Tamron AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD IF Macro Lens with Built in Motor for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras (Model A001NII)

After much searching for a budget alternative to the Nikon 70-200 F2.8 I settled on the Tamron version. Honestly this lens is worth the money, forget all the bad reports. Yes some people may get bad versions of this lens however honestly by far most versions are good extremely good. I am from the Caribbean and a "new photographer" if I could say that and for some of us we cannot afford a $2300 US lens that's $14000+ Trinidad dollars. I probably will get the nikon version later on when I am more established but honestly there is not much about this lens to be unhappy with. Let's list the good things about this lens- (i) Sharp, real sharp - I thought my 50 mm 1.8 was sharp boy was I wrong, this lens nails it almost every time on the auto focus at 100% crop there is no softness. (ii) Color reproduction is fantastic. (iii) Low light focusing is slow but honestly many good lenses hunt in really low light, I found that half way pressing the shutter releasing and pressing again solves that problem real fast. (iv) Bokeh is how to say....um just Bokehlicious (v) Really and truly the focus motor is not that loud as some people make it out to be it is well within acceptable levels your camera shutter will make more noise. (vi) Image distortion is minimal, if any at all (viii) ability to work on FX and DX bodies. Ok the bad - (i) Not for sports or action, auto focus motor a touch too slow for that. (ii) No VR. In my case I am lucky that I have real steady hands so a real slow shutter speed is not a problem for me (iii) The push/pull clutch system for some people it is a bit auk ward but after a while you get use to it and it does not bother you. So all round a great lens, you can't have everything you want, and if you do, then buy a Nikon lens but I can assure you this lens is honestly the best bang for the buck.

I've been wanting this lens for a long while and I finally saved up enough money to get it with. I've got to say right off hand, you can't beat it for the price. I have had this lens for a few days and right out of the box, I noticed the weight. It's not extremely heavy but just heavy enough to show it's a quality lens. It doesn't feel like if you drop it that you're going to break it. It's made from a super thick feeling plastic with rubber grips on the zoom ring and focus ring. The tripod colar is made out of metal, I'm assuming. It's a quality tripod colar and feels very well built. Completely able to hold up the lens and camera with no problem. Now to address the problem that everyone has with this lens, the focus speed. I was worried about this as well when I ordered it, but it's not been a problem. I've seen videos showing this lens and it's focus speed and they always having it trying to find focus with the lens cap on. It just as fast as the Sigma 70-200mm 2.8 at finding it's focus point and is very accurate at finding it. I don't know why people have problems with it unless you're shooting high movement sports such as football or something like that. I'm shooting a Nikon D90 and it not slow with the AF at all. Tamron has classified it as a macro lens, but it's really a telephoto lens. It will not do macro so do not get it if you're looking for a macro lens. As for optics, it's very sharp. I shot my girlfriend with it and it's sharp even wide open. I stopped it down and it becomes extremely sharp. It has a great contrast, not any chromatic aberration from what I can tell or very little of it. It just has all around fantastic optics. As for the look of this lens alone, with the lens hood attached, it looks like a professional lens. It looks like a lens that a paparazzi would carry around with them to shoot the movie stars. In a nutshell, if you're looking for a lens that has great optics, has a nice professional weight to it, looks like a professional lens, and won't break the bank, I would suggest getting the Tamron 70-200mm F2.8 lens. I bought this and a Zeikos 77mm filter and it came out to around $710. You just cannot beat that when the Canon and Nikon versions of this lens are both around $2,200. If you're on a budget, this would be the lens you would want to get.

