Tamron SP AF 70-300 F/4-5.6 Di VC USD Lens for Nikon

I do wish people would remember that it is the PRODUCT that you are reviewing, and NOT the supplier, the service, the warranty deflection due to grey imports, and the like. I imagine, at least I hope, that everyone would give this lens at least 4 stars if not the full 5, based on only the lens, and not the side issues caused, in part, from shopping around for a keen price.I bought one two weeks ago, via Amazon, and it came from Italy. It had the EU warranty in the box, as a genuine German market model should have had, and I registered it in five mins on the Tamron site. I got an email 20 mins later confirming the 5 year warranty was now in force.Bear in mind that I am shooting on an APS-C (cropped sensor) camera, and this lens will fit both cropped sensor and full frame sensor cameras such as the D750 etc. By using it on a cropped sensor, you are using a more central part of the lens, rather than the full width, and so vignetting (darkening of the corners) does not occur, or at least, if it does it is completely invisible to me!Just to be clear, the lens is an absolute cracker. I hope you will discount any negative reviews you find, as, this is a lens capable of stunning results for two reasons. Firstly, it is the Tamron anniversary (special) lens and they wanted to make a splash, and did so by adding low dispersion glass elements into the design, I think two of the 17 elements if I recall correctly. This DOES produce a very very low level of Chromatic Abberation (called CA in most reviews) which is a very good thing. If you are new to this, CA is when edges of objects, such as thin tree branches against a white or bright sky, have a slight red edge to one side, and or a slight blue edge to the other. It is to do with the way that glass passes light through. It is very hard to get all three primary colours to focus on the same plane, red yellow and blue, so you get the yellow in perfect focus, the red slightly ahead of the focus point, the blue slightly behind, which is what causes the problems.This lens produces almost no CA at all, you have to use it wide open in poor shooting conditions, against the light, to find any at all.The lens is as sharp as a razor at 70mm and stays like that through to 230mm, beyond that, it remains very sharp. If you are buying because you NEED 300mm then have no fears.The second reason you'll get great results is because the image stabilisation in the lens is pretty staggering. I owned the Nikkor equivalent lens, the 70-300mm VRII and the Tamron beats it for sharpness, CA, and Image Stabilisation. In fact, the Image stabilisation is so good, you can hand-hold this lens, at the full 300mm (450mm equivalent on APS-C) at ridiculously low shutter speeds!(note - IS is NOT fitted to the Sony version of the lens because Sony built their own stabilisation into the camera body instead)I shoot this lens handheld at the full 300mm and can get sharp images as low as 1/60th sec. Those who know photography well will agree that on an APS-C sensor camera such as my D5200, 300mm is actually 450mm, and that focal length should require a shutter speed of 1/500th sec. This means I can shoot and get very acceptable results at just 10% of the shutter speed I 'should' be using. Put another way, 1/500th....1/250th......1/125th......1/60th is a whacking great big four stops slower. It effectively gives you the equal of an f/2.8 lens at a fraction of the cost.Do not be worried about the warranty issue, I know on Amazon you can't communicate with sellers before you buy, so all you need to do is include a message to them, either when you pay, or, Immediately afterwards, insisting that you will only accept the item if it includes EU warranty, and trust me, you want one of these lenses, wherever you end up buying one!Truly, there are no words to describe it, if you know how to handle a lens like this, just buy it!

