Think Twice Before Buying Tamron Lenses
In my last post I told you that I purchased the Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 Di VC USD (I paid $1,299) and 70-200mm f2.8 Di VC USD (I paid $1,499) lenses. I was all excited until I tested them. I shot a test pattern with the camera on a tripod, firing it with a wired remote and the Vibration Compensation turned off.
The 24-70mm was pretty sharp at 24mm and 70mm at various f stops. The 70-200mm had soft focus at 70mm and 200mm from f 2.8 through f 8. This didn’t bothered me as zoom lenses are often a little soft at their maximum or minimum focal length.
The real problem is that both lenses would randomly take a photograph that was WAY out of focus. By that I mean instead of looking like this
it looked like this.
This happened on both lenses about 10% of the time. And my camera won’t take pictures that are out of focus, so the lens wasn’t communicating properly with the camera.
I don’t want to spend the time or effort to check the focus for every photograph I take, and it’s really hard to tell an elk or condor to get back into position for a second shot.
If this had happened with only one lens, I would guess it was a bad lens, but both lenses? And I have found reviews of these same lenses where this problem was mentioned.
I’m returning the lenses and I’ll have to pony up the money for Canon lenses.
I wanted to pass this along to you if you’re thinking of buying Tamron lenses.
Before you buy any lens, check out several review sites. I’ve found http://www.the-digital-picture.com/ to be very useful.
Have Fun,
Jeff


















