My Tamron 70-300 USD first impressions (and 'review')

Well I managed to get the new Tamron 70-300 f/4-5.6 USD lens a few days ago, so I thought I'd post a few tests and give you my impressions of the lens. This could be a bit long!

First, a little background. My current tele lenses are the Canon 70-200 f/4 IS and a (rather stunning) 300mm f/4 L (non IS). I use these almost exclusively for things like motorsports with occasional air shows and zoo trips. For me, they are generally used at medium to long range. The reason I am considering the Tamron is that, whenever I use the 70-200, I find myself wishing it went a bit longer. If I use it with a teleconverter, I find myself wishing it went wider! (The 300mm prime is usually used with a 1.4x teleconverter). My findings are based on this pattern of usage, so may not be too helpful if your needs are different. All tests are done on my Canon 40D.

Build quality and handling

The lens is fairly 'chunky', but feels pretty light. It's shorter (when not extended) than the Canon 70-200 f/4, but wider. When extended, it's longer than the Canon (even with teleconverter mounted). In all cases, it feels even lighter in use than the Canon, even though they weigh about the same - I think the centre of gravity is further back. It's easy to use all day without getting tired.
The build is standard Tamron (think the 28-75 or 17-50 lenses) but, probably because of the larger size and low weight, just feels more 'plastic-y'. It certainly doesn't have the feel of an L lens, or a Sigma EX, but I'm sure it's solid enough. The lens extends when zooming, and there is no play in the barrel. The zoom action feels kind of cheap and a little stiff. Hopefully it will loosen up with use. The front does not rotate or extend when focusing. The zoom ring is in front of the focus ring, which seems odd at first. It zooms the opposite way to the Canon, but it took me all of 2 seconds to adjust to that. The hood is enormous and, when it's mounted reversed on the lens for storage, you can't reach the zoom ring.
One last thing - the lens does not come with a tripod collar, and will not take one. Not an issue for me, as the VC is so good, but may concern some.

Focus speed and accuracy
A slightly mixed bag here, buit generally good.
Speed first. If the lens is, say, focused at 6 feet and you try to focus on infinity, it's rather slow. There is some hesitation, then it racks slowly from one end to the other. This could really do with a focus limit switch like the Canons. On the other hand, if the lens is not too far out of focus, it's quite speedy with zero hesitation. I used it for a short motorsports session, and never found the focus speed to be an issue. By way of comparison, I've never been happy with a non-USM lens in this situation. I'm not sure, but it may be a little better in practice than the 70-200 with the Kenko Pro 1.4x teleconverter fitted (as long as I don't need to go from min-max focus distance). It's not as good as either L lens used without teleconverter, but it's good enough. I even tried to track and shoot some birds and, again, it worked well enough.
Accuracy and consistency so far have been excellent. I've yet to see any problem at all, even in a couple of indoor test shots. Full marks to Tamron (so far).
One example of the snappy focus is the image below. I'd taken a couple of panning shots of this car, then turned away to look for the next one. I heard a noise, and turned back to see the car sliding off the track. I immediately zoomed in a bit, aimed the camera at the car, and shot a string of images in AI servo/high speed continuous shooting. This was all done as quickly as I could move. Every single shot, including the first, was perfectly focused, which I found very impressive.

I've always found Tamron's VC to be rather good, and this is no exception. For static subjects at least, I'd say it was better than the IS in the Canon 70-200 f/4 IS. There are no 'mode' switches on the lens, so I assume it automatically goes into panning mode - my panning shots worked out much the same as usual.
The VC is a little odd, however. When it kicks in, the whole image jumps in the viewfinder. When tracking a moving subject, there can be occasional smaller jumps as you move. It's all a bit strange, but it never actually stopped me from getting a shot, so it's not much of a problem. Canon's IS system does not do this.

