Tamron 150-600 Telezoom Shootout
There’s been a lot of interest in the newly released Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 SP Di VC USD lens. (For those wondering what the initials mean, VC means vibration compensation, the others all read ‘marketing drivel’.) But meaningless initials or not, with a price under $1,100, a superior range, and vibration compensation, this lens has created a lot of excitement.
Recently, the good people at Imatest have developed an ultra-high resolution, backlit chart printed on photographic film that is perfect for testing long telephoto lenses in the lab. The combination of a new, cool Imatest setup and a new, cool lens proved irresistible, so we decided to compare the new Tamron with the older Tamron 200-500mm, Sigma 50-500mm OS, and Canon 100-400mm IS lenses.
One important note: this is a higher resolution type of chart than the printed charts generally used for Imatest work (if you’re into geeky stuff, there’s an addendum about this at the end of the article). We haven’t done enough comparisons to say exactly how much it increases Imatest MTF50 numbers (it’s not a linear kind of thing) but it does to some degree. So don’t take today’s numbers, compare them to one of our previous tests, and say something dumb like “Roger showed the Tamron 150-600 is sharper than the Canon 70-200 f/2.8”. Different tests mean different data ranges.
One other note: I am totally aware that 713 of you have suggestions for further testing. Heck, I have suggestions for further testing. But we won’t be able to do further testing on this group anytime soon. This kind of stuff is incredibly time consuming and right now our repair department has larger priorities.
Meet the Contestants
Tale of the Tape:
| Tamron 200-500 | Tamron 150-600 | Canon 100-400 | Sigma 50-500 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $950 | $1070 | $1700 | $1510 |
| Weight (lb.) | 2.72 | 4.3 | 3.04 | 4.33 |
| Length (inches) | 8.9 | 10.15 | 7.4 | 8.6 |
| Filter Size mm | 86 | 95 | 77 | 95 |
| min. focus dist. (ft) | 8.2 | 8.9 | 5.9 | 1.64 |
Telephoto zooms are not small lenses, so size and weight are important considerations. Two lenses, the Canon 100-400 IS and Tamron 200-500, weigh about 3 pounds while the Sigma and Tamron 150-600 are well over 4 pounds. That’s critical for some people.
For those who might want to shoot with a filter on, the Sigma and the Tamron 150-600 require expensive 95mm filters, while the Canon uses more reasonably priced 77mm filters. Probably the most important difference to most people, however, is the price, and the Tamrons are clearly less expensive.
Testing
We only received three copies of the Tamron 150-600mm today. Quick testing showed they were all well centered with little sample variation. We tested two of those lenses against two copies of each of the other lenses (which had previously been tested and found to be well-centered copies well within the ‘normal’ range for those lenses). We followed our usual Imatest protocols with the exception that the new backlit film chart was used in this test.
One word about focal length scales: when we set up Imatest we set the lens to a focal length, then position the lens-tripod combination to a distance that fills the camera frame with the test chart. At 200mm and 400mm three of the lenses agreed they were at 200 and 400mm, but the Sigma 50-500 read as 210mm and 420mm at those same shooting distances.
I had planned to just test the lenses wide open, but that, too, presents a problem. At 200mm, for example, the Canon and both Tamrons are at f/5 wide open, while the Sigma is f/5.6. At 400mm the Sigma is at f/6.3 wide open, while the others are all f/5.6. To level the playing field, we repeated the tests with the other lenses stopped down to the same aperture as the Sigma. The half stop does make a difference in MTF50 readings.
MTF 50 at 200mm
| Center MTF 50 | Avg MTF 50 | |
|---|---|---|
| Tamron 150-600 (f/5) | 895 | 745 |
| Tamron 200-500 (f/5) | 715 | 510 |
| Canon 100-400 (f/5) | 980 | 780 |
| Sigma 50-500 (f/5.6) | 980 | 780 |
| Tamron 150-600 (f/5.6) | 980 | 810 |
| Canon 100-400 (f/5.6) | 1010 | 850 |
The takeaway message is the Tamron 200-500mm lens clearly doesn’t resolve as well as the other three lenses at 200mm. That’s not shocking, it’s 1) a much older design and 2) working at its widest focal length while none of the others are at the extreme end of their zoom range here.
