Shallow Review: Tamron 150-600 f/5-6.3 VC vs 300mm/2.8 II +2xTC III

[miah]

I would love a 300mm f/2.8, but to be honest, i would be slapping on a TC almost all the time, so having a native 600mm lens would be ideal. f/8 is a little slow for what i need (forests at dawn/dusk), but i guess this is where the ISO performance of the 5D III should come in.... hmmmmm.... I am extremely interested in this lens! I guess the 4000 Euro i would save on this lens could go to some awesome trips!

F/8 at dawn or dusk will be unusable for anything other than telephoto landscape photography of very still subjects, on a heavy tripod, with mirror lock...along with the longer shutter speed required. I shoot often at dusk, sometimes at dawn. If you're wanting a shutter speed faster than say 1/100 second, then you need radically more light than f/8, or even f/5.6. If you disagree, then perhaps you're referring to shooting more in the "golden hour" than that transition to the "blue hour". I'm talking about shooting in the half hour when the sun is below the horizon. My 6D autofocuses like a champ in this gloom with an f/5.6 lens, as does its noise floor. But I can't expect to shoot action, even with an f/2 lens...let alone f/8 (or specifically an f/6.3 lens that is closed to f/8, as in the case of the Tamron).

F/8 photography of wildlife, is good for bright daylight, and that's about it...unless the animal is asleep.

Huh? So just what faster-than-f/2 lens are you using with your 6D to successfully shoot wildlife action during the "blue hour?" Surely the slow EF 500 and 600 f/4 primes are out, and by this standard so is the EF 300 and 400 f/2.8. Which begs the question: what oh-so-busy critters in your neck of the woods allow you to crawl up beside them and snap away in the twilight with your 50mm f/1.4?

 

[Plainsman]

I would love a 300mm f/2.8, but to be honest, i would be slapping on a TC almost all the time, so having a native 600mm lens would be ideal. f/8 is a little slow for what i need (forests at dawn/dusk), but i guess this is where the ISO performance of the 5D III should come in.... hmmmmm.... I am extremely interested in this lens! I guess the 4000 Euro i would save on this lens could go to some awesome trips!

C'mon - for 600mm with the 300/2.8 IS plus TC you need to stop down to f8 anyway (see the reviews) to get reasonable (not brilliant) performance ie your pricy lens aperture has vignetted from 108mm down to 75mm at 600/8. With the 2x TC even second hand the 300/2.8 is very expensive and fiddly compared to the Tamron and heavier.

 

[AlanF]

I would love a 300mm f/2.8, but to be honest, i would be slapping on a TC almost all the time, so having a native 600mm lens would be ideal. f/8 is a little slow for what i need (forests at dawn/dusk), but i guess this is where the ISO performance of the 5D III should come in.... hmmmmm.... I am extremely interested in this lens! I guess the 4000 Euro i would save on this lens could go to some awesome trips!

C'mon - for 600mm with the 300/2.8 IS plus TC you need to stop down to f8 anyway (see the reviews) to get reasonable (not brilliant) performance ie your pricy lens aperture has vignetted from 108mm down to 75mm at 600/8. With the 2x TC even second hand the 300/2.8 is very expensive and fiddly compared to the Tamron and heavier.

My copy of the 300/2.8 II + 2XTC is just as sharp at f/5.6 as f/8, from my own inspection and also FoCal testing. But, one stop should not be a deal breaker.

Poor light is where the 300/2.8 comes into its own. You can slap it on a 70D, on which it is still incredibly sharp at f/2.8 and has a reach of 480mm, and have all the advantage of the aperture for both focussing and picture taking. Here is a photo of a Robin in my unlit garage taken on the 5DIII with the 300mm/2.8 II. It's not wonderful but it is a memory of the Robin raising its brood there. Not bad though for 1/13 s hand held at iso 2500.

 

[Jack Douglas]

Alan, sadly it's never clear cut. If I never used 300 2.8 or 420 4 it'd be a different story. OTOH I use 300 X2 a lot which suggests I need a 600! However, I very often am trying to pull my ISO down to 1250 in not the greatest light because I don't have the reach I really need, but I still want decent shutter speed. Then I think 7D2 for reach but I know the ISO capability is just not going to be that great compared to FF so ......

What's you feeling on the Tam bokeh?

Jack

 

[jrista]

Alan, sadly it's never clear cut. If I never used 300 2.8 or 420 4 it'd be a different story. OTOH I use 300 X2 a lot which suggests I need a 600! However, I very often am trying to pull my ISO down to 1250 in not the greatest light because I don't have the reach I really need, but I still want decent shutter speed. Then I think 7D2 for reach but I know the ISO capability is just not going to be that great compared to FF so ......

What's you feeling on the Tam bokeh?