I've been using this lens for more than a year and thought I would take a moment to add some comments here for those considering purchasing it. I would first say that considering the price, this is an excellent deal and would allow many photographers to get into an F/2.8 lens that normally would be priced out of the market. With that said, I would add some qualifications to what the lens is used for, because there are limitations on what it will do. If you read through the comments and reviews, you'll see a pattern emerge. Many people have commented on the fact that the focus is either "slow" or "misfocuses" often. After using this lens a great deal, I can answer this without any qualification: the lens is not particularly slow in focus, but it tends to focus and re-focus a great deal on fast moving subjects. So the people that say that this lens is "laser fast" to focus are in a sense correct. The lens focus happens very quickly and this is great if you have a stationary subject. However, when the subjects are in motion (such as children playing, talking, or moving their heads quickly) the lens will constantly be picking different focus points. The result is that some images will be in very sharp focus and others will be just slightly off. Part of this is due to the fact that when buying an F/2.8 lens you may want to shoot at F/2.8 and this will mean a very small depth of field. This is often true because people understandably want to "blur" the background. But to help understand this a little, the depth of field at 70MM at F/2.8 with a subject 12 feet away from you would be about 1.5 feet. At 200MM (fully zoomed in) the depth of field would only be about two inches. That means that the sharp crisp focus zone is only two inches zoomed in to 200MM (or 1 1/2 feet at the widest setting). So if you were shooting kids playing with the lens at F/2.8 and the lens acquires one of the subject's noses in one image and then one of their sets of hands in another, one image might have their faces in sharp focus, and the other only their hands in sharp focus. Or what more often happens is that in one image one of the people's faces are in sharp focus, but not the other. On the other end of the spectrum, if you were shooting at F/22, you would have a depth of field of 15.8 feet at 70MM and 1.5 feet at 200MM (still at 12 feet, which is a number I picked at random to make the calculation). This means you have a deeper focus area and less chance of missing shots when the lens is acquiring the focus point. I've played around a lot with this lens and what I tend to use it for now are portraits of stationary subjects. If I am shooting subjects that are in motion, I will make sure that I'm not shooting at F/2.8 or anything close to give myself a much deeper depth of field (or sharp focus area) so that the camera is likely to get the whole target in focus. I shoot a lot of sports events and will not use this lens for those jobs as I like to have a narrower depth of field, but the likelihood of missed shots is simply too high. I've attached a couple of shots taken with this lens as examples of what it can do. I added one image of myself shot at F/2.8 and obviously I wasn't in motion, but you can see how sharp it is. The image of the sheep was taken more in the middle of the aperture range to ensure that I would catch them in focus (and as you can see, it works just fine.) Note that the sheep image has been edited to enhance their fur, but if you look closely you'll see blades of grass in the air that have been kicked up by their feet that are quite sharp.

I think I looked at this lens along with the Nikkor for my Nikon D5100 for about two months before finally making the purchase. I was hesitant due to seeing in reviews that this lens was sometimes slower to focus, taking up to 5 seconds at times. And, I wanted to make sure I was going to be getting sharp images. But, after weighing out where I am in my business at this time, and where I want to be in two years, it seemed only logically to go with the Tamron due to the price. So, I did. When I received it, I almost returned it due to it would not autofocus. But, then I felt like a fool because I was looking for a switch to change it to auto focus and it has not switch, but you pull the front of the lens down. I had a chocolate blond moment. So once I got it to auto focus, it was on! I love this lens. It's not been slow to focus for me at all. And the sound is not a big deal to me at all....as a matter of fact, I haven't even really paid any attention to the sound. So, it must not be that loud really. It can be a little soft sometimes on images, but for the most part I've had sharp images. I would recommend this to anyone. It is a bit heavy but that's ok. It's a big lens. The price is awesome for this piece of glass. Much better than the $2000 plus for the NIkkor.......although I'm sure it's a superb lens. One day I will probably get the NIkkor, but for now it was more sense to get the Tamron, which I am very pleased with.