Image quality

So far, very good. I'll post a bunch of crops in the next post, but here is my summary.
Sharpness is excellent, with the only slight weakness being the edge of the frame at 70mm, especially wide open. See the crops in the next post.
Colour/contrast/pop (or whatever you want to call it!) is also very good. My impression so far is that it's not quite as good as the Canon L lenses in this area (whether they are used with or without a teleconverter), but much better than a cheap lens. In processing images in Lightroom, I think I need to do just a little more than I would with the Canon lenses. A touch more contrast, or a nudge on the Vibrance or Saturation. It's hard to do an objective comparison - I only took a couple of shots with the Canon lens, and the light faded a little after that.
I've noticed just a trace of chromatic aberration on backlit shots, but I'd still say the performance so far is at least very good. Having said that, the Canon 70-200 has no CA at all on similar shots.
Bear in mind that most of my tests have been done at fairly long range. I suspect that this is the strength of this lens as shots I've taken at shorter range are still good, but perhaps not as good. Perhaps someone else can test this more thoroughly (it's not all that relevant to me).
The complete gallery of motorsports shots can be found HERE. The first 2 are with the 70-200 with teleconverter; all the others are with the Tamron.
Bokeh seems good so far. Here are a couple of examples wide open at 300mm, with the background out of focus to differing degrees. They're kind of 'nothing' shots, just there to test bokeh.

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The negatives

There are a couple of 'compatibility' issues. I noticed with the motorsports shots, and one or two others, a slight tendency to over-expose the image on occasion. I usually use +1/3 exposure compensation for motorsports and found that a number of the images needed negative compensation (say -0.5 for some images, and even -0.8 in a couple of cases) in Lightroom. These were mostly light coloured cars in sunlight, but it's not something I've found to the same extent with other lenses. I'll have to monitor this one and see how things are in the longer term.
Another oddity is when I tried it with my old Canon 420EX flash. The shots were all over-exposed, and applying Flash Exposure Compensation made no difference at all. I suspect the flash is firing at full power. Very odd.
Finally, I've found that, at the wide end, my lens is a little softer on the right than the left. It's not a big deal, and is something I've found on other lenses in the past.

Test crops in the next post.

OK, now for some 100% crops to compare this lens with the Canon 70-200 f/4 L IS (both with and without Kenko Pro 1.4x teleconverter) and the Canon 300mm f/4 L (non IS).
The target I've used is an old brick chimney. I've used this a lot for comparing lenses, and found that it really shows up differences in sharpness and micro contrast between lenses, especially the long lenses. It's also a bit of a 'torture test' - some lenses which are very good in every day use can look rather poor in this test, especially compared to my wonderful 300mm f/4 L What I'm trying to say is that a significant difference here can be an insignificant one in more normal conditions.
Another thing to be wary of is that the weather was not co-operating! It took a while to do all the shots as the sun was going in and out. There were also some very thin clouds which altered the light on occasion, so some images had to be re-shot. All this means that there was a slight variation in the nature of the light and, because of the time it took, in its direction. Therefore, I'd call these tests a useful indication, but not definitive.
A tripod was not used (it wasn't available) so stop reading now if you believe it makes the test worthless The shutter speeds were fast enough, however, in combination with IS/VC and things to support my elbows on, that I am satisfied that each shot is as good as it gets. I took numerous images for each and, if I wasn't happy they were consistently as good as possible, I took some more. In each case I also tried without IS/VC, on the off chance I could get a better image by simply bracing the lens against something solid. Bear in mind that the sharpest image of all was with the 300mm non-IS lens, so I'm not too worried about camera shake.

OK, that's enough provisos. All images were shot in RAW at ISO 200. They were then roughly white-balanced in Lightroom 3 (the Tamron images were a touch warmer than the Canon ones) and I allowed myself exposure compensation of up to +/- 0.3 to avoid the image brightness from confusing the results. They were exported to TIF with my Lightroom 'starter' settings: 2010 process, Adobe Standard, brightness 50, contrast 25, sharpening 50/0.5/25, 0 luminance and 10 colour noise reduction - black level on 5, everything else on 0. (They could all take some more sharpening without any problem). Crops of each were then copied/pasted into the combined images below, which were simply saved as (sRGB) JPEGs. Phew!

300mm at f/5.6 and f/8. Canon 300mm f/4 L (non IS) first, then the Tamron, then the Canon 70-200 f/4 L IS with Kenko Pro 1.4x teleconverter. I didn't bother with an f/8 shot for the prime. Don't read anything into the colour of the sky - there were clouds passing behind the chimney on some shots.

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stargazer78 wrote in post #11246525
Thanks for the review.

I too own a 70-200 f4L IS. I like the lens, but I do find myself shooting it at 200mm much more often than I shoot @f/4.0. For that reason, I'm entertaining the idea of replacing it with one of the 70-300mm variable aperture zooms. The 70-300L would be ideal, but its price simply isn't agreeable with me.