Jack

Your 300+2x will allow you to use lower shutter speeds than the Tamron, which is f/6.3 at 600m. Your lens is f/5.6 at 600mm. That said...you use the aperture you need to use in order to get the depth of field you need. If you need to use f/8, you need to use f/8, regardless of the lens your using.

The smoothness of boke is ultimately determined by the size of the entrance pupil (the aperture as viewed through the front of the lens from a distance of "infinity" (in other words, a sufficient distance that light rays are collimated)). The Tamron, regardless of how well it's been designed, still won't compare to your 300mm f/2.8 107mm entrance pupil diameter. Entrance pupil size was one of the reasons I chose the EF 600/4 II...it's entrance pupil diameter is 150mm...which is why the boke from that lens is exquisitely creamy and smooth.

There are few other lenses on earth that can produce the kind of background boke that the 600mm f/4 L II does, and not that many more that can produce the kind of boke that the 300mm f/2.8 L does.

 

[mackguyver]

I did a little experiment with my 300 and extenders yesterday - nothing formal, just trying out different angles with a cooperative subject - all of them are uncropped and with different levels of polarization:

300+2x @f/8

300+1.4 @f/8 (from a closer distance - again this wasn't a test)

300 bare @f/11 for a bit more DOF (and from a lower angle)

Each image has its own merits, and depending on cropping needs and the story you're trying to tell one will be more suitable than the others. I'm happy to have the choice and while a zoom would be more convenient, you would lose f/2.8 and f/4, for low light and to blow out the background, which might have been needed in other light or if there were distracting elements in the background. This isn't a slight against the 150-600, just another comparison of sorts.

 

[CarlTN]

I would love a 300mm f/2.8, but to be honest, i would be slapping on a TC almost all the time, so having a native 600mm lens would be ideal. f/8 is a little slow for what i need (forests at dawn/dusk), but i guess this is where the ISO performance of the 5D III should come in.... hmmmmm.... I am extremely interested in this lens! I guess the 4000 Euro i would save on this lens could go to some awesome trips!

F/8 at dawn or dusk will be unusable for anything other than telephoto landscape photography of very still subjects, on a heavy tripod, with mirror lock...along with the longer shutter speed required. I shoot often at dusk, sometimes at dawn. If you're wanting a shutter speed faster than say 1/100 second, then you need radically more light than f/8, or even f/5.6. If you disagree, then perhaps you're referring to shooting more in the "golden hour" than that transition to the "blue hour". I'm talking about shooting in the half hour when the sun is below the horizon. My 6D autofocuses like a champ in this gloom with an f/5.6 lens, as does its noise floor. But I can't expect to shoot action, even with an f/2 lens...let alone f/8 (or specifically an f/6.3 lens that is closed to f/8, as in the case of the Tamron).

F/8 photography of wildlife, is good for bright daylight, and that's about it...unless the animal is asleep.

Huh? So just what faster-than-f/2 lens are you using with your 6D to successfully shoot wildlife action during the "blue hour?" Surely the slow EF 500 and 600 f/4 primes are out, and by this standard so is the EF 300 and 400 f/2.8. Which begs the question: what oh-so-busy critters in your neck of the woods allow you to crawl up beside them and snap away in the twilight with your 50mm f/1.4?

Was I talking to you? No...so don't say "huh?". Never claimed I was using a faster than f/2 telephoto, read it again.

I've actually shot wider angle images of deer and raccoons with my 50mm f/1.4 or 24mm f/1.8. Or if the deer are standing fairly still, I've shot ISO 25,600 at about 1/5 second at 400mm, f/5.6, on a monopod with IS. I've also shot deer running with my 135 f/2, panning the lens hand-held (it has no IS), with a very slow shutter speed and high ISO. Autofocus was one shot mode with center point (it hit once and then when the sequence was over, it would not hit when I tried again out of curiousity...it was quite dark post sunset). I will post a few of these at some point (I don't claim they're award winning images, either!)...but I'm too busy shooting and editing product images for items I'm selling right now. I only have 600+ images of the recent 10 inch snow we had here, to ponder...besides the rest from fall and early winter. I got a few halfway decent (but not mind-blowing) shots of deer in the snow with my 70-300L (it was late afternoon light, but lasted to just after sunset...the snow helps a lot there, with light). I got some bird images also, but the bird photogs on here usually slam my bird images.

 

[CarlTN]

I did a little experiment with my 300 and extenders yesterday - nothing formal, just trying out different angles with a cooperative subject - all of them are uncropped and with different levels of polarization:

300+2x @f/8

300+1.4 @f/8 (from a closer distance - again this wasn't a test)

300 bare @f/11 for a bit more DOF (and from a lower angle)

Each image has its own merits, and depending on cropping needs and the story you're trying to tell one will be more suitable than the others. I'm happy to have the choice and while a zoom would be more convenient, you would lose f/2.8 and f/4, for low light and to blow out the background, which might have been needed in other light or if there were distracting elements in the background. This isn't a slight against the 150-600, just another comparison of sorts.