(UPDATE, June 2016) It broke, out of the blue. I did not drop it or anything. Tamron said it would be a $300 repair. I threw it away. It was a poor lens anyway, just too slow, so slow! to focus. (Original review) I agree with many of the other reviews, this is a good value but the focus is slow to grab a target. One work around is to focus manual if the lens starts to focus-hunt. You can switch to manual focus instantly by pulling back on the large focus ring. This takes practice. I shoot mainly sports, I find myself manualy focusing with this lens on any football long pass play or anytime I want to pull an individual subject out of a crowd of players. The focus is the only issue here, the lens seems robust, it is lighter than the Nikon 80-200 2.8 which I also own, and the images seem a little sharper. I had to get the Tamron beause my Nikon 2.8 80-200 wont take the new Nikon cameras (i.e.D3100) which require motorized lenses. The autofocus on this lens does not seem to shorten battery life to any significant degree. Please note: I havent used this lens in cold weather yet, when I do I will update this review if there are issues.

I got this lens to use with my Nikon D40X. When I tried one on my camera in the store, it seemed to focus noticeably slower than my Nikon lens. But it did focus and was much cheaper than a Nikon f2.8 lens. So I ordered it. I did not notice any difference in its focus speed when I got the lens and used it at the football game (from the sidelines). I no longer had to use a flash and it autofocused beautifully. Subsequently, I bought a Nikon D7000. Now I am in heaven. My pictures are clear and there is no need to brighten them. I can crank up the ISO and get the cheerleaders (in a darker area) without a flash. I got the band at halftime from atop the press box. I also used this in the gym to get very clear sharp pictures of the volleyball match (again without flash). This lens works fantastic with both my D40X and my new D7000. It focuses quickly and the pictures are great. If you are looking for good lens that is far less expensive than the Nikon lens and still is a quality lens, this is it.

I waited a few months before writing this review. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to test and evaluate my new Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 zoom lens. I wanted to compare it against the newest Sigma 70-200mm zoom, which is 2x the costs. I ordered the Sigma, tested it for about 3 days, and returned to Amazon after sub-par results for the money. I basically saw no benefit or difference when using the optical stabilization, which is what you are paying for on the Sigma lens. I sent the Sigma back and ordered the Tamron. What I found was amazing. Yes, the Tamron lens is HUGE, and about 2x the bulk of the Sigma. It is a fair trade-off for the difference in picture quality and the lower costs. I found the Tamron shots much sharper, and superior to the Sigma. I also found the bokeh to be superior on the Tamron shots. I realized that I could take low light shots with the Tamron just as effectively without OS. With the larger glass and f2.8, I found OS to be unnecessary. I don't miss it at all, and I am very glad I saved $700 and went with the Tamron. If you are looking for a low f-stop zoom to complement your lens collection, I highly recommend the Tamron for it's costs-to-value ratio.

I purchase this lens, because I couldn't afford the Nikon version, or for that matter, the Sigma version, either. I knew, going in, it would not perform as well as its, high priced alternatives. I was very disappointing at first. I have owned both the Nikon and Sigma versions of this lens, in the past, and it took me a couple of days of shooting before I understood, there are some major differences when shooting with the Tamron. First, in AF mode, it is much slower to focus and in low light, it has a tendency to search for awhile, before it finds its focus. I tend to use manual focus a lot, so that is not a huge problem. If you like to shoot with the lens wide open, you will find it is very soft. If you stop it down one or two stops, it seems to do quite well. On modern digital bodies, that's not much of a sacrifice, since most have very good low light performance and increasing the ISO a bit, has little impact on image quality. I've heard people say they don't like the push, pull AF/Manual switch. I think it's great, as you don't have to move your hand from the barrel of the lens, to switch. The lens feels very solid, if not a bit heavy. Both the zoom and focus rings operate smoothly. The internal focus motor, is a bit noisy, and that could present a problem when shooting wildlife. If you can afford to buy one of the other more expensive alternatives, I would recommend doing so. But, if you need a lens that is a major upgrade from the, kit lenses, and can't afford those others, this may just be the ticket. Pro: Upgrade from kit lenses, good overall build quality, low priced Con: Slow Auto focusing, soft when wide open,