SP AF 200-500MM F/5-6.3 Di LD

Sorry, there is a correction in the 8th line. It shall be read as "somebody coming from the US,". Thanks.

I am an amateur who has started photography as a hobby a few months ago. My observation is subjective based on my weekend photography expeditions and not based on any tests. I have a Canon EOS 600D Rebel T3i camera, a portrait lense, a canon 55-250 mm lense (not L class). Recently I bought Tamron SP AF 200-500 mm F/5-6.3 Di lens after a lot of deliberation, weighing this product against Sigma's 150-500 mm lens. In India, this Sigma is less expensive than the Tamron's product , but it is heavier and you might get tired hand holding it, but it has image stabilisation, unlike Tamron. But for capturing birds and wildlife in action, which I am interested in, not having image stabilisation did not pose any hurdle as i have to anyway use higher shutter speeds of 1/500 -1/1000. The image quality is very good. I am very pleased with the results. Will post some pictures soon. ( I have not used Canon L series lenses, particularly the 100-400 mm lens, which my friends say, gives very good images even when used by a half blind man. But you pay a higher price for it.) Tamron is a good buy. If you are in India and plan to buy, get it from somebody coming from the UW, where it costs much less--about $950. In India, the value added tax and other levies make it at least 50% more expensive. Vendors say you pay the price for a warranty applicable in India, which you may not get if you buy it in the US. I guess duty free shops at airports do give international warranty. It is worth trying. Also, it might be worth buying directly from Tamron's distributor in India rather than from a camera shop. Thanks.

Very poor sharpness at all focal lengths compared to my Canon 400L, I sold it back on ebay in a hurry. I must have got a very soft copy. Shame because I really wanted to love this lens, it gets good reviews and has a kind of retro appeal. Just didn't happen for me.

First of all I decided to buy the tamron because:-

I couldn't justify spending $4000 or more on a 500mm prime lens

There were really only three choices as far as I could make out at the time, in the price range I was reasonably happy to pay, the Tamron and two Sigmas, the 50-500 or the 170-500.

A friend of mine has the Sigma 50-500 and isn't that happy with it. And in reviews I have seen it doesn't come out as well as the Tamron. The Sigma 170-500 may be better but at the time of buying it was fairly new and not many reviews avialable.

I posted a message on one of the boards and someone replied positively about the Tamron, but pointed out it's limitation.

So I took the plunge figuring I could always trade it in if I didn't like it. I have had it about 2 years now and for now I don't think I will sell it unless I win the lottery and can afford to upgrade to a 500/600mm prime at some time in the future. Overall I am reasonably happy with it but some things to consider.

f6.3 means nearly all the time I am using ISO 800/1600 and maximum apertures to get reasonable speeds.

You can get good photos at speeds of around 1/400th sec if you can use a tripod or something else to rest the lens on. These pictures I took on holiday were with a tripod, in a wooded area that was quite dark and at speeds around 1/400th or less.

www.flickr.com/photos/alan-photos/1020713768/
www.flickr.com/photos/alan-photos/1020713650/in/photostream/

These were taken with the lens hand held in better light at 1/1000th or faster:-
www.flickr.com/photos/alan-photos/1021344330/in/set-72157594413532255/ + other similar ones in my photostream of these birds. Plus this one www.flickr.com/photos/alan-photos/1020713970/ and this one www.flickr.com/photos/alan-photos/1030483045/

These were taken at around 1/500th sec but resting the lens on a wooden railing on a balcony:-
www.flickr.com/photo_exif.gne?id=1020111413&context=set-72157594413532255 + similar pictures again.

This was taken at about 1/400th sec hand held but with nothing to balance the lens on - you can see it is not so good quality as some of the others www.flickr.com/photos/alan-photos/834305635/in/photostream/

Finally these bear pictures were also taken hand held. Again I used at least 1/1600 sec. www.flickr.com/photo_exif.gne?id=1016942718

To sum up.....

The lens is slow and it is difficult to get good results in low light.
You will always be using high ISO to get the speed required.
You are likely to be at F8 or lower to get the speed needed for clear pictures.

