In-Depth Review: Tamron 150-600 f/5-6.3 VC

[BoneDoc]

Great review Dustin. Made me want to get one if I were in the market. I think for a lot of us, it gives us a chance to get our feet wet and see whether birding or doing other wildlife photography is an interest we want to pursue.

 

[TWI by Dustin Abbott]

Congrats on the very popular review! I wish I could read it haha but its not loading.

Sorry about that. The transition to the host and servers is moving a little slowly (perfect storm of traffic right now - at least for a little guy for me. I'm hoping that somewhere within the next few hours everything will stabilize, but I have no guarantees.

 

[AlanF]

I was really excited about this lens and have put my 100-400L up for sale in anticipation of buying it. Now, I am very worried about the Tamron's performance at 600mm. Here are more of your crops at 600mm and f/6.3. For the first, I calculate the original to have been 1100x830 pixels, and the for the second, the duck's head, 1300x1300. Their quality has put me off the lens as I usually get very sharp images at those sizes.

For comparison, I have shown a sparrow of similar original crop taken with an SX50 at 1200mm equivalent (it's not the best quality) and a shoveler duck's head I took a week or so ago with a 70D and 600mm lens.

 

[Drizzt321]

Congrats on the very popular review! I wish I could read it haha but its not loading.

Sorry about that. The transition to the host and servers is moving a little slowly (perfect storm of traffic right now - at least for a little guy for me. I'm hoping that somewhere within the next few hours everything will stabilize, but I have no guarantees.

Sounds like you're next review you should get a load balancer & 3 or 4 VMs wherever you have it hosted at with more on standby. That or setup a good CDN for the images at least

 

[TWI by Dustin Abbott]

Hopefully by tomorrow morning everything will be migrated and problems will be solved. Too many big images in the review, and too much traffic. Took us all a bit by surprise ;D

 

[dufflover]

Thank you for the very informative review!

What I was looking for most and you tested (yay!) was the difference between 600mm wide open and stopped down, as it basically pits it against how I use my Sigma 120-300 OS w/ 2x TC and the fact I don't use it much with the IQ and AF hit should indicate how my results aren't that great with that combo (but bloody good with a 1.4x TC though). Anyway that bear crop was very promising and showed some great "crispness" coming back into the image at f/8.

 

[HankMD]

Great review!

Your reviews have always been good, but this is the best one yet! Congratulations on a job well done!

+1.

And when the reviewer also happens to be a creative photographer we are treated to excellent samples.

 

[CarlMillerPhoto]

I was really excited about this lens and have put my 100-400L up for sale in anticipation of buying it. Now, I am very worried about the Tamron's performance at 600mm. Here are more of your crops at 600mm and f/6.3. For the first, I calculate the original to have been 1100x830 pixels, and the for the second, the duck's head, 1300x1300. Their quality has put me off the lens as I usually get very sharp images at those sizes.

For comparison, I have shown a sparrow of similar original crop taken with an SX50 at 1200mm equivalent (it's not the best quality) and a shoveler duck's head I took a week or so ago with a 70D and 600mm lens.

Is that a $12,000 lens you're comparing this $1k lens to? Not exactly a fair comparison. Plus, your statement doesn't really make sense...how this guy performs at 600mm should have no effect on you selling your 100-400m.

 

[dufflover]

Well of the various forums I see it happening most on CR

 

[AlanF]

I was really excited about this lens and have put my 100-400L up for sale in anticipation of buying it. Now, I am very worried about the Tamron's performance at 600mm. Here are more of your crops at 600mm and f/6.3. For the first, I calculate the original to have been 1100x830 pixels, and the for the second, the duck's head, 1300x1300. Their quality has put me off the lens as I usually get very sharp images at those sizes.

For comparison, I have shown a sparrow of similar original crop taken with an SX50 at 1200mm equivalent (it's not the best quality) and a shoveler duck's head I took a week or so ago with a 70D and 600mm lens.

Is that a $12,000 lens you're comparing this $1k lens to? Not exactly a fair comparison. Plus, your statement doesn't really make sense...how this guy performs at 600mm should have no effect on you selling your 100-400m.

I put up my lens for for sale in anticipation of buying this lens, which shows a positive attitude to the Tamron in advance and not scepticism. If you think the comparison with an expensive lens unfair, what do you think about a $300 SX50 giving better performance than the $1100 lens, with a whole camera for a third of the price?

 

[Albi86]

If you think the comparison with an expensive lens unfair, what do you think about a $300 SX50 giving better performance than the $1100 lens, with a whole camera for a third of the price?

This remains to be demonstrated.

 

[AlanF]

If you think the comparison with an expensive lens unfair, what do you think about a $300 SX50 giving better performance than the $1100 lens, with a whole camera for a third of the price?

This remains to be demonstrated.

Based on the crops of the birds shown in this review, it has been demonstrated - just look at them, they are unacceptable (to me, but maybe they are acceptable to you). But, if those photos are just very poor examples and the lens can do much better, then I will of course change my mind with enthusiasm and buy one.

 

[Kit.]

If you think the comparison with an expensive lens unfair, what do you think about a $300 SX50 giving better performance than the $1100 lens, with a whole camera for a third of the price?

This remains to be demonstrated.

Based on the crops of the birds shown in this review, it has been demonstrated - just look at them, they are unacceptable (to me, but maybe they are acceptable to you).

I don't see the review, because the site seems to be down for me. But I do see that the pictures you are comparing to are shot with much more favorable lighting than the pictures you don't like.

