in image stabilization, which gets you even more low light and steady shot capability.

To make a better lens, one that avid photographers might even be inclined to leave on their DSLR camera permanently, Tamron set aside all of their former notions about lens design and construction and went straight back to the basics with the new Tamron SP 35mm f1.8 Di VC USD (Model F012) and SP 45mm f1.8 Di VC USD (Model F013) prime lenses, which are the subjects of this review. 

The 70-200mm focal length has been the standard tele-zoom choice for many years, offering near normal to a good tele range that suits many practical purposes. Yet, quite a few stock-in-trade 70-200mm lenses had been slow or lost significant aperture as soon as you left the shortest zoom setting, making them a real challenge for handheld, low-light, or even max focal length shooting. Certainly, improvements in sensors and processors in terms of the high ISO/image quality ratio have helped. If you’re too slow on shutter speed with a variable aperture zoom you can always jack up the sensitivity. But that’s not always a great choice and it seems to force you to compromise image quality just to make up for the lens losing “speed” just when you need it most.

I’ve always preferred longer focal-length macro lenses in the 90-100mm range because they give you more breathing room between the camera and skittish subjects than does standard (50/60mm) macros. No wonder, then, that one of my earliest lenses was the original Vivitar Series 1 90mm f/2.5 macro, which I first paired with a Minolta SR-T 102. I burned plenty of Kodachrome with that glass.