Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 mini review - Nikon mount

[MarkChap]

The common factor I've noticed with this lenses some times focusing issues is that the subject or focus point has to fill the AF sensor nicely! If not you can have focusing issues.. I think that may have happened yesterday with the Live View issue.

I'd curious to hear if Mark(Chap) has any Live View focusing issues(on his Canon)

generally(that means approx 99.9% ) this lens is still surprising me with it's all round quality

Now that you mention filling the AF sensor with the subject, the shots that I missed would have been the ones where the canoes were a long way off and they only sit inches high in the water any way so the subject would not have been filling the AF sensor

Arthur, I very rarely use live view for anything, maybe some macro stuff, to confirm framing etc, the screen on the 40D isn't exactly the best. Don't even know how to get AF to work with live view

[kiwi]

With all due respect, tracking a fast moving and predicable object like a boat or canoe that is a long way away is very different (and no real test of AF) than say a running two-year old in the back yard or a rugby player etc

[MarkChap]

Ummmm, fast moving an outrigger canoe is not,
predictable, fairly predictable, if you can judge when the waves will lift the boat, slow the boat, push the boat side ways, speed the boat up and even seem to swallow the boat at times.
If you focus on the paddler then there is the added predictability of the paddler moving backwards and forwards with each stroke as well, then there is the predictable arms and paddle swinging across the body.

But yes all in all probably a little easier to track than than a child running around the back yard. And of course the unpredictability of a 100 kg forward taking a hit up.

With all due respect of course

[kiwi]

hehe, point taken. I thought you were simply tracking a hull at a mile away based on the shots posted.

I am genuinely wanting the AF to be really good.

[arthurking83]

.....

I am genuinely wanting the AF to be really good.

Well then the Tammy will disappoint!

I wouldn't call it really good, but it's not as bad as the test reports make it out to be.
Of course it does have it's various issues, and loud is certainly not one of them, slow is not an issue(but only because it seems to be as speedy as any other lens I've played with.. not that it's fast.
Sometimes sleepy!!... that is as previously mentioned, there is an occasional tendency to not start working
Have no idea on why that happens, as it's not really any particular scene/subject related matter. Just every so often, where you couldn't even put a number on it, it doesn't start focusing when you activate the AF system.
I'd place that oddity in the possible miscommunication basket where maybe there's an issue with the contacts?
I remember a time back when the 70-200VR had troubles on certain Nikon bodies and Nikon issued a firmware update for the body.
Sorry can't remember specifics.. but possibly DBS on D200??
Also I recently read that Canon's 40D has an updated firmware for issues with the Canon 85/1.2..
That seems to be more like what the issues may be with this lens, and I think most certainly fixable by Tamron once they've collected enough data to work out what the lenses electronics may need.

Even though I hardly ever use Lv and autofocus, this is definitely a problem that shouldn't exist.
I tried again last night briefly, and it just doesn't want to acquire focus lock in Lv mode using tripod mode, which is using phase detect autofocusing.

So this probably points to certain areas of inadequacy with it's AF ability, but for 99% of most uses, there is no real AF issue with this lens, as has been magnified by the internet.

[kiwi]

OK, but the biggest thing in sports use is not so much acquiring focus, but keeping locked in and tracking a fast moving erratic object in continuous focus mode

[arthurking83]

Yep, that;s what I would have thought.
I think the Tammy would be up to the task.. it seems fast enough.

I was shooting my son on the trampoline a while ago and it kept up pretty well, but of course that's bouncing up and down and in and out, so my (in)ability (and proneness to motion sickness! ) may have been a limiting factor.
I then tracked my daughter on the swing, whilst standing in front of her less than a meter away, and it kept up OK, as she was behind the central line of the swing, but as she approached closer it lost focus(as I'd have expected considering the Nikon 80-200 did the same thing.
Trampoline session was at about 100mm swing was at 70mm(80-200 as I remember it was at 80mm )

I'll try to take some more test shots of the kids on their bikes one day (if they ever get back on them again??) but I suspect that the Tammy will once again perform as well as the 80-200 Nikon there too.