Since you own a 70-200 f4L IS as well... I will ask you this question: Would you feel comfortable selling that lens, and keeping the Tamron 70-300 VC as your only telephoto zoom?

As I've suggested below, I'm seriously thinking about it. If I shot at short distances more often, it would be difficult to sell the Canon.

Thanks for the in depth review. I've just bought the Tamron 70-300 purely on the strength of comments on this forum, as I was looking for a travel lens, and the Canon 70-300 had too many 'not quite as good as it should be' type comments. I'm not going to pay 1500+ GBP for the L lense, and my 70-200 f2.8L is too heavy to carry, so I'm glad that your review backs up other comments on this lens. I'm now looking forward to using it.

Now if I could just find the perfect camera bag...............

Excellent review thank you.

I sold the Canon 70-300mm IS f4/5.6 in order to purchase the Tamron 70-300mm VC.Largely I depended on the shots from the Nikon forum and Tamrons "best in class" advertising.

I also have an 18-270 VC Tamron (wife's) that performs very well,so I have no anti-Tamron or anti-3rd party bias.I also own a Sigma 10-20mm UWA and a Canon 24-105 F4 L among other lenses.

I tested the new Tamron 70-300mm VC and was disappointed in it's resolution at any focal length that I compared it to the older Canon lens.I kept it for 4-5 days/tested it fully/and returned it to Amazon.


I had really high hopes for this lens.My brief take:

Better image stabilization than the Canon IS.
Better build than the Canon,but noticeably larger and heavier.
Focus was similar as for speed.The Tamron was quieter.In dim light,the Canon was able to lock focus when the Tamron hunted.
IQ:Goes to the Canon.It's noticeably sharper/better resolution.

Bottom line is that I returned the Tamron,as it was very disappointing,and bought another Canon 70-300 IS.

The Canon 70-200 IS L F4 is MUCH better than the Tamron I returned.Not close.

I'd suggest that anyone looking at the Tamron compare it to the Canon 70-300 IS (non-L).These Canon's are available for $400 used/mint here or at Fred Miranda.

Here is another thread on the Tamron VC 70-300mm with images/comparison: http://forums.dpreview​.com …rum=1029&messag​e=36720696

When you look at the images,be sure to click on them to enlarge(click twice)!!!!


Fred

gcogger wrote in post #11246750
As I've suggested below, I'm seriously thinking about it. If I shot at short distances more often, it would be difficult to sell the Canon.

I generally found the same things but not remotely at all when it comes to the 70-200 f/4 IS comparison results. I can't believe that tamron actually beat your bare 70-200mm at 200mm at long distance shots! Or that your 70-200mm looked so, so much worse at 200mm than your 300 f/4 non-IS at 300mm or that the tamron destroyed your 70-200+TC combo. Maybe the kenko is bad? Using a Canon 1.4x II, if anything, the 70-200+TC might've looked better than the tamron, in any case, it didn't look any worse.

Are you sure something is not wrong with your copy? Not only did it do super badly compared to the Tamron at long distances it did better at the short end and near MFD which are actually known to be it's two weaker areas. My copy does much worse near MFD and it does best of all at long distances and 200mm.

Actually it sounds like you used the AF for the tests, even a HAIR of MFA being off can make the results turn out way different, maybe you have a little front focus with your 70-200+TC at long distance?

wombatHorror wrote in post #11248491
I generally found the same things but not remotely at all when it comes to the 70-200 f/4 IS comparison results. I can't believe that tamron actually beat your bare 70-200mm at 200mm at long distance shots! Or that your 70-200mm looked so, so much worse at 200mm than your 300 f/4 non-IS at 300mm or that the tamron destroyed your 70-200+TC combo. Maybe the kenko is bad? Using a Canon 1.4x II, if anything, the 70-200+TC might've looked better than the tamron, in any case, it didn't look any worse.

Are you sure something is not wrong with your copy? Not only did it do super badly compared to the Tamron at long distances it did better at the short end and near MFD which are actually known to be it's two weaker areas. My copy does much worse near MFD and it does best of all at long distances and 200mm.

Actually it sounds like you used the AF for the tests, even a HAIR of MFA being off can make the results turn out way different, maybe you have a little front focus with your 70-200+TC at long distance?

