Tamron AF 2875mm f/2.8 SP XR ZL Di

Great lens and great price
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I just received my Tamron 28-75mm yesterday and fired off some test shots while walking around the house and yard.

Wow is all I have to say…This is definitely going to be my walk-around lens.

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I did a ton of comparison shopping between various lenses in a similar focal range — 16-50mm, 17-70mm, but I eventually ended up picking this lens because I need the 75mm more than the wide angles. I also compared lots of numbers at various web sites, although not on Pentax mounts.

GREAT picture quality wide open and only gets sharper if you stop it down. I’m cursed to be a pixel peeper, but I would not hesitate to use this lens at f/2.8 at any focal distance — it’s just that good. Vignetting is almost unheard of, which isn’t surprising since it’s a full frame lens and I’m shooting with a Pentax K200D.

Zoom feels good and snug — I don’t see myself using the zoom lock button any time soon.

Manually focusing feels okay, but a bit of a “geary” feeling as you turn the dial, and it’s considerably smaller grip than the zoom grip. Still, it’s fairly snug and doesn’t have any play in the turn action, so it’s decent.

Build quality seems pretty good for a composite lens body.

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I have no problems recommending this to anyone that would like normal to moderate telephoto action . Very crisp images and great color / contrast and a fast f/2.8 throughout.

Only one small complaint – Shadow visible in images when zoomed out using onboard flash, even after removing the lens hood. I guess I should stop being cheap and get a real flash

Tamron has an excellent lens here and the price is a steal.

If you get a good copy, this lens Rocks
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
First let me say my first copy of this lens was totally bad, soft at just about every everything under f/8.0. My second copy behaves very well.

I’m using this lens on A Pentax K2000 (K-m in Japan), that has the same sensor as the Pentax K200. I have several other lens but my best lens is a Pentax SMC-FA 50mm f/1.4 and I define sharpness, color and contrast in light of the quality of this lens (one of the better 50mm primes).

at f/2.8 it is soft, at center or corners depending on the focal length. Still, testing also shows potential for smaller images after sharpening, especially at the shorter end. My Pentax SMC-FA 50mm f/1.4 gives much better images at f/2.8.

at f/4.0 everything improves a great deal, especially center sharpness but there are still signs of some softness at the extreme corner at some focal lengths. My Pentax SMC-FA 50mm f/1.4 is still better at f/4.0.

at f/5.6 this lens can go “mano a mano” with my Pentax SMC-FA 50mm f/1.4 and at times I think the Tamron does better. I suspect that both lenses are exceeding the resolution of the camera sensor at this aperture. The fact that this quality at this aperture is so consistent across the full focal length gives the Tamron many points.

at f/8 the lens acts a little strange. At some longer focal lengths it is as almost as good as when used at f/5.6 while in the shorter end we get lost in quality. Totally usable and still good at f/8 but the lost of quality is unexpected on the short end, better than f/4.0 at center with no corner softness on the short end but not the same quality as f/5.6.

at the longer end sharpness is excellent from f/5.6 – f/7.1, very good from f/8-f/11 and still good from f/13-f/16 with little distortion to talk about.

Macro is very good at 75mm f/8.

My biggest issue with the lens are as follows: my first copy was bad and too many people write similar experiences. That is not good quality control.

My second issue is that from an expectations point of view, at least on my Pentax K2000 camera, the lens seems like a good constant f/4 lens with a f/2.8 in case of emergencies. I would avoid using the f/2.8 aperture if possible (remember, I have a Pentax SMC-FA 50mm f/1.4 lens and used to very good quality at f/2.8). Now, since I paid $400 for the lens and that is more or less what Sigma would charge for a similar lens and 2/3′s of what Pentax would charge for their Pentax SMC-DA 17-70mm f/4 AL SDM (that is a little soft at the long end but wider on the short end) this is a good buy.

Were it not for the quality control issues getting this lens would be a simple “YES”. As it stands, I’m like, think about it and be ready to test and return if necessary. If you get a good copy you will find it a good value.

If I could I would give this lens 4.5 and not 5 stars for the quality control issues. On the other hand the pictures look really once yo get a good copy.

Great lens for chasing my daughter
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
It has decent performance even at f/2.8 and sharpens and improves contrast immediately on stopping down. The build is solid with nothing loose or cheap looking. On APS-C cameras it might not be wide enough for some cases but it works for my intended purpose. Also works well indoors for parties (even without flash).

heavy glass.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
likes:

feels very solid, well constructed. constant 2.8 aperture. when sharp, its very very sharp.

dislikes:

front focus/back focus issues. fortunately the k20 has lens microadjustment capability, which helps very very much. very heavy. nitpicking, but i wish it zoomed out to 18mm. 28 is inconvenient for group shots.

Bought for wedding purposes, and it’s definitely helped. When its sharp, its amazingly sharp. The “bokeh” is great. Some shots at 2.8 (set to center point focus) were about 10 feet off (closer to me), which is completely ridiculious, but when they were nice it was worth it. I wouldn’t buy this for a camera that doesn’t allow you to adjust the autofocus settings.

Tamron must make their design more manufacturable
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Didn’t buy this at Amazon, but ended up returning 3 bad copies in a row before giving up. The first had severe softness at 75mm. The 2nd had severe BF at 28mm. The 3rd had slight BF at 28mm and softness at 75mm.