I like the center image the best, at least regarding color and contrast. The interesting thing about circular polarizers, is it's not really "amount"...it's that it is controlling the amount of parallel light for that particular direction.

When I rented the 500mm f/4 series 1 back in 2011, and went to Florida, I also rented the polarizer insert. It worked well and was fun to adjust while shooting.

 

[AlanF]

Carl
I would feel safer shooting large alligators through a 600 than your 24mm.

 

[mackguyver]

Carl
I would feel safer shooting large alligators through a 600 than your 24mm.

Here's an 11-footer I shot with my 24-70 - at the 70mm end - I try to stay away from close-ups of things that could eat me:

 

[Don Haines]

Carl
I would feel safer shooting large alligators through a 600 than your 24mm.

Here's an 11-footer I shot with my 24-70 - at the 70mm end - I try to stay away from close-ups of things that could eat me:

One of the reasons I got the 150-600 was so that I could safely photograph dangerous animals...

Ally the kitten... 60D and 150-600 at 600mm, ISO2000 and cropped....

 

[CarlTN]

Carl
I would feel safer shooting large alligators through a 600 than your 24mm.

That's funny, because I was going to suggest to you that they are perfectly docile creatures, and encourage you to shoot some with a fisheye lens!

 

[CarlTN]

Carl
I would feel safer shooting large alligators through a 600 than your 24mm.

Here's an 11-footer I shot with my 24-70 - at the 70mm end - I try to stay away from close-ups of things that could eat me:

Fairly close, nice shot...it looks like it just ate and is heading to use the lake's facilities...

That's some vivid olive green color on its back, almost looks like somebody body painted it in camo!

Have you seen the Planet Earth episode where the huge African saltwater crocodile attacks the hind legs of a migrating...I think it's called "gnu"...looks like a skinny bull...? Shot with a high speed camera and played in slow motion, the scene lasts like 10 minutes but in normal speed, the scene lasted a few seconds.

It looked painful!

 

[AlanF]

Carl
I would feel safer shooting large alligators through a 600 than your 24mm.

That's funny, because I was going to suggest to you that they are perfectly docile creatures, and encourage you to shoot some with a fisheye lens!

I was assuming that they are as docile as you.

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

Carl
I would feel safer shooting large alligators through a 600 than your 24mm.

Here's an 11-footer I shot with my 24-70 - at the 70mm end - I try to stay away from close-ups of things that could eat me:

One of the reasons I got the 150-600 was so that I could safely photograph dangerous animals...
Ally the kitten... 60D and 150-600 at 600mm, ISO2000 and cropped....

Wow, that looks great to 600mm (cheap Tamron) ISO 2000 (terrible 18 megapixel), and cropped. Tamron actually has a really interesting lens to compete in super tele.

 

[mackguyver]

Fairly close, nice shot...it looks like it just ate and is heading to use the lake's facilities...

That's some vivid olive green color on its back, almost looks like somebody body painted it in camo!

Have you seen the Planet Earth episode where the huge African saltwater crocodile attacks the hind legs of a migrating...I think it's called "gnu"...looks like a skinny bull...? Shot with a high speed camera and played in slow motion, the scene lasts like 10 minutes but in normal speed, the scene lasted a few seconds.

It looked painful!

Yep, he had just crawled out of a nearby swamp and was in the grass beside the road when I came upon him. I turned my car around and jumped out as I saw him crossing the road. All I had was my 24-70, so I racked it out and got about 20 feet from him. He didn't pay me any attention at all, but the big guys are actually a bit safer because they're slow. The 5-6 footers are the ones to watch out for because they are really fast and big enough to remove limbs.

Also, I know the scene you're talking about and alligators are sweet and docile compared to those saltwater crocs. Those things are terrifying.

 

[Jack Douglas]

Just having my morning read at CR and wow CarlTN and others, thanks for creating some humor. Better than the funny paper.

Having spent money a year ago on the 300 II I have a slight uneasiness now but it's history and what I have is a great lens so I'm not sure why I keep reading about this great deal with the Tammy.

Anyway, it's prompted me to think about what I should be thankful for with my lens and two converters. Jrista, yes bokeh. One thing came to mind that I really love on the 300 is the smooth rotation from veritical to horizontal when on the gimbal, and the detente that tells you you've gone 90 degrees.

I also loosen that knob which allows the camera to swivel similarly when I'm shooting hand held. This works great with my preference for a very short strap that goes under my right arm (strap is snug as I fire).

Never the less, if I was buying today I probably would have looked at the 300 as just too expensive. Thankfully my wife wouldn't hear such talk - hard to believe isn't it!