I knew it would be controversial, and I knew people would suggest my 70-200 is bad (which it isn't)

There's certainly no focus issue, as I tried many tests to see if the results would improve at 200mm and long range (inc. manual focus in live view). The teleconverter is fine - I've compared it to the Canon Mk II version and the Canon is a tiny bit better if you look hard enough. These results are also consistent with previous tests I've done since I bought the lens, mostly using a tripod. The 'close in' test wasn't that close to MFD (I'd guess about 7-8 ft?), so it's probably nearer a 'normal' shooting distance. I don't know at what distance places like photozone test these lenses, but it will certainly not be as far as that chimney!

The thing is that I believe the Canon results at 200mm are consistent with what I'd expect. As I said in my review, having tested many lenses on that same target, and with those processing settings, I know that even very good lenses can appear a tad soft, and subtle differences appear magnified. I think it's because it shows up any weakness at all in either sharpness OR micro contrast - if you look closely, the Canon is plenty sharp at 200mm, but the detail is slightly subdued due to the contrast. If I'd shot something like a car, or a road sign (or a giant version of the DVD box from the close-in test!), you'd probably be commenting how good the lens looks

I was expecting the Tamron to be sharper than the 70-300 IS, but based on those images it looks like it would be very similar. Not that I think that it is bad, just not the improvement I was expecting.

Thanks for the comparison shots.

Thanks for the review , I know it takes some time to do these . But I was wondering if anyone has done one with the Tamron against lens in it's own class ? Like maybe against the Canon 70-300mm IS or the canon 50-250mm IS ?

CountryBoy wrote in post #11249117
Thanks for the review , I know it takes some time to do these . But I was wondering if anyone has done one with the Tamron against lens in it's own class ? Like maybe against the Canon 70-300mm IS or the canon 50-250mm IS ?

I'm guessing where those lenses would lose out the most (compared to L or EX lenses) would be in the area of colour/contrast. I still have an old Canon 55-200 (cheap) lens and, in good light and stopped down a little, it's nearly as sharp as the top quality lenses. If you look at the whole picture, however, rather than a 100% crop, it's clear that it just doesn't have the 'pop' of the better lenses. That's difficult to test, but my gut feeling at the moment is that the Tamron is quite close to the L, and I'd be surprised if the cheaper Canon lenses were...

gcogger wrote in post #11248836
I know that even very good lenses can appear a tad soft, and subtle differences appear magnified. I think it's because it shows up any weakness at all in either sharpness OR micro contrast - if you look closely, the Canon is plenty sharp at 200mm, but the detail is slightly subdued due to the contrast.

Well I guess the weird thing is with my tam 70-300 VC and canon 70-200 f.4 IS it was precisely in that fine micro-contrast sharpness where the canon did way better at 200mm! And it was the fine micro-contrast sharpness where the tamron(s tried more than one copy) disappointed me a little so far across the board. (They also seem to be prone to a bit of a halation type effect like the 50 1.4 gets shot near wide open on shiny things under intense sunlight, if not to that extent, when say shooting bright green shiny leaves under noon sun wide open.)

gcogger wrote in post #11249717
I'm guessing where those lenses would lose out the most (compared to L or EX lenses) would be in the area of colour/contrast. I still have an old Canon 55-200 (cheap) lens and, in good light and stopped down a little, it's nearly as sharp as the top quality lenses. If you look at the whole picture, however, rather than a 100% crop, it's clear that it just doesn't have the 'pop' of the better lenses. That's difficult to test, but my gut feeling at the moment is that the Tamron is quite close to the L, and I'd be surprised if the cheaper Canon lenses were...

From what I recall my 70-300 IS had been pretty close, although not quite as good, as my 70-200 f.4 IS from 70-150 after which it slowly started losing more and more contrast at all spatial levels. The bokeh was worse. The main thing was the AF was much less precise. I recall my 70-200+TC id better at f/5.6 but worse at f/8 than the bare 70-300 IS.

Going by that my vague feeling is that 70-300 IS may be a little better than tamron from 70-225mm and then near the 300mm end worse wide open than the tam (but a litlte better again at f/8 300mm). On FF the 70-300 IS probably loses more at the edges. I never used it much FF since I sold it right around when i got a FF though. I seem to recall that the 70-300 IS was almost L-like on APS-C but did lose sharpness past the APS-C borders.

Anything that is all very vague for good reason.