While testing I saw flashes of super sharpness (75mm on 2nd lens and 50mm on 3rd lens). If Tamron could figure out what’s wrong w/ their design so it can be more consistently manufactured, they’d have a real winner.

I did wish the range were 24-70 instead of 28-75 though…the Sigma 24-70 uses a ridiculous 82mm filter (they should stop at 77mm or the filter prices get ridiculous).

What a great lens…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Ordered a refurbished copy of this lens and was blown away by the pictures it produced. Good quality wide open, and stellar past f/4. Would buy again. My only gripe = plasticky, outdated, “third-party-lens” feel. Although constructed well; it just doesn’t have that professional feel, and for the price that’s a non-issue. However, my Sigma 17-70 had a aluminum barrel and it inspired a little more confidence than this lens…however the Tamron blew it out of the water with the image quality and constant aperture.

You won’t be disappointed in this lens. Paired with the K20d, it really shows off that huge CMOS sensor.

Best Buy for the Money
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I got this lens one month ago. I use it with a K10D and as long as I can shoot in the 28-75 range I use it! Sharpness is excellent and being able to shoot at f2.8 is worth the extra-weight.

The autofocus is fast for the price range. AF noise is OK but it gets really noisy when it’s not able to focus… But anyway you won’t use a zoom with that range for wild-life pictures!

Even though this is not a macro lens you can still focus pretty close (about 1:3, 1:4 magnification).

I recommend this lens…

Amazing…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Just bought from AllAboutElectronics through Amazon. Never touched it before, chose based on on-line search and my foto needs. Not as bulky and heavy as I was affraid it would be. Nice feel, good balance with Pentax K2000d. About 1/2″ longer than kit 18-55mm lens and a bit wider. I was shooting very fast running pets, haven’t noticed much noise during focusing. One needs to get used to slight resistance of the zoom ring but the controls layout is very user-friendly. Very fast focusing, excellent colors even under cloudy conditions at 5-6 pm, SHARP! First impression that the image quality is close to 1:1.9 43mm Limited… Not cheap but worth every penny!

Legendary Pro-Level Bargain Performer
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The Tamron 28-75 has become somewhat of a legend due to its phenomenal image performance for the price. Yet, when you take price out of the equation, this lens still holds its own surprisingly well against the top-dogs from Canon and Nikon costing anywhere from two to four times the price of the Tamron. So far, I’ve found this lens is consistent with what I’ve been hearing across the Internet: image quality is at a professional level.

The lens looks and feels like most Tamron lenses I’ve seen, plastic but reasonably well built. The zoom ring is at first a little snug in operation, but I suspect it will loosen a bit over time. The focus ring rotates during automatic focus operation, but that’s really a non-issue in my view of things. However, everything still feels generally solid and of quality construction, in contrast to the loose and rattling lens barrels, zoom and focus rings of the Pentax “kit” lenses: the 18-55 and 50-200. Autofocus operation with the 28-75 is a bit on the noisy side, but I’ve found it to be fast enough so far. What’s most important, it’s been spot-on in typical shooting situations (a welcome relief to the Pentax DA* 50-135 f2.8 I had to return due to poor autofocus performance and resultant soft images). Some comparison shots between this lens and the Tamron 18-250 taken in the 28 to 75mm range show that the 28-75 is clearly a sharper lens and maintains that sharpness nicely boarder-to-boarder. The 18-250, my basic walkaround lens, is a strong performer in that lower range, but it is simply outclassed by the 28-75. Contrast and color saturation is also superior to the 18-250. Interestingly, color tone with the 28-75 looks to be ever so slightly warmer. I’ve found that CA (chromatic aberration – purple fringing) is present in some rare shots near the boarders such as with the edges of overhead florescent lighting in a gym where that lighting is overexposed in contrast to the rest of the picture, but I haven’t seen it appear in many other situations where one would expect to find purple fringing. At f2.8, I’ve found that this lens still produces impressive images, especially at the long end, but not quite up to the sharpness at f4.0 and higher. So far, I haven’t really noticed any issues with vignetting or distortion.

The 28-75 is also a full-frame lens, meaning that it is designed for cameras with a 35mm film frame-sized sensor, but it will also work on the smaller APS-C sensor of the Pentax D-SLRs (dedicated APS-C lenses such as the Tamron 18-250 will not work properly with a full-frame sensor). The positive of using a full-frame lens with the APS-C sensor is that the smaller sensor benefits from being more in the lens’ “sweet-spot, ” that is, the potentially softer/distorted boarders seen by a full-frame sensor for a particular lens are just outside the reach of the APS-C sensor. Kind of makes one wonder why all D-SLR lenses aren’t full-frame.

Considering the limited lens options for Pentax D-SLR owners, especially higher-end products, this is certainly the lens to have. While the Pentax APS-C factor of 1.5x, and an effective focal length of 42 – 112.5mm is perhaps not quite wide enough for some shots, it does, however, work great for general use including portraits and low-light interior shots without flash. A nice surprise I found with this lens is that it has an aperture ring which means I should be able to use it on my old Pentax ME Super film SLR for a true 28-75mm focal range. As I continue to be impressed with the 28-75, I’m hoping that the new Tamron 70-200 f2.8 due out in a few weeks will be in the same league as this legendary lens bargain.

Great for weddings and portraits
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I recently started wedding photography, and this lens does the job. It does a great job in low light. I am very pleased I purchased this lens, it was well worth the money.