Tamron AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD IF Macro Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
by Tamron
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Our Price: $769.00
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital product summary information
Manufacturer: TamronModel: AF001C-700
Color: Black
Product features:
- Fast f/2.8 telephoto zoom
- Excellent macro magnification of 1:3.1
- Includes case and lens hood
- Removable lightweight Tripod Holder
- 6 Year manufacturers warranty
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Digital camera reviews of Tamron AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD IF Macro Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
Digital camera Review: A diva: great sharp macro zoom but only suitable for classic manual photography
Summary: 4 Stars
Updated: Feb. 19th, 2010.
First the good news: for this low budget price you get probably the best 70-200 mm f/2.8 optics currently on the market. According to many reviews it beats Canon's 70-200 mm f/2.8 L IS USM (maybe not the new version) in that respect. As I love macro photography, it's nice macro magnification plus only 0.95 m (about 3 feet) closest distance is another outstanding feature. I shot several thousand photos with it and if I got everything right it produced amazing results.
Now the not-so-good news: its autofocus is slow, loud and inaccurate - in particular in situations with shallow depth-of-field (fully open aperture @ long tele end) you can forget about it. Finally it comes down to manual focusing like in the very old days of analogue photography. Moreover, this means that you nearly only can use it for very slowly moving subjects or stills photography - this is definitely no lens for action shootings!
Manual focusing also means that you practically cannot use this lens with a EOS 450/500D (Rebel body). With my 450D/XSi I too often ended up with frustratingly unsharp results. The small viewfinders of those mini DSLRs include no real focusing screen so the eye has no reliable information about where the focus plane really is located. Working with live view + magnification improves this situation substantially but you can only use it in typical stills photography situations with a tripod and plenty of time to prepare the shooting.
So this zoom (I call it "the diva") was one reason that made me upgrade from my EOS 450D (Rebel XSi) to an EOS 50D - and with this tool I can really use the Tamron now. I also discovered with test charts that the AF of my Tamron has a frontfocus. With the 50D I could fix that without sending it to Tamron's services.
Pros:
- excellent optics for a zoom
- even at wide open aperture already quite sharp
- very short closest distance of only 0.95 m perfect for great macros
- real macro potential: it delivers a 0.32x maximum magnification @ closest distance, to my knowledge the best one in this class of zooms
- manual handling okay (focus ring gear a bit steep)
- quite light for such a fast tele zoom
- distortion and vignetting overall well controlled
- excellent price-performance ratio
Other optical characteristics you should be aware of:
- sharpness breaks down at its tele end (but this is typical for many zooms), but still okay
- unusual little sharpnes breakdown @ around 130 mm with open aperture
- in bright light with strong contrasts chromatic aberration can be visible, in particular at the long end (but that's no great issue)
Real cons:
- old fashioned micro motor AF drive is loud, slow and inaccurate (at least in typical macro situations you have to switch to manual focusing)
- users of other lenses with modern ultrasonic drives (like me) have always to be aware that they have to override the AF drive before they try to focus manually, otherwise they kill the AF drive
- for switching to manual focusing you pull the focus ring: nice idea but works quite roughly and chunky
- manual focusing is nothing for impatient users or fast actions as the focus ring has a quite steep gear so fine tuning isn't easy
- no image stabilization: I really started to miss this great tele feature since I use Canon's excellent 300 mm f/4 L IS USM
- my zoom collects a bit of dust behind its front lens (and using a filter slows down a fast lens)
- the AF drive of my zoom has a front focus on both Canon bodys I use.
So, finally, you get for this competetive budget price a zoom with outstandig optics and macro capability (therefore I vote 4 stars), but in every other respect an old fashioned lens only suitable for "stills-like" manual photography. I cannot recommend it for mini DSLRs of Canons XXXD/ Rebel series.
Summary of Tamron AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD IF Macro Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
The Tamron SP AF70-200mm F/2.8 Di LD [IF] MACRO Lens for Canon, enables you to master the expression of real depth by creating soft-focus backgrounds to emphasize the crisp, clean lines of your subjects, or take advantage of fast shutter speeds to catch action at a distance. This high-performance fast lens gives you the mobility you need to capture outstanding telephoto zoom imagesmajestic scenery, stunning portraits, sports action, and more. Includes:Tamron SP AF70-200mm F/2.8 Di LD [IF] MACRO Lens, Canon mount, Flower-shaped hood, Lens Case.Lenses
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