Saturday, November 7, 2009

More Cheap Lenses -- Tamron AF 70-300mm f4-5.6

Today's weather in Toronto is gorgeous. Warm, sunny, breezy and the air is fresh. It's almost like summer again. Perfect day to shoot some of the last of fall colours that's still hanging around before winter sweeps them away.

Henry's Outlet store is having some fire sale on some of the older lenses. I got a used Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 (172DE). The whole lens feels like it was made of plastic. Looks cheap, feels cheap, very noisy and slow focus, but hey, it's only $40!!! I shouldn't complain!

Despite being cheap, both price wise and materially, the lens is quite sharp. I found most Tamron AF lenses are quite sharp, even the cheap ones. Even the colour is quite nice, but bokeh looks unremarkable and boring, but did I mention it was cheap?

If you plan to use this lens for sports, forget about it! The focusing is excruciatingly slow in AI Servo, not to mention the noise. But, I think as a travel lens, this will actually be very good. It's almost feather weight compared to my Canon EF 100-400mm f4-5.6 IS lens. I would not hesitate to bring it on vacation.


Fall Colours - 1D Mark III & Tamron AF 70-300mm f4-5.6 @ f5.6. Larger Picture.


Blue Mini - 1D Mark III & Tamron AF 70-300mm f4-5.6 @ f7.1. Larger Picture.


Untitled -- 1D Mark III & Tamron AF 70-300mm f4-5.6 @ f7.1. Larger Picture.

1 comment:

  1. Just thought I'd mention I've got this same lens - picked it up for $15 used in BC because, well, $15.
    Its broken - the zoom handle doesn't work so the zoom tube just slides out, but the AF works. I was surprised how sharp it is on my beat up old 30D. It needs alot of light and you have to shoot at very high shutter speed to beat the shakes at the long end. Cuz, hey, $15. I might take it apart to see if I can fix the zoom rotator part.

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