I think the tam definitely has better AF (a little faster and much more precise) and IS than the canon 70-300 IS, it also doesn't have the nasty rotating and slam the lens around front focusing either, it has a better build (the 70-300 IS had an out and out crappy build), but it does weigh more and doesn't handily beat the canon 70-300 IQ (and may even be worse over some chunks of focal length and apeture) and, in my case, simply can't toch my 70-200 f/4's IQ when it gets down to fine micro-contrast bite of little details.

So far it seems like everyone who has gotten tamron either never had the 70-300 IS or even more often already sold the 70-300 IS some while back.

gcogger wrote in post #11248836
The one thing these tests always demonstrate to me is just how good that 300mm f/4 non-IS lens is at that distance (but again, it's the micro contrast as much as the sharpness that makes it look good)

BTW where was your 70-300 VC manufactured? There has been a tiny bit of wild speculation that the ones made in Japan have better micro-contrast. So far most of the Nikon samples were taken with Japanese copies and most of the canon samples with Chinese copies.

from what I vaguely recall (at 300mm):

contrast:
300 2.8 IS at 2.8 > 300 f/4 non-IS at f/4 similar to 100-300L at f/6.3 > 120-300 sigma at 2.8 > 70-300 IS at f/8

detail:
300 2.8 IS 2.8 > 300 f/4 non-IS 4 > 120-300 sigma 2.8 >= 70-300 IS 5.6 >= 100-300L

300 2.8 IS + 1.4x TC at f/4 was similar to 300 f/4 non-IS at f/4

the place where the 70-300 IS fell behind was the 300mm contrast/color, stopped down a touch the detail really wasn't bad but it still looked slightyl faded overall

wombatHorror wrote in post #11250136
Well I guess the weird thing is with my tam 70-300 VC and canon 70-200 f.4 IS it was precisely in that fine micro-contrast sharpness where the canon did way better at 200mm! And it was the fine micro-contrast sharpness where the tamron(s tried more than one copy) disappointed me a little so far across the board.

Did you test yours at long range (about 100 ft)? What you say seems to agree with my results at shorter distances.

wombatHorror wrote in post #11250136
(They also seem to be prone to a bit of a halation type effect like the 50 1.4 gets shot near wide open on shiny things under intense sunlight, if not to that extent, when say shooting bright green shiny leaves under noon sun wide open.)

That's certainly not something I've seen. If you look at the images in the motorsports gallery I linked to, there are plenty of shiny cars in direct sunlight. Were you using a hood for the shots where you had the problem? I think I read somewhere that the Tamron didn't do well without it (all mine were shot with the hood). The other thing is that, as I mentioned in my review, I did have some over-exposed shots which can cause a lack of contrast (although I could rescue most of them in Lightroom easily enough).

wombatHorror wrote in post #11250256
BTW where was your 70-300 VC manufactured? There has been a tiny bit of wild speculation that the ones made in Japan have better micro-contrast. So far most of the Nikon samples were taken with Japanese copies and most of the canon samples with Chinese copies.

Mine was made in China too. I know what you mean, though. The early adopters of the Canon lenses have not been having the same results as the Nikon guys, but I'd say my results are closer to theirs. I have a little conspiracy theory I noticed that (in the UK at least) a few units of this lens were initially available (presumably the first ones from China), then there were no new ones for over a month. I wonder if Tamron held up production for some reason (e.g. to sort out some quality control issues)?

wombatHorror wrote in post #11250256
from what I vaguely recall (at 300mm):

contrast:
300 2.8 IS at 2.8 > 300 f/4 non-IS at f/4 similar to 100-300L at f/6.3 > 120-300 sigma at 2.8 > 70-300 IS at f/8

detail:
300 2.8 IS 2.8 > 300 f/4 non-IS 4 > 120-300 sigma 2.8 >= 70-300 IS 5.6 >= 100-300L

300 2.8 IS + 1.4x TC at f/4 was similar to 300 f/4 non-IS at f/4

the place where the 70-300 IS fell behind was the 300mm contrast/color, stopped down a touch the detail really wasn't bad but it still looked slightyl faded overall

That's what I remember from sample images of the old 70-300 IS and, to be honest, was the main reason I didn't try that lens. I'd prefer a lens that was a little softer, but had that great colour/contrast/'pop', than one that was sharper but didn't. The Tamron seems pretty good in that department, but it will take more time to be sure.