Super Zoom? Tamron SP 150-600mm F5.0-6.3 Di VC USD Field Test

IM not impressed..... this lens has reach but as soft as lasts weeks over ripe peach. I'm not that fussy but am amazed at so many positive posts... This lens truly represents, you get what you pay for. I was considering this lens at one point, but every time I see the finished product, it tells me it is 1100 dollars poorly spent. This lens is more about bragging rights about owning a 600 mm lens , than actual sharp photographs.
BTW, I have no axe to grind with Tamron, I own several of their lenses.

Dan,
A very refreshing and realistic review of this lens. I used this lens once and when I considered the price point I thought it was a great deal. I shoot Nikon tele primes but had to admit I would consider a lens such as this, if anything for it's zoom , weight & range. Rather amazing these 150-600 lenses including the Sigs and Nikon 200-500. A great time for all wildlife and sports enthusiasts.
Pete

Tamron still not activated the VC option for Sony A users even though most buyers must be using LA-EA2/4 on Sony A7/5000 etc E/EF cameras?

I rented the Tamron 150-600 for the Super Moon Eclipse. It was fantastic with my D7100. I have a gimbal head on my tripod. Not one problem with the mount. Learning to use the lens was fairly simple. there was some lens creep, but not during use, just during handling while moving to and fro.

SuperMoon samples here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/un4lvfhtcf4c66g/AACYpwWox79iQ0M52IdrQZ7za?oref=e

I also tracked a Bald Eagle couple as they did an aerial dance along the Palisades on the Hudson River in NJ. The lens tracked well. The quality of the pictures at full extension were surprisingly good. This lens made a believer out of me as it was almost intuitive to use and felt extremely solid in use. Even with the lens hood on, it was roughly 18-20 inches in length from the camera to the end of the hood. Collapsed and in the case, it was easy to carry and light, in my view, for it's size.
When I'm looking to purchase, this lens gets first dibs on my cash

I bought this lens about three weeks ago and I am very impressed. I am still getting used to the size and weight but it has already delivered impressive results. This lens is very hard to match for the money (less than half the price for a Canon 100-400 II).

My only wish is that I had it with me in South Africa earlier this year!

Interesting lens, and good useful review - thanks!
One question:
" the VC system gives you 'up to a 4-stop advantage'"
Compared to what? A system with no VC/IS at all? Just about every kit has some kind of IS.
It would be more meaningful to compare it to someone else's VC/IS system at a comparable focal length for both systems.

I could get better shots than this with my super cheap Kodak AZ526, this is heavy bulky and not particularly versatile gear , you could get these shots with a £150 budget superzoom, I have just shot this at an effective focal length (35mm) of 1248mm (52x optical) PLUS some digital zoom, this was a tiny bird and you can view this at many many times the size of the original subject and it still stands up, unlike those shots of huge bears viewed at many many times less than their original size, the camera industry and this site seem to need to perpetuate this myth, but the truth is, most of the time you no longer need this outdated bulky and expensive kit to get good shots, ps the camera that took this shot cost £99.00!!, somebody recently replied to me on this forum saying "your photos are not actually as good as they look"

https://flic.kr/p/wsMmzJ

I was about to say my 150-600 focuses fast with my Sony A77ii when I read that it focuses better with a 7Dii. Poor AF is often a camera problem. Not a lens problem.

Why were this images so muddy???

I would agree with the reviewer although I have far less equipment to compare it to. I've also been using it on a 7D MKII in North America as well as Southern Africa where I have also shot with the first Canon 100-400 on a 7D MKI a few years ago. I also shot a lot of moving animals, particularly birds in flight so thought I would leave a few comments:
-First and most importantly, I liked it and got lots of great shots, including some good birds in flight.
-Stabilisation and focusing was better than with the Tamron and MKII than with my Canon and MKI
-960mm is very long and much harder to handle than 620mm even for static subject. I found it almost impossible to get sharp birds in flight at that length (not surprisingly).
-The tamron's stabilisation doesn't seem to work well with panning, I got better results switching it off for moving subjects.
-After a few weeks of safari there is quite a bit of visable dust in the lens, still usable but I'll be getting it cleaned when I get home

A nice review thanks. I always thought that the 7D MKII is a better body for a wildlife photographer, but the I am nor Canon expert.

One thing I noticed in the Kildeer (Bird) image. The detail is much much less than I expected. It could have been the lens, the body or even the moment.

At least people have an option. This lens has become quite popular here in India.

Exactly the results I got with the D800e. Soft at 600 with truly horrible highlight handling. Too bad, I had the credit card out!

Great article, I recently bought the sigma version and am really happy with the image quality.

Quick question though, you mention this:

"What should not be underestimated is the necessity for an even faster minimum shutter speed when using this lens on a camera with an APS-C sensor. The difference between 600mm and 960mm is considerable and if you are constantly using the lens at its furthest reach, it will eventually limit the length of time you can use the lens at dawn or dusk when you're struggling for enough shutter speed to keep it steady."

It is my understanding that simply having a crop sensor doesn't affect the shutter speed rule of 1/focal length. Hence 1/600 should still be fine for a 7d mark II which crops the image to 960mm.