The other three lenses are in the same ballpark. The new Tamron 150-600 may not be quite as sharp at pixel-peeping resolutions when all are wide open, but put them all at f/5.6 (where the Sigma is wide open) the three lenses are nearly identical. The Canon’s numbers are a bit higher, but the difference is probably not significant enough to notice in a photograph.
MTF 50 at 400mm
| Center MTF 50 | Avg MTF 50 | |
|---|---|---|
| Tamron 150-600 (f/5.6) | 945 | 840 |
| Tamron 200-500 (f/5.6) | 795 | 665 |
| Canon 100-400 (f/5.6) | 945 | 835 |
| Sigma 50-500 (f/6.3) | 780 | 640 |
| Tamron 150-600 (f/6.3) | 975 | 840 |
| Canon 100-400 (f/6.3) | 1000 | 870 |
At this focal length the Sigma 50-500 OS appears to be fading compared to the other lenses, which surprised me at first. We repeated the test with several more copies of the Sigma, though, and the results were consistent.
I had not seen this drop off at 400mm in previous Sigma tests, although it was clearly present at 500mm. I think the reason for the difference is when previously testing the Sigma, we tested at 400mm according to the lens. In this test, the Sigma was set at 420mm so that it matched the field of view that the other lenses have at 400mm. I assume the fall off occurs right after 400mm on the Sigma lens.
(Each Imatest run at a given focal length requires a complete teardown and new setup, so it’s a very time consuming matter to check at 400mm, 420mm, 450mm, etc.)
The bottom line, though, is at 400mm the Tamron 150-600 VC and Canon 100-400 IS are virtually identical, with the Tamron 200-500 and Sigma 50-500 a bit behind. Let’s keep it in perspective, though, both the Sigma and Tamron 200-500 are still very good at 400mm.
As an aside, because I expect it will come up in discussions, there are a number of people on the internet who say their Canon 100-400 isn’t as sharp at 400mm as it is at shorter focal lengths. My experience is this usually means a slightly decentered front element. Good copies are equally sharp throughout the zoom range.
MTF 50 at 600mm
There’s only one contestant here, obviously — we just wanted to compare the Tamron’s results at the extreme end to the rest of the range. And let’s be realistic: at 600mm and f/8 technique is going to have a lot more to do with how good the images look than the MTF 50 data generated in a lab. Yeah, I know you have a great image taken hand-held at 600mm and f/8 with 1/150 shutter speeds. One time I dropped my camera, the shutter went off when it hit, and it made a great macro of the bottom of a dandelion.
There’s no question that resolution drops off at the extreme telephoto end of the zoom range, as shown below. A number of photographers have noted the same thing, but have shown 600mm resolution is much better at f/8.
Realistically, though, the fact that a zoom reaches a true 600mm focal length at all is rather amazing. Sure, the resolution drops off a bit there, but no other zoom gets there at all.
Summary
I don’t do resolution testing at telephoto range very often. The new Imatest equipment certainly makes it possible, but in general I don’t find it particularly useful. Working at these focal lengths the lens’ MTF just isn’t as important as real-world variables (atmosphere, tripod support, photographic technique, etc.). Additionally, testing the lenses at lab distances (13 to 30 feet depending upon focal length) may give slightly different results than would be seen if we could test the lenses at longer distances.
On the other hand, those real world variables tend to make looking at posted images confusing. Each of the lenses we tested today have many soft and many sharp images posted online. Technique, lighting, atmospheric conditions and a host of other variables create a lot of variation. So I think lab testing does give some worthwhile information and confirmation.
My summary would be that the selection between a Tamron 150-600, Canon 100-400 IS, and Sigma 50-500 OS should be made on criteria other than MTF 50. There are some minor differences in resolution, but nothing that makes one clearly better than another. Price, weight, autofocus accuracy, effectiveness of vibration compensation, and a number of other factors (did I mention price?) are more important considerations when choosing among these lenses.
It’s pretty obvious that the Tamron has both 600mm range and the lowest price. These tests, and everything I see from photographers using the lens in the field, support that it’s of at least equal image quality. Some people will prefer the extra wide range of the Sigma, others the lighter weight of the Canon. But for a lot of people, the Tamron is going to be the best bang for the buck.
One note for Nikon shooters: I’m sorry I won’t have time to run the same tests on Nikon cameras when the Nikon mount is released. However, the new Nikon 80-400 AF-S zoom is, as near as we can tell, equivalent to the Canon 100-400 IS as far as resolution goes, so you should be able to extrapolate pretty easily.
