I bought a walk-about lens the Tamron 18-400mm what a range. I am now testing it to see how it stacks up to Canon L 100-400 white lens.
To say I am impressed to putting it lightly. Yes the Canon L is slightly sharper and I would say that the percentage of good shots to poor is higher with the Canon L.
I think I am getting about 40% acceptable with the Canon while with the Tamron it is about 25% however the poor shots are still fine for family pics. The whole thing is keeping the lens steady. The Canon is twice the weight so it is easy to steady against shutter slap.
If you really need sharp go with the heavy more expensive glass, if you are just walking around taking pictures this super telephoto has a lot going for it!
I carried the Canon once for 8 hours in Disney and my neck still hurts ROFL.
Both of these shots were hand held. Canon 1/500 at f 6.3 at 400mm
Tamron 1/500 at f/5.6 at 400mm
There is a difference in noise that is because to get the same shutterspeed with the Tamron it ran at ISO 6,400 while the L ran at 2,000
But for casual work it is fine! At least that is my opinion. I just got it today and will be doing more head to head tests against my other Canon Lenses, my 35 F/2, 18-135 STM, and 100mm Macro.
Canon 100-400 L lens
Tamron 18-400 super telephoto
