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Tamron AF 28-300 f3.5-6.3

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March 27, 2001

I finally did a brief test last week - here's what it looked like, along with some impressions:
Target was a stone spring house about 250 yards away. Sunny day, sun behind me, high 40s, 12:30. Kodak MAX 400, Z-1p, good tripod, cable release. 4x6 prints from a camera shop. There was a little bit of heat effect from the highway in between, but a slight breeze was helping keep it down. All apertures were set at f8. I fiqure the Tamron is probably a lot softer more open, but I didn't have a lot of time and this seemed reasonable.

At 28mm it looks decent, but a little soft on objects WAY out there. I've taken a number of scenic panoramics at 28 and always thought my 17-28 Pentax fisheye was sharper at 17, with twice the coverage . Should look OK to the average casual photographer.

100mm it looks as good as my Pentax 80-200 f2.8 lens.

200mm it's a little softer than the Pentax, but still real nice. And the Pentax is big and heavy and can't realistically be carried mounted with the camera suspended from its strap. It also cost 4X the Tamron price.

300mm still looks OK, but its really hard to handhold 300. The tripod shots look A LOT better than most of my handheld ones. The f6.3 max aperture at 300 also hurts in any less than "cloudy bright" conditions.

I put a Kenko 7 element 2X converter on the Tamron. At effective lengths of 400 and 600mm, it was really getting noticeably fuzzy. Forget enlargements unless the subject stands out from the background. But it was still comparable to my Vivitar 500mm mirror lens that I never use because the "f8" Vivitar is really about f16, and not real sharp. Worth keeping the converter in the pack just in case. The Tamron won't autofocus on the converter except at short lengths; the Pentax will (as expected from the maximum apertures).

The Kenko converter is real decent. I tried it on the Pentax 80-200 and the images were just fine.

All in all, I'm glad I bought the Tamron and it will remain my primary field lens when I'm hiking. (A 50 1.7 usually rides in the pack for early AM in the woods, and I take the fisheye if I'm expecting any mountain scenery.) I saw a couple user reviews that said the mounting was fragile, and while I haven't abused it, the UV filter's dug though the mud a couple times when I've slipped with the camera around my neck, so it can't be THAT fragile. All in all, it's one of my better purchases. If I broke it, I'd buy another immediately - don't know what I'd do without it.

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April 01, 2001