Roger Cicala and Aaron Closz
Lensrentals.com
January, 2014
Addendum: About Imatest Charts
I’ve been using Imatest for several years. Lots of reviewers and testers do, too. I’ve written before about why Imatest numbers are different among different testers. In the last year, or so, though, I’ve become more aware that there’s another difference I hadn’t appreciated before — the quality of the charts used when obtaining the images for Imatest analysis.
Back when I started using Imatest a 12-megapixel camera was the norm, and 16 megapixels nearly the maximum. Now we’re testing 36 megapixel cameras on lenses that are immensely better than anything we had a decade ago. But a lot of people are still testing on charts printed on 300 DPI inkjet printers while others test using higher resolution, professionally printed charts. More recently, Imatest has developed even higher resolution transmissive film charts, although they aren’t being used by many testers.
The chart type doesn’t make much difference when testing average quality lenses on 16 megapixel cameras. It probably does make a difference testing highest quality lenses on 36 megapixel cameras.
I should mention, too, that Imatest is sensitive to the lighting used – it’s important to keep the lighting similar with every test run if you want equivalent results. Transparency charts obviously have different lighting than reflective charts.
For all of these reasons, results testing a lens using a reflective chart and a transmissive film are going to be slightly different. The difference should be greater with higher resolution cameras and the best lenses, but there will be some difference with even more routine equipment.
We have to test hundreds of lenses on both types of charts before we will feel we can convert between the two charts with some degree of accuracy. Until we do that, we can’t directly compare numbers from a test run on a film transparency chart with numbers from a test run with a reflective chart.
71 Comments
Steve ·
Roger, did you get a chance to look at the results from 600mm when stopping down?
Steve ·
Roger,
Did you get a chance to test the Tamron @ 600m when stopped down?
Michael H. ·
Fun comparison. At 600mm, I bet this could substitute as a telescope for many, especially on crop sensor.
Do you have any comments on other characteristics, such as focusing speed or IS?
Tony ·
Thanks for the test Roger – above and beyond the call of duty. Also interesting new test as well! Hopefully this should answer some of the questions for folks.
Bottom line – if you’re really, really interested in this lens, I’m pretty sure LensRentals.com has a copy you can try out! (just get in line!)
Bryan Stone ·
Roger
Thank you for all this hard work. Very useful.
Christopher ·
Roger, may I respectfully point out that the USD in the lens’ name isn’t marketing drivel – it stands for UltraSonic Drive, Tamron’s equivalent of Canon’s USM or Sigma’s HSM.
Roger Cicala ·
I know, Christopher, I just tire of the endless chain of initials.
JRM ·
A question, please. There are two ways to get to a 600mm final image on the Tamron. A) shoot at 600mm. B) shoot at 500mm, then crop the result. Given the drop in resolution at 600, would a cropped 500 be better/the same/worse/much worse than the 600? Does the answer depend on the pixel density of the body?
Also, unfortunately you didn’t do a full test at 500 (so little time! so many demands from strangers!). Any speculation, would a lens going only to 500, and thus perhaps having its own resolution drop off compared to 400, be worse than the Tamron at 500?
Roger Cicala ·
JRM and Jesse, one thing that images online seem to demonstrate very well is the Tamron at 600mm and f/8 is much, much sharper than it is wide open. I regret not testing it there but literally by the time we finished the last images at 600mm they were waiting on us to lock up the building so I had to quit.
Roger
Tony ·
I hear you – speaking of endless chain of initials – this is from my Tamron 70-300 review on Amazon: “Tamron 70-300 f4-5.6 Di VC USD XLD PhD LSD M-O-U-S-E (sorry, I couldn’t help myself)”
Jesse ·
If you crop an image, does the MTF50 drop proportionality? I would assume it does since it is lines per picture height?
Anyway, by the chart above it appears that the 150-600 has the highest lines of resolution on a subject at 500, with 600 having a little less than 400 due to the steep falloff.
Net is you may be better off limiting yourself to 500 and cropping a bit more…
Alan Lillich ·
Thank you Roger and Aaron for this timely and very helpful post!