The lens is quite heavy, but the case it comes with is good for carrying it around and is is lighter than the alternatives and not as heavy as a prime.

If you are prepared to put up with these restrictions and can't afford something higher quality (and more weight) then I would recommend it.


Update:-
Still using this lens a lot. But the slow AF is getting increasingly frustrating. I often miss pictures of birds in flight, in fact it is almost impossible to catch them unless they are very big and not moving very fast, eg herons.

Since I bought this lens the Sigma 150-500 has emerged with a faster AF and image stabilization. If I was buying today I would probably go for the Sigma.

I recently dropped the lens (attached also to my Canon 50D!)- luckily it was on fairly soft boggy grass and neither the lens or the camera seemed to be injured. However, it prompted me to do some lens tests just to make sure.

First off the lens (and the camera) weren't damaged. So the Tamron seems pretty robust!

The tests showed that the lens performs very much better above f8 than at f5.6/f6.3. Because I like to carry this around and hand hold it (or sometimes use a monopod) it is difficult to get to f8 a lot of the time without using very high ISO which gives a lot of noise. So now considering investing in a lightweight tripod (which don't come cheap) or trying the Sigma 150-500.

Further update. I took the plunge and bought a Sigma 150-500. I figured I would compare the two and sell the one I didn't like so much. the sigma wins on speed of AF and the OS, It enables me to get hand held photos which would not be possible with the Tamron. But looking at the IQ the Tamron still seems marginally sharper. But this is just with my two copies of the specific lenses and my maybe less than perfect skills as a photographer!

Yet another Update:- Sold the Tamron and still using the Sigma 150-500 and it is OK. Have had a few debates with people about the merits of the Sigma 50-500 which many claim is sharper but I am not convinced. Now thinking about trying a Canon 100-400. I like the added reach of the Sigma but the IQ looks better for the Canon - although if you look at a lot of photos on Flickr or other sites you will find good and bad shots with all of these lenses.

And another Update:-B Just took the plunge and bought the new Tamron 150-600 lens. The IS (VR) is a huge advantage over the original lens which is the subject of this review. The reviews so far seem to suggest the new lens is better at 500mm than 600mm but the added reach is also a big advantage, especially if using a full frame camera. I will probably publish something on the new lens once I have played with it a bit more.

Used extensively with monopod or handheld for birds in flight

I had this lens for only 1 week and then immediaty sold it and then bought a sigma 170-500mm and was much more happy with the results of the sigma.

Also the sigma makes less of a dent in the wallet and is optically a better lens by far.

And the sigma is also noticbly lighter so if you want a long birding lens i reccomend you look at the sigma before you make your final decission

Richard

I really love this lens at this price. Sure, I'd rather have a 500 f4 vr Nikkor, but I don't want to afford one. I use this on a tripod and get excellent images at 500mm. Maybe I got a lucky good sample, but I consistantly make nicer, sharper, and more contrasty images than my brother does with the 50-500 Bigma.

This lens is light enough to hand-hold (with good technique) for in-flight birds on sunny days. I use a fast shutter speed of at least 1/1250 sec and let auto-ISO take care of the rest. Much of the time I get very good keepers with a Nikon D300.

Overall, this is a very fun and quality tool for birders on a budget. Highly recommended for owners of cameras with good high ISO charactoristics. Must have in body screw type autofocus, so manual focus only with D40/D40x/D60.

I have this lens mated with a Canon 350D.

From my experience don't buy this lens if you want to get shots of birds in flight - against clear sky the autofocus hunts from infinity to minimum and back again, by which time the bird has flown out of view, even with panning. (From what I have read, the Canon 400mm f5.6 or the 100-400mm IS or equivalent would seem to be the minimum requirement for flight photography with a DSLR, but I can no longer either afford let alone justify spending nearly 1000 on a lens alone.)

It may be my poor technique and/or I may have a "Friday lens" and/or I may not have the patience and perserverance to get the best from this lens/camera combination, but I am very disappointed given the amount I spent on it (650-ish).