The Tamron should start at 100 mm or even better at 50 mm – to match perfect.
The Tamron always tends to overexposure my animal pictures, I have to correct at least -½ EV and -1 EV – what gives me shorter exposure times then any other super-tele-zoom in this range.
I have the Canon 4.0/200-400 mm x1,4x L IS too and worked a lot with Nikon 4,0/200-400 mm and extenders – both are very heavy and not made for free hand shooting – 1 year ago I got my Tamron, it is so light, that I can shoot with 1/1000 and 1/500 second handheld with best possible image quality.

The Side-by-Side testing with the 4,0/200-400 mm sounds a bit unfair to me – with the Tamron you get an overexposed f:5,6 at 410 mm,
but if I need 600 mm it is overexposed f:6,3 – which leads to a shorter time at 600 mm against f:5,6 at 560 mm – and the Tamron makes a clear point.

...

In my practice, it makes less sense to go with one lens for all, in the morning and evening I use a 1Dx with 2,8/300 mm and extenders or even 2,8/70-200 mm and not a Tamron 150-600 mm nor the Canon 4,0-5,6/200-560 mm. So if you get 15-20 minutes longer or earlier shooting – you will get it at
“only 400mm” and not at 600 mm!
No word about image quality between Canon 5.6/560 mm and Tamron 6.3/600 mm – it is stunning, that the superpriced Canon can not make significant sharper or higher contrast pictures – maybe in the lap but not in real life.
You can get better pictures, but that’s in the hand of the photographer himself, not in the lens or camera quality.

...
I worked with both Sigma zooms too and have the Canon 5,6/100-400 mm L IS II – for me the clear winners are the Tamron and the Sigma Contemporary.
The Sigma Sport is far to heavy, it has even heavy loss of light and vignetting and isn’t optical any better then the cheaper zooms.
The Canon 100-400 mm is short and not bad with 1,4x extender and it has the best/most powerful image stabilization. If you can get close or have bigger, less dangerous animals – it is the best choice.
But still – there should be a 4,0/50-300 mm L IS lens – lighter and faster.
The industry thinks a 2,8/70-200 mm with extender should be enough – it is not! Animals always move around and in most situations you can’t move, so a zoom from 150 mm is problematic, especially at a crop camera.

The Tamron has a little dust problem it is not a perfect safari-lens.
But with 5-7 years warranty - Canon just 1 year - the Tamron is a clear winner.

First of all I appreciate this review for its practical use of this kind of long zoom lenses. But......with such lenses in wildlife photography air turbulence becomes a major factor in image resolution . Can anyone explain the advantage of a 600mm f6.3 compared to a 300mm f6,3, even if they perform the same in the lab? I would say: with your target at 100m distance a 600mm offers 2 times more magnification but also a more blurred image. So your bear has more pixels but hardly more image sharpness. Carrying around 4 times the weight does not show any great advantage to me. Beside that, shorter tele zooms perform often better at the same aperture, so if the air turbulence is not the limiting factor, the lower resolution of the 600mm would be limiting as shown by the test data.
In other words: under ideal circumstances a 600mm (1000 lines/mm) performed equal to a good quality 300mm (2000 lines/mm), but is 4 times heavier.
Any thoughts?

There are a lot of questions about photographing from a kayak. I'd appreciate an article on the topic, with some direction to cases that work well atop under the bunjies. I've not found anything that is rigid, waterproof and keeps the camera accessible. Very interested in your equipment and technique!

Nice work on the field-test! The images are acceptably sharp, and for the price, one can hardly argue with the results.

The Tamron seems like a fine option for budding wildlife photographers on a budget or even veterans who might appreciate the added utility of having on hand a lightweight, versatile optic as an adjunct to their more expensive lenses.

The Sigma 150-600 Contemporary was much better and sharper at all focal lengths then this lens with my testing using the 7D2. You can actually use the I.S. While panning too.

Something that has puzzled me after reading various reviews. Some say the lock button is variable and others say it's not. I know that mine is very much only locks at 150mm. Did they change this on later releases?

There is a firmware upgrade necessary on the lens to make it work correctly with the 5D3. Otherwise, the AF will sometimes not even engage when using center point. As you mentioned, it works much better on 7D2.

My experience with autofocus on 5DIII is not that frustrating. Yes, hunting is there, but not to the extent of the reviewer's experience. Using widest aperture at 600mm it is capable of producing reasonably sharp images. Here is a collection of few images at 600mm and aperture 6.3. All handheld.

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/4269542963/albums/tamaron-150-600

Nice article. The first grizzly and the last Ram shots are great.
This is my beloved lens on my Nikon body and I love being able to shoot with such and flexible and affordable lens even though the auto-focus issues frustrate me. To put into perspective - the AF on this lens is almost same as the slow Nikon 70-300 f5.6 lens with VC on this lens working much better than the VR on Nikon 70-300. The step up from this lens for extreme telephoto reach (in terms of auto-focus) are the forbiddingly expensive, inflexible F4 primes. Even If I can afford the primes I would still use both side by side given the flexibility of this lens.
Also note that I find myself constantly compensating the exposure on this lens compared to the Nikon 70-300 one otherwise the highlights gets overexposed. There are plenty of fabulous shots in flickr for folks using this lens.

Interesting read...I do have a question about AF. Shooting Canon with its 5.6 points seemed to cause difficulty locking focus. Shooting a Sony with their 6.3 or 6.7 sensitive points (I can't remember which); do Sony shooters suffer the same problems?