 

[Lichtgestalt]

I was really excited about this lens and have put my 100-400L up for sale in anticipation of buying it. Now, I am very worried about the Tamron's performance at 600mm. Here are more of your crops at 600mm and f/6.3. For the first, I calculate the original to have been 1100x830 pixels, and the for the second, the duck's head, 1300x1300. Their quality has put me off the lens as I usually get very sharp images at those sizes.

how long do you take pictures?

noticed that your images with the SX50 are taken in bright harsh sunlight as it seems.
the one crop from him you showed not. seems like a dull overcast day to me the image was taken.

im still unable to read his review. now i get a blank hoster page yesterday it was 404.
but i will have a look at the review if possible.

fact is, who compares this tamron lens to a 600 f4 has much to learn.
people with a signature as long as yours should know what they can expect for 1000$

 

[Albi86]

If you think the comparison with an expensive lens unfair, what do you think about a $300 SX50 giving better performance than the $1100 lens, with a whole camera for a third of the price?

This remains to be demonstrated.

Based on the crops of the birds shown in this review, it has been demonstrated - just look at them, they are unacceptable (to me, but maybe they are acceptable to you). But, if those photos are just very poor examples and the lens can do much better, then I will of course change my mind with enthusiasm and buy one.

As Dustin himself has plainly admitted, his inexperience with very long lenses and the cold did have an effect on the steadyness of his stance. If you bothered taking a look at other boards too, you could see lots of very good samples. Dustin is not the only one on the planet who has already had the lens for a while.

 

[AlanF]

I was really excited about this lens and have put my 100-400L up for sale in anticipation of buying it. Now, I am very worried about the Tamron's performance at 600mm. Here are more of your crops at 600mm and f/6.3. For the first, I calculate the original to have been 1100x830 pixels, and the for the second, the duck's head, 1300x1300. Their quality has put me off the lens as I usually get very sharp images at those sizes.

how long do you take pictures?

noticed that your images with the SX50 are taken in bright harsh sunlight as it seems.
the one crop from him you showed not. seems like a dull overcast day to me the image was taken.

im still unable to read his review. now i get a blank hoster page yesterday it was 404.
but i will have a look at the review if possible.

fact is, who compares this tamron lens to a 600 f4 has much to learn.
people with a signature as long as yours should know what they can expect for 1000$

I was comparing it "with" another lens and not "to". And, it was not a 600mm f/4. The duck's head taken with the Tamron was in perfectly good light and you can see that it is soft, irrespective of any comparison..

 

[Don Haines]

I was really excited about this lens and have put my 100-400L up for sale in anticipation of buying it. Now, I am very worried about the Tamron's performance at 600mm. Here are more of your crops at 600mm and f/6.3. For the first, I calculate the original to have been 1100x830 pixels, and the for the second, the duck's head, 1300x1300. Their quality has put me off the lens as I usually get very sharp images at those sizes.

how long do you take pictures?

noticed that your images with the SX50 are taken in bright harsh sunlight as it seems.
the one crop from him you showed not. seems like a dull overcast day to me the image was taken.

im still unable to read his review. now i get a blank hoster page yesterday it was 404.
but i will have a look at the review if possible.

fact is, who compares this tamron lens to a 600 f4 has much to learn.
people with a signature as long as yours should know what they can expect for 1000$

I was comparing it "with" another lens and not "to". And, it was not a 600mm f/4. The duck's head taken with the Tamron was in perfectly good light and you can see that it is soft, irrespective of any comparison..

I have an SX-50. For what it is, it is insanely good and you can handhold it at the equivalent of 4800mm (50X optical Xoom plus 4x digital), it easily out resolves any lens I have on distant objects and it is very low cost. The autofocus is terrible, shutter lag is huge, and forget about having a burst rate..... I would not consider using it on a moving bird...

Everything has pluses and minuses..... There are no absolute answers...

 

[Canon1]

No offense Dustin, but...

Just kidding this time. Well thought out executed review. You did a great job putting this lens through some paces and the reader has a great sense of this lens after reading. Thank you for your efforts putting this review together for us!

It will be interesting to see how the AF compares with the 100-400L. It is certainly not lighting fast on this old canon, so if it is indeed better than that (and optically just as good) then a lot of people might make the upgrade. Even though 500-600mm gets soft it would still be icing on the cake.

Canon will really need to give some reasons for people to get a replacement 100-400L (If it ever comes out) especially if it is north of $2,000 to $2,500.

 

[AlanF]

Don
You are absolutely right about the slow AF. If Canon is able to introduce dual-pixel technology to their superzooms it will be a complete game changer. The AF should then be some 5x faster and the SX50 successors will be in real competition with bargain-basement priced zoom supertele lenses.

 

[candc]

Cracking review! However, from my perspetive, I'm still interested in focussing on BIF when at 600mm. I'm not a birder, but if it is good for BIF, it'll be good for cheetah and other big cats running.

Just need someone to review that and if it's as good as the rest of Dustin's review, I might well get one.

Unfortunately BIF is hard to do this time of year where I live in Canada. There just aren't hardly any birds around! There also isn't any open water right now that might attract waterfowl. I'm afraid someone else will have to provide that kind of testing.

Funny you should say that.... I have a Snowy Owl hanging around and hope beyond all reasonable hope that by the time my lens (pre-ordered a month ago) arrives, that Snowy will still be around....

Even funnier, as I am waiting for a LONG!!! lens for birding, I was wandering around yesterday shooting Chickadees at 24mm.... yet I use them as justification for 600mm....

hi don,

i also pre ordered one but only a week ago. mine has not shipped and bhphoto now lists it as expected march 31, did yours ship?