Lorenzo ·
Could we get a look at the new Nikon 80-400G under the same test procedure? I’d really like to see how it compares to this company at both 200 and 400mm. The previous test results from the 80-400 comparison with the 70-200 plus 2x tc suggests that the 80-400 is not quite as sharp as the the lenses in this test (with the exception of the 200-500). Does the backlit chart cause a difference in readings?
Thanks, and keep up the great work!
Roger Cicala ·
Lorenzo, I will be testing it under similar conditions when time allows as we set up the database for the new chart, but I do expect the numerical values will be better with the backlit chart on the D800 for certain.
As a lens I find the Canon 100-400 and new Nikon 80-400 very close – but the resolution of the D800 should also give higher numbers with either the 80-400 or the new Tamron.
Florent ·
Roger, thanks a lot for this article. Very informative!
Regarding budget 600mm zoom lenses, is there a chance you would include the Panasonic 100-300 and Oly 75-300 mk2 in your comparison chart?
I’m perfectly aware we are talking MFT here and not full frame, but I’d still be interested in knowing how they fare at 300mm compared to the Tamron at 600mm.
Thanks!
Roger Cicala ·
Florent, I can tell you that with both the m4/3 lenses they are not close to this. Not a system limitation, those lenses just aren’t very sharp at the long end when tested. As an m4/3 shooter I can also verify it’s true in the field. After some extensive testing, I found cropping a Canon 100-400 shot on a 6D was superior to either of the m4/3 lenses.
Seth ·
Minor nitpick: You’ve got two great comparison shots of the four lenses, and then a nice chart showing some of the specs – in a completely different order (arranged by price point). Makes it hard to do the ol’ visual association between lens and spec.
Max ·
Roger, how did the materials I sent you work out? Max
A different Jesse ·
I understand what you said about making suggestions for further tests. But I was really looking forward to a comparison with the Sigma 150-500. It’s comparatively priced and the shots I’ve seen on google image search and flickr have been a lot nicer than those I’ve seen from this Tamron lens.
They seem sharper clearer and seem to have nicer color. But of course they could have been improved with photoshop while the tamron samples people have been posting have been streight from camera.
The easiest solution to this would be to post a link to a comparison between the Sigma 150-500 and the OTHER lenses in this test.
Roger Cicala ·
Jesse and Stever, I won’t be comparing with the Sigma 150-500 because we dropped that lens a couple of years ago. Too much variation and too many soft copies – but even the good copies just weren’t that good.
Stever ·
for a while I owned both the Tamron 200-500 and the Canon 100-400 and shot with Canon 20D and 40D. the 100-400 was reliably good for 13×19 prints wide open – the 200-500 was marginal at best, with 500mm not really useable. with the lack of IS the use was very limited so I sold it a while ago – and have continued to be satisfied with the 100-400.
From the data, the 150-600 should be an alternative to the 100-400, but unless it really is a lot better stopped down to f8 at 600mm it might best be considered a well-priced 150-500. the 100-400 is significantly better at f8 also, and shooting with the 5D3 makes this possible much more often.
Steve ·
Roger
Your performing of these tests are much appreciated. Just wanted to verify, the test of 600mm was wide open, at f/6.3?
If so, it would be interesting to see the comparable test results of 600mm at f/7.1 and f/8 at a future date when you’re workload allows (suggestor #714).
Thanks
Steve
Roger Cicala ·
Steve, it was wide open. Roger
Moonlight Knight ·
Actually at 600mm the Tamron is sharpest at f/11, according to
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fqicai.fengniao.com%2F425%2F4259287_all.html
Mount Spokane Photography ·
Thanks for a good review.
The one question in my mind, is how my 100-400L with 1.4X TC compares to the Tamron at f/8. I wouldn’t expect it to be as good, but how close?? Of course, a 1.4 TC on the Tamron makes it 840mm and a 2X on my lens is not all that wonderful.
Richard ·
Great info!! Any comments on how the bokeh compared?
Sanjeev ·
Dear Roger,
Thanks for this excellent article and test. I have the 100-400 L and the 500 II L lens and have been very happy with them. I was keenly waiting for this test and was hoping to sell the 100-400 and get the Tam 150-600 but after your results, I think I might just hold on to the 100-400 L :-)What is your take on it? Keep the 100-400 L ?
Cheers,
Sanjeev
Roger Cicala ·
Sanjeev, for me I’d be waiting to see reports of how well it autofocuses on subjects similar to what I shoot. If you’re a BIF shooter, for example, AF speed and accuracy might be far more critical than a bit more reach.