I'd been trying to get some decent results out of a Canon 70-300 non-L IS for the last 2 years but it really isn't that nice a lens at 300mm, and the colours have a nasty yellow tinge that's hard to remove in post processing as well. Maybe using L lenses has spoiled me for that one and I expected too much?Anyway, I read good things about the Tamron, was doing some kit upgrading and decided to give this a go. I've now tried it on a 7D, 50D and 20D and it has worked impeccably, with no adjustment required, on all three bodies. Colours and contrast are very good indeed. Not just for the price, but for a 70-300 zoom in general!The good: AF is fast and quiet - very similar in performance to a USM L lens, and streets ahead of Canon's 70-300 IS (non L). Full time manual focusing is implemented too - you can turn the AF ring at any time without having to disengage the AF mechanism. Focusing is also internal - nothing rotates on the lens body. There's a distance scale too, which the Canon doesn't have. Image resolution is impressive at all focal lengths. 300mm is perhaps slightly less sharp than 250mm down is but it's not like most other "consumer" 70-300 models - this time the 300mm images are actually very good, even at f5.6. In fact stopping down, whilst it does improve sharpness, doesn't make a huge difference. Chromatic Aberrations are very well controlled. I've seen minor fringing on some highlight edges but it's very thin indeed. The "bokeh" (i hate that term but it's the one people know) is very nice indeed and so natural looking you take it for granted. By comparison, backgrounds from the Canon model are "jittery" and messy. VC works well and also doesn't need switching to mode 2 for panning like the Canon does. I managed to get a usable shot at 1/8s in testing. This wouldn't be 100% repeatable but 1/30 is easily achievable for the steady of hand. It's well balanced - it's VERY easy to hand hold this lens on any of my bodies. It just seems to sit "right". Finally, the price: brilliant and I'm still not sure how they've done it! (not complaining, mind)The "bad": The AF ring is close to the camera body. This CAN result in out of focus shots if you accidentally catch it. However it's actually nicer to hold further down the barrel so hasn't been an issue for me yet. VC can jerk a bit on engage and disengage, and can sometimes sway a little if you hold it too steady! It's something that happens occasionally rather than all the time though. AF can be a bit uncertain at the "lock on" stage. Initially I thought it was the VC jumping a bit but it's actually the AF shunting slightly. Again, doesn't always happen and is more likely in low light - just be aware of it really.On a few of my lenses i've had to use the Microadjust of the 7D and 50D to get AF to be spot on. I was worried that the Tamron may be problematic given it's price and might cause issues on the 20D (which my son uses - this lens is mainly for him). It has needed 0 adjustment on either of the bodies that can do it and has proved on many test shots now taken to be dead on with the 20D. I've also tried it with a Kenko 1.4x converter and results were much better than I was expecting. More testing to do with that combo yet though....If you buy one of these and results aren't what you expected (ie soft images) there are a few things that might be wrong. 1: Your technique MAY be off - 300mm requires careful handling. 2: AF may be out of adjustment - try MA if the camera supports it or send it back for a replacement / fix. It really should be good at 300! 3: There may be a build error (ie misalignment)in your lens. Again, send it back for replacement or adjustment. It looks like I got a good one at first try, thankfully, but lenses do suffer build variations - check it out thoroughly on receiving it!For the record, the Canon 70-300 isn't horrible, in fact it's quite sharp under 200mm and the 300mm end is OK if the subject is fairly close. But it really doesn't get close to the Tamron on any level, in my experience, and I have no hesitation in recommending anyone considering a lens of this type to either stump up for the Canon 70-300 "L" (over £1000) or get this for a third of the price but with performance that is almost in the same league as the "L".

I bought this lens to replace a Nikon 70-200 that i destroyed the other day out and about.I checked all the usual reviews and I’m not going to go into all of that, you can find plenty of vids on You Tube.What i am going to tell you is that this is worth every penny of the cost. It’s well built, the focus ring is smooth and the zoom feels just right to use.It’s quite a heavy lens but not anything that will cause problems.The thing that has surprised me the most is also the thing that made me think it was broke when I first used it.When it’s locked focus you get a strange, almost like a grinding noise. At first i though oh god this thing sounds broke. What it is, is the best image stabilisation if used on any lens. It locks on to the image for around 3 seconds and is actually quite hard to shake it off. It states it’s around 5 stops and i must admit its got to be close. The image I’ve posted on here of the boat under the light was at 1/6 of a second at iso400 F4 and was taken at almost total darkness HANDHELD!I took a shot of the castle from across the water at about 2 miles away. Again it was in total darkness at a 15 second exposure.Auto focus is quick, it rarely has to hunt even in -4 to -5 evLike i said the VC is a bit of a surprise with the noise but its not anything that gets in your way and not something that others would notice. I’ve not noticed any lens creep yet and i was carrying it round hand held for about 3 hours today.Honestly if you’re in the market for a telephoto lens then you could do a LOT worse than this and for the money i don’t think you will find anything better.