( 29 reviews )
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Posted: Jul 14 2009
My review mirrors much of what has been said so far: the lens is solid for the pricepoint. It's not spectacular and in low light situations you will need a solid grasp of how to use ISO, aperture, shutter speed and EV compensation in order to end up with the picture you intended. It does have issues with autofocus in low light and sometimes in macro mode but these can be overcome quickly if you just switch to manual focus. If you are like me and you need a lens that goes beyond the lame zoom of a kit lens and you are a little strapped for cash after dropping the money on a decent camera body, this lens will work just fine. Do start saving your pennies for another high quality lens though, although I would recommend that if you have this in your arsenal the next lens you should look for is a short range, wide aperture portrait lens. This one will perform well enough for your zoom shots that you'll probably want to wait before replacing it.
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Posted: Jul 9 2009
The tamron di works very well with my Pentax K10D without the big bucks. Yes, it is soft on full 300 zoom so thanks to other's advice here in the reviews I upped the aperture to F11 and with a little digital sharpening you get an excellent photo. The colors are good. In the 70-200mm usage the colors and images are very sharp and rewarding. The macro shots are excellent and you won't be disappointed. Read other reviews for lens usage. Very good lens.
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Posted: Jun 21 2009
The lens is a full frame lens. On a DSLR body like the Pentax K2000 it behaves like a 105mm-450mm lens with no issues with vigneting. Because only the center of the lens is used in modern Pentax cameras you also get the best sharpness the lens can give you. At 70mm (105mm equivalent) the lens is reasonably sharp at full open f/4 aperture. At f/5.6 it gets good sharpness. At 180mm (270mm equivalent) the lens is usably sharp at full open aperture. At f/8.0 it gets good sharpness. At 300mm (450mm equivalent) the lens is soft at full open aperture. At f/8.0 it gets average sharpness but gets a little better at f/11. General Contrast: Average at most times but I never feel it is lacking. Just not impressive like some prime lenses. Lens Distortion: Hardly any lens distortion to talk about. Chromatic aberrations can sometimes be seen beyond 200mm (easily corrected in Photoshop) Focus Speed: Average to slow focus speed. Not good to track fast moving objects or small flying insects. Not saying it is bad but you can react faster than the lens can keep up on a K2000. Macro: Begins at 180mm (270mm equivalent)and at f/8 you can get some really nice pictures. The minumum focal range of 3 feet makes macro hand held shoots harder. Not a problem with a tripod. The magnification is good even if it is not a true macro lens. Mechanical Quality: A little stiff to zoom in, manual focus ring is OK. Feels a little cheap at times from all the plastic. Metal mount and decent hood. Large as to be expected from a full frame lens but not heavy. Price: You get a lot of lens for your money. Use: This lens does better outdoors with lots is light. The long focal range at the short end (70mm, 105mm effective) makes it impractical for small spaces (unless in Macro mode and even then you need 3 feet to focus). On the other hand if you get enough light portraits pictures at 70mm (105mm effective) at f/5.6 - f/8.0 can come out nice. With enough light and f/11 even 300mm (450mm) is totally usable for large prints after a little Photoshop. Conclusion: Maybe the best of the low end tele zoom lens for Pentax. By far the best value of the group.