Assuming I don't give up in disgust before we get some really sunny weather, I am intending to do some technical comparisons against a copy of the original (manual) Tamron 500mm mirror lens with a cheapo Adaptall-to-EOS adapter (both of which I got on eBay) using Norman Koren's very interesting lens testing tutorial

http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF5.html

If it's performance is not significantly better than the mirror lens, I will be selling it or trading it in for a spotting scope and a compact.

I notice that the Tamron 200-500mm is not as often discussed(supertelephotos) as the Bigma. I posted a small gallery of photos taken under a variety of conditions. This is a very respectable lens at a decent price. The mistakes are mine. Please go to... if you care to look.
http://www.pbase.com/wntrtvlr/tamron_200500mm

You can get very sharp pictures in good light with this lens. I did not have much luck with subjects further away than about 15 feet or poor light. I also needed a tripod. I agree with imagemaster, no match for Canon 100-400 IS but it also costs much less. If you need the Canon mount and you can afford to pay more get the Canon, it is worth the extra money. If this Tamron lens is all your budget will allow it is well worth it.

I have this and the BIGMA .. and I will say that I believe the Tamron photos are much better than the 50-500 Sigma. I bought it for my friend so when we go out shootin\', she\'d have a long distance lens to use also.

TC\'s definitely appear to affect the quality of the photos on this lens.

Easy to handhold even at it\'s length and weight.

Shooting it on D50\'s and a D70.

Perhaps good for the price, but poor compared to the Canon 100-400. Even if the Canon did not have IS, it is still a much better lens.

A focus-limiter increases focus speed considerably. It is nice to be able to lock the Canon zoom at any position to avoid zoom creep. After less than one year, the Tamron had a part inside come apart and it was expensive to fix. I had bought it used from the U.S., so warranty was invalid.

It has now become my prime dSLR birding lens, used with my Nikon D70s, having relegated the Nikon 80-400VR to 2nd place. The main reason is that it is lighter and easier to carry and hold. It is very well balanced for hand-holding. I also think it is a little brighter and sharper, and the extra 100mm. helps too. Auto-focus is adequately fast, although, as expected, difficult with, e.g. small birds in dense cover.

The lack of VR/IS does not seem to matter most of the time if I hold it correctly, although it might occasionally mean the difference between no shot and an acceptable shot in poor light. The main disadvantage I have found is that even at 200mm., it is physically quite long, and I haver had to change my standard camera bag for a longer one.

Richard Stern

I bought this lens second hand about a year ago and use it at least once a week & pretty much love it. I use it with tripod or other support as much as poss as I don\'t have much luck handheld. It can be slow to focus & hunt in low light & I try not to use above 450mm but I get carried away sometimes then wish I hadn\'t. Iv\'e tried it with a Tamron 1.4 multipier which came with it, it will AF but the results are never very good. Iv\'e also tried using an un-branded C-PL for water shots, but it was no good as it would only AF in extreme sunlight.

One day I\'ll splash out on a quality prime, but until then I\'ll stick with this baby....

Agree with first review. It is a great lens for the price. Often compared to the Sigma 50-500, and seen as second best of the two - i suspect this isn't true. It is lighter and other reviews seem to imply the Tamron is better at wider apertures.
It is fairly easy to use handheld for flight shots and i find that i rarely use a tripod with it anymore - although it is useful to rest on something.
The AF is a little on the noisey side and hunts a fair bit at low light levels - but i don't think this is unusual.
All-in-all though, for the price, i don't think you can beat it. Together with the Tamron 28-300mm zoom, you have a great "starter" kit for well under a thousand pounds - which should be good enough for most people (until a good quality prime is affordable!)
Rating based on 8 for quality and 10 for value for money

I have had this lens for about 3 weeks and have been very happy with the results. I use it on a Nikon D 50 and use it mostly for birds and wildllife.
I think is hard to beat for the price. That said I am no pro at photography, very much an amature taking pictures for fun, but it fits my budget and and the results makes me happy.