Peter ·
Roger,
I tried to follow your advice on how to take a macro photo of the bottom of a dandelion. I dropped my D4 about a dozen times in a flower field, without the desired results. I even tried changing the perspective control on my 45mm f/2.8. Could you please advise about your technique in more detail? I’m really not getting the results you suggested.
Thanks for your help,
Peter
Samuel H ·
The fall from 500mm to 600mm seems huge. So much so that I would guess than a crop from a 500mm image will look slightly sharper than the 600mm image.
Stever ·
mt Spokane, from my experience I would expect the Tamron at f8 to be at least as sharp as the 100-400 +1.4xiii (the earlier extenders are worse) and with the benefit of much better autofocus – my 5d3 single point autofocus at f8 is pretty slow and not very reliable in marginal light.
Doubting Thomas ·
Given your results and the very marked drop in resolution above 500mm; the veracity of the (razor) sharp images, supposedly taken by this lens @600mm, that are posted on various Tamron ‘sites around the web, must be ….um…..well……questionable?
Roger Cicala ·
Doubting – from what I’ve seen most of the great 600mm images are taken at f/8. I suspect that makes a huge difference.
But is it acceptably sharp at 600 and f/6.3? Sure it is, those numbers aren’t awful by any means. Is it sharper at 500mm? Absolutely.
Doubting Thomas ·
Thanks for that Roger. And thanks for all the work that you put into this test.
NancyP ·
Quite interesting and encouraging that the affordable third party manufacturers are coming up with good new designs. Now we need field reports from people shooting sports or wildlife. The key thing for many people will be autofocusing capacity of the lens and of the user’s camera. My 60D AF won’t work at the effective f/8 of a Canon 400mm f/5.6 plus Canon 1.4x TCII, so I use the combo for pre-focus situations (birds in nest) and not action (bird in flight). I suspect that with the Tamron at f/6.3, AF may work albeit poorly, and at f/8, I would be surprised if AF worked at all. Hence, I doubt that the Tamron’s extra reach would be much help for me. Someone with a camera that can AF at f/8 may be the ideal customer for this Tamron, if the lens has good AF.
Honza ·
Thanks for nice review. As an owner of this lens (for 2 weeks) I can confirm your words. Some of my photos at 600mm can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/honzafotos/
Andrei ·
Roger, thanks a lot for the nice and timely test!
One lens that is missing from the comparison is Sigma 200-500/2.8! It will be nice to know how much better results over the new Tamron can be obtained by twentifolding the investment.
A somewhat more ‘serious’ question: in these focal lengths, shutter shake can be very pronounced, even on a good tripod. How do you make sure to cancel its effects? Do you use the lense’s anti-vibration system? Does it make any difference in this setup?
Roger Cicala ·
Andrei,
We have an extremely sturdy set up with some vibration dampening built in, use timed release mirror lock up, etc. and have a very well lit target with short shutter speeds (1/1,000 or so in this test). We don’t notice any difference in the lab with or without vibration control on.
Holger ·
In your table for The 400mm measurements, there is a small glitch, since the canon lens is said to have f/6.3, whereas it should have been 5.6?
Roger Cicala ·
Holger – it should be showing at both f/5.6 and f/6.3.
Stever ·
Nancy P – the advantage of the Tamron is that it will autofocus at 600mm since it’s focusing wide open when you’re shooting at f8 or f11 – how fast and accurate the autofocus is to begin with is a question, but one review says it’s good (but the reviewer is not experienced with other long lenses for wildlife).
the other comparison would be to the Canon 400 f5.6 +1.4x which is plenty sharp at f8 but limited usefulness without IS
Andrei ·
Comparing with your Canon lenses 400mm shootout, i see the following results for the 100-400 at f/5.6:
740:center, 655:avg on the old setup
945:center, 835:avg on the new one
As the sensor resolution is about the same (5Dm2 vs 5Dm3), I attribute the (huge) difference to the footnote describing the transmissive film imatest charts. Is that correct? Is this the first time you use those sharper charts in the tests that are published here?
Roger Cicala ·
Andrei, that’s correct, the first time we’ve published results from this chart.