Jack

 

[mackguyver]

Just having my morning read at CR and wow CarlTN and others, thanks for creating some humor. Better than the funny paper.

Having spent money a year ago on the 300 II I have a slight uneasiness now but it's history and what I have is a great lens so I'm not sure why I keep reading about this great deal with the Tammy.

Anyway, it's prompted me to think about what I should be thankful for with my lens and two converters. Jrista, yes bokeh. One thing came to mind that I really love on the 300 is the smooth rotation from veritical to horizontal when on the gimbal, and the detente that tells you you've gone 90 degrees.

I also loosen that knob which allows the camera to swivel similarly when I'm shooting hand held. This works great with my preference for a very short strap that goes under my right arm (strap is snug as I fire).

Never the less, if I was buying today I probably would have looked at the 300 as just too expensive. Thankfully my wife wouldn't hear such talk - hard to believe isn't it!

Jack

+1 on your whole post and every point you make! We must let go of all traces of potential buyer's remorse and stop reading these posts about the 150-600

 

[jrista]

Just having my morning read at CR and wow CarlTN and others, thanks for creating some humor. Better than the funny paper.

Having spent money a year ago on the 300 II I have a slight uneasiness now but it's history and what I have is a great lens so I'm not sure why I keep reading about this great deal with the Tammy.

Anyway, it's prompted me to think about what I should be thankful for with my lens and two converters. Jrista, yes bokeh. One thing came to mind that I really love on the 300 is the smooth rotation from veritical to horizontal when on the gimbal, and the detente that tells you you've gone 90 degrees.

I also loosen that knob which allows the camera to swivel similarly when I'm shooting hand held. This works great with my preference for a very short strap that goes under my right arm (strap is snug as I fire).

Never the less, if I was buying today I probably would have looked at the 300 as just too expensive. Thankfully my wife wouldn't hear such talk - hard to believe isn't it!

Jack

Don't let yourself be discouraged. There is no way the IQ of the Tamron will rival your 300/2.8 II, even with a 2x TC. You cannot underestimate the value of the large entrance pupil, the better barrel build, the vastly superior firmware chip, the full time manual USM focus ring with it's wide throw (excellent when you need to manually focus, such as with astrophotography...total godsend!!) You aren't just paying for "glass" when you buy a Canon supertele. Your paying for "the best" LENS. It's a whole package deal. It isn't just the optical quality. The AF USM drive and firmware are the best available for Canon. When coupled with a 5D III or 1D X, you get superior AF precision and accuracy (I'll find the LensRental blog that proves this.)

Also, you can't underestimate the value of that boke. It's one of the key things, I think given how many professional bird photos I've seen, that sets apart professional quality bird photography from all the rest. Boke is your subject isolator. When you take a photo of a bird, or for that matter of wildlife in general, your subject isn't the background...it's the bird, or the deer, or the coyote or wolf or bear. You don't want the background to intrude on your subject much...just the faintest idea of the general structure of what's there is the most you ever really want, and when it comes to birds, having the background completely blurred into a smooth creamy backdrop is usually the most desirable result.

Entrance pupil diameters <100mm generally don't quite cut it. The Tamron is just on the edge, but so far I've only seen a couple photos taken with it that truly show that kind of creamy background blur for birds (and then, only from very skilled photographers who have the talent to get appreciably close, and who also already own a 600mm prime of some kind.) The 72mm entrance pupil of your average 400mm entry-level birders lens (400mm f/5.6) is just not enough, and the same goes for the 75mm entrance pupil of 300mm f/4 lenses.

You have one of the best lenses for bird and wildlife photography that you can get on planet earth. The release of the Tamron doesn't change that, despite how good it is.

 

[Don Haines]

Just having my morning read at CR and wow CarlTN and others, thanks for creating some humor. Better than the funny paper.

Having spent money a year ago on the 300 II I have a slight uneasiness now but it's history and what I have is a great lens so I'm not sure why I keep reading about this great deal with the Tammy.

Anyway, it's prompted me to think about what I should be thankful for with my lens and two converters. Jrista, yes bokeh. One thing came to mind that I really love on the 300 is the smooth rotation from veritical to horizontal when on the gimbal, and the detente that tells you you've gone 90 degrees.

I also loosen that knob which allows the camera to swivel similarly when I'm shooting hand held. This works great with my preference for a very short strap that goes under my right arm (strap is snug as I fire).

Never the less, if I was buying today I probably would have looked at the 300 as just too expensive. Thankfully my wife wouldn't hear such talk - hard to believe isn't it!

Jack

As someone who has the Tamron 150-600 and is very impressed with it, let me say that if someone offered me a 300II for twice the price of the Tamron, I would jump on the deal! Nothing touches a series 2 big white prime.