We hit the streets of New York City to do a full hands-on review of the new incredible Tamron 35-150mm Lens.
So we are here in NYC and it’s awfully noisy, but we are going to talk about the Tamron 35-150mm lens. This is an f/2.8-4 Di VC OSD Lens and I think it’s an incredible walk around lens. If you want a lens that you can just take and walk around with this, this is an excellent lens. It doesn’t weigh any more than the 24-70 from Tamron, so let’s get out there, test this lens and see what we’ve got.
These first 2 images really show us the difference between that 35mm to 150mm. This first show is a 35mm of the flatiron building. You can see the entire building from top to bottom, getting street and sky, very much a vista of the building, but if you zoom all the way to 150mm you just get the top 8 floors of the building.
Image Stabilization Test
With regards to shooting with these, it does have image stabilization and autofocus. I was shooting and here’s an example, this image was shot at 1/30 sec at 150mm and it’s pretty darn sharp.
I even got closer, which means your depth of field falls off a little faster and I’m not at 1/15sec and this image isn’t incredible sharp, but it’s still pretty dang close. So the image stabilization is wonderful in this lens.
Edge Image Quality Test
Let’s take a look at the image quality from edge to edge. This is something that is really important. Is it going to be sharp from edge to edge?
I’m shooting this wide open.
150mm 1/1600 sec f4.0 200 ISO
The clock is very sharp, and looking at the corners, they’re drifting maybe a tiny bit.
105mm 1/1600 sec f4.0 200 ISO
I feel like this is very sharp at 105mm.
85mm 1/200 sec f.3.5 200 ISO
So if I go to 85mm now it looks pretty good in each of the corners.
50mm 1/1250 sec f3.2 200 ISO
If there’s some falloff, it is very slight.
35mm 1/3200 sec f2.8 200 ISO
I feel like we are losing some in the upper right corner, but this building is also pushing away from us, so the upper corners are starting to fall out a little bit.
Bokeh Test
I love to take a look at the bokeh by looking at single lights behind my subject matter. You get beautiful bokeh from the lights in a scene, but here I’ve set up in the garage.
150mm 1/25 sec f4.0 1600 ISO
I have a 150mm lens on and the first thing is notice is that her eyelashes are SHARP! And in the background we see the bokeh, it’s a 9 blade lens. That 9 blade lens is giving us a very round, very full bokeh that has kinda round centric circles inside.
105mm 1/125 sec f4.0 1600 ISO
When we go to 105mm it focuses a little more because we are moving in closer.
50mm 1/125sec f2.8 1600 ISO
At 50mm it is interesting because the circles start to stack more.
Image Breakdown
Now I’m going to just blast through some images that we took with this thing and just talk about them as we go.
Looking up into the corner of this image, there is no vignette and it’s typically really easy to see in the sky.
Same with his image here, I’m not seeing the vignetting in the sky.
These images are really sharp! This is one of the reasons I shoot on Tamron lenses, because up against major manufacturers the Tamron lenses end up bring sharper. This is one of those cases where this lens really does what it’s supposed to do.
One of the reasons I love this image is it shows just how creamy the background is. It’s just beautiful how it falls out of focus. It’s just so wonderful back there.
That really is why you shoot a longer lens with people like this.
It’s really sharp on that subway sign. We get a light gradation, which was the lighting that day, there was a lot of overcast.
So there’s some of the images. I mean, it feels like a lens I could feel very comfortable shooting a commercial project with because in still photography, it’s sharp, it’s clean, I’m not feeling a lot of vignetting in the corners and this is through everything from 35 to 150mm.
CONCLUSION
So there are a couple of things we should talk about before we wrap this up.
It’s a $799 dollar lens, now vs a 24-70 and 70-200, this is a compromise on both ends, but if I only have $800 this becomes a great place to be in the middle there. It’s going to fall very much in that category of a lens that has been used a lot for video, and that is the Canon EF 24-105mm. It’s going to fall in that category but is a little faster on the wider end which really helps you with that 2.8 as well.
It’s got low dispersion glass, which is going to minimize the chromatic aberration give you less color fringing, and more clarity. Those are the things you get with that low dispersion glass and that’s in a lot of the Tamron lenses.
It’s got the OSD motor, which is the optimum silent drive motor. When you’re shooting you can hear the motor a bit, but doing still photography it’s not a big deal and you just hear a slight hum from it. If you’re doing video, you’re not going to using the zoom. I pick a focal length and then set it and shoot, and if it’s just finding the focus in that range, it’s not going to make a lot of sound.
I did not expect to be as impressed with this lens as I have been. Super impressed with how sharp it is, how compact it is, the ability to travel with it, that fact that it’s an all-around perfect 1 lens to take around with me. The best walk-around lens!
Thanks so much for reading and watching.
Keep those cameras rolling, and keep on clickin!
GEAR USED:
Tamron 35-150mm Lens
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2K7GEYh
Canon EOS R
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2SS7fLr