Jim Bracegirdle ·
Thank you for this comparative test. I have the Sigma 150-500 on a Canon mount and it is not as sharp at 500 as I would like. So I shoot at 400 and have found the crop at 400mm is equal in Sharpness to the 500mm images. I am very interested in this Tamron 150-600. If I find it is soft at 600mm I can always shoot at 500 perhaps and crop as I do now with the Sigma. Decisions decisions. I sometimes wish I had not sold my Canon 400 f 5.6 L. Thanks once again for the four lens comparison. Is there anyone out there with the Sigma 150-500 who is also thinking of more reach.?
George ·
Nice comparison. I would be interested to see how it stands against Canon 400mm f5.6 (or compariable aperture) at 400mm on image quality. The Canon one is very sharp and light weight. But it does not have the Image stabilizer and also not flexible on range.
Thanks!
Peter K Burian ·
Great to see a comparison review! Just wonder why you did not test the Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 which is the one I see most photo enthusiasts using. And is the closest in price to the Tamron 150-600mm. (btw, Sigma has instant rebates now, to be more competitive, so their 150-500mm lens is selling for about $900. The 50-500mm lens is $1500.)
The Tamron lens will be a hot seller, I predict. Especially when the Nikon mount version is also available.
stever ·
ephotozine.com has a test showing that f8 is optimum and probably a significant improvement over f5.6, although I don’t know how they do the testing and their result are not quantified. but according to their graphs, 600mm at f8 is sharper than 300mm at f5.6.
Jim Maynard ·
Thanks again for an excellent analysis of some very interesting lenses. As usual I appreciate your hard work and valuable insights.
A comment on a related topic: It seems that flash pictures “always” look sharper than existing-light photos. Therefore, I tried to estimate lens sharpness using flash as the illumination source. I don’t have an adequate setup to say for sure, but it appeared that the flash versions were sharper. I did this comparison using a medium-duty tripod, mirror lock up, remote release and setting the shutter speed to 1/200 sec for the flash shots and aperture preferred for the ambient light shots. It would be interesting to see if this is really true using a more robust setup by someone who actually knows what they are doing.
On a slightly different note, does anyone every do simple statistics to report, say, Imatest data or other sharpness measurements? What is the variation within testing of a single lens (set it up more than once and maybe by different technicians, for example)? A statistical range should also help compare similar lens from different manufacturers. Similarly comparing the variation in testing within a group of the same lenses should begin to better establish the acceptable range for lens-to-lens variation.
Roger Cicala ·
Jim,
We did a lot of moderate statistics when we started testing with Imatest like what you’ve described: comparing multiple shots with a single lens, doing the same thing using camera AF instead of focus bracketing, etc. There’s a bit about it here: http://wordpress.lensrentals.com/2011/10/notes-on-lens-and-camera-variation
Roger
NancyP ·
For what it is worth, youngsters, image stabilization is a relatively new phenomenon, and people used to shoot handheld long telephotos without it – PITA, but people learned good technique and tried their best. I have the Canon 400 mm f/5.6L, which premiered in 1991, and it did take some time to learn good technique and consistency in shooting at shutter speeds below 1/500 sec (I now can get ~25% keepers at 1/125) or shooting birds in flight. Burst shooting helps some. The 400mm f/5.6 is so dang light (1.2kg) and well balanced that I can hold it for a while without fatigue and consequent arm shake. And I used to walk 4 miles to school uphill both ways…
Jim Maynard ·
Thanks for pointing me/us to your earlier post, which addresses the questions I raised nicely. From that post, it appears that if you did a mean+/-SD on one lens/camera combination that range would cover the other similar camera/lens combinations (except for the obvious “soft” outlier). If true, it makes worrying about “do I have a great or just good copy of a lens?” irrelevant as testing variables can account for most (all?) the variability. Particularly noteworthy is your observations on autofocus accuracy, which seems as important as camera/lens variability and certainly highly relevant in “real world” photography. Thanks again.
KeithB ·
For those that want to turn their lens into a telescope:
http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/Lens-scope-adapter.html
bob smith ·
I would like to know how durable the new tamron 150-600 lens is. Will you send a copy of this lens to that guy that got your big nikon lens mauled by a bear so we can see how the tamron stacks up?
Lindsay ·
I’m not sure “USD” for Tamron’s version of a piezoelectric focus motor is quite on the level of “marketing drivel”. Thanks for the insightful review, however!
Eric Bowles ·
Thanks for the test results. The Tamron 150-600 is remarkably good for that price point. Some of the test images show improved performance with backlit images from new optical coatings and good performance at slower shutter speeds where VC is necessary.
The 200-500 is an extremely long lens with a very long hood. It was subject to severe vibration from mirror slap unless you use appropriate technique. The 150-600 is similar in length. Did your test protocol do something to avoid vibration from mirror slap, or does the larger diameter of the lens barrel in the new lens reduce vibration?
Joseph Andrews ·
Kudos to lensrentals…you help make my (expensive) hobby fun.
I own the Tamron 200-500 and plan to test the mirror slap notion as soon as it gets a bit warmer here.
My sense of things is that Eric Bowles is correct.
I am quite interested in the new lens, and wonder just how effective the vibration control actually is.
I look forward to reading more…
Mark ·
Can someone help me understand this…
The MFT50 chart above shows the Canon 100-400mm with an average score of 835 at 400mm and f5.6. But, on another page on this site the average score for the Canon 100-400mm at 400mm and f5.6 is 655. See below. It is on the quick comparison page for the Canon 200-400 f4 lens. Can someone explain what I am missing?
http://wordpress.lensrentals.com/2013/06/canon-200-400mm-f4-is-quick-comparison
I’m trying to determine if the new Tamron if sharper than the Canon 400mm f5.6 prime, and stumbled across this.
Roger Cicala ·
Mark, like the article says, this is a different testing set up with different numbers. Can’t compare directly.
But the 400 and a good copy of the 100-400 are very close at 400mm (the 100-400 has more sample variation, as you’d expect from a big zoom).
Rick Vaught ·
I’m trying to figure out why you didn’t test the Sigma 150-500? That would be an apples to apples comparison.
Roger Cicala ·
Rick, because we don’t carry it anymore. Dropped it a year ago.
Zak McKracken ·
Looking at the resolution figures and the steep drop-off towards 600 mm, this occurred to me:
The Canon 100-400 has a center MTF50 of 1000 — if I cropped that picture to give a 600mm-equivalent field of view, I’d still have 750 line pairs where there were 1000 before. And that’s better than the Sigma!
What’s more: Take the Sigma’s MTF50 at 500 mm (900) and crop to 600mm equivalent: 750 as well! Better than the 720 the same delivers zoomed in, and the corners will be even better since we’re cropping.
According to this, it would make sense to never use the Sigma at full zoom but rather just crop as required. Or am I missing something? That’s of course assuming that the camera sensor has more resolution than the lens provides.
Mark ·
“So don’t take today’s numbers, compare them to one of our previous tests, and say something dumb like “Roger showed the Tamron 150-600 is sharper than the Canon 70-200 f/2.8?. Different tests mean different data ranges.”
…and I’m an idiot. Thanks for the clarification, Roger.
Kris ·
How does the sharpness of the new Tamron compare to that of the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II (which I already own) coupled with the Canon Extender EF 2X III please?
Thank you!
Kris
Kris ·
Could somebody help please? I know none of this is directly comparable, but what should I do if I already own the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II? Get a Canon Extender EF 2X III or the new Tamron 150-600 if I want the best image quality (and care little about extra weight and the price difference, which is not that great.)
Thank you!
K
Elliotte Rusty Harold ·
Kris, that depends completely on what you want to shoot at what lengths. From 200-400 you’ll almost certainly be happier with the 70-200 + 2X TC III. It’s lighter, cheaper (given that you already own the 70-200), and probably sharper. But if you need the 400-600 range, then you may want to consider the Tamron instead.
john pra ·
Hi Roger, I heard from many forums that the autofocus is kind of hunting and hard to lock on in most situation in this Tamron lens. Did you find similar behavior too? Price point is very desirable but I am afraid I cannot really rely on it.
thanks.
K J P ·
Tamron Rules! Period.
Kirby Zhou ·
Can we have a comparatively test among the three 150-600mm lens? Tamron, Sigma S, Sigma C.
Jacob Kuriakose ·
Please compare tamron 150-600 with sigma 150-600 contemporary….
d.wayne ·
I love your lens reviews. I echo everyone else’s hope – do you plan on doing an updated 150-600mm lens shootout with the Tamron, Sigma S, and Sigma C?
Thanks!
Boris ·
Very informative as always.
I would love to see a comparison between Tamron 150-600 and Sigma 150-600 contemporary.