I'd like to say that the Live View mode is a bit of a disappointment, but I never use Lv in that manner only the other day in recent memory, where I couldn't seem to manually find the focus distance I wanted, so I tried autofocus to see if that would do the trick.
I manually focused at what I thought was sharp, but on review it seemed blurry, so I retook the shot using AF in Lv mode, and that's where I noticed that the lens hunts wildly.
It does actually almost gain a good AF lock, it slowly zips towards sharp focus, it seems to get to the sharpest point, but then for some reason it then focuses beyond that point and from what I'm noticing now forward of the correct point.
And to be sure, the lens does not have any back/front focusing issues either.

ps. One thing I deduced from the other days Lv focusing issue.. I really need a better super sturdier tripod/head!

I'll post up some pics in the coming days.

[chylld]

there is no real AF issue with this lens, as has been magnified by the internet.

well i decided to actually go to the shop and try both the tammy 70-200 and the sigma 70-200 on a d90 body. very simple test, salesman walking towards the camera with the camera on burst + af-c. the tammy never scored a good shot after the start, and once even racked all the way in and out. the sigma fared much better, consistently locked AF and got the shot, a few soft ones but most of them were sharp.

if your subjects are stationary or not moving much, the tammy would be an excellent choice; but for anything that's moving significantly in terms of depth, you'd do well to look elsewhere. as i'm after an action/birding lens, the tammy doesn't cut it at all.

[MarkChap]

Well I have done the test and The Tammy works just fine on Live View on my 40D.
Let me tell you I was just a little concerned when I read Arthur's post, started wondering about warranty returns, and arguments with Maxwells etc, but now my mind is once again at ease.

I think I will now stop trying to justify my purchase to the nay sayers and just dig in and start getting some shots worthy of the lens.
Blokarts (Land Yachts) on the beach at Yeppoon this weekend

[arthurking83]

(in between playing Mr Mom, Wii and Laptop Doctor, I'm going to attempt to update this review)

First up, of the three common lenses of this type, the Tammy is definitely the slowest to focus... measured in microseconds.
I still think that too much emphasis has been placed on the slower focus performance of this lens versus the other two(for Nikon), but it has to be noted that my photography style is probably different to others, and their needs.

Whilst in Marlo the other day, we had a chance to compare the Tammy against the Nikon and Sigma.
Sigma is definitely faster than the Tammy, and the Nikon is more so once again, by a fair margin to both.. so, where it may have taken the Tamron 1/2 a sec to get a focus lock, it took the Nikon 1/4s or so..most certainly faster, but not really an issue for the enthusiastic amateur that wants to get a shot, without the pressure by some higher power to do so, or to lose their job!

Tamrons became obvious(versus the Nikon) was when changing subject under focus. if that subject was a great distance from the last focused distance.
So with the Tammy, if you had a focus lock at a far distance, and then reframed to a subject at a much closer distance, it would hesitate or not even attempt to refocus, and on subsequent testing after I got home, would be dependent on subject matter once again.
Whilst playing with the Nikon for maybe 15moins or so.. maybe more... it always refocused with ever reframing attempt.. so in that respect the Tamron loses quite a lot of 'points'.
As for raw speed, the Nikon definitely trounces it, and the Sigma is faster, but I wouldn't rate the Tamron as slow.. simply not as fast as the other two.. beaten by almost immeasurable time differences, unless an Ion Trap timing device is part of your arsenal of testing equipment

As for tracking a subject, we didn't have any subject matter to work with, but I suspect that the Nikon would definitely do better and the Sigma and Tamron would be just behind in that order.
It was the Tamrons inability to re acquire focus after the subject was 'lost' and a new subject at a far greater distance was focused on, that kind of disappointed a little.

Put this way!
if you wanted a 70-200/2.8 the Tammy woudl not disappoint if you didn't have any comparable lens to judge by. It will still allow great opportunity to capture images that a slower telezoom would not, the difference of not having optical stabilization(VR in Nikon speak) was forgotten by me as I haven't played with a 70-200VR for years.. and that allows more opportunities for getting the shot more so than any focus issues.
I'm afraid that I'm getting terribly shaky now, and the variable nature of that unsteadiness is what's annoying(me). I can sometimes get a shaper shot at 1/60s @ 200m and at other times I can't seem to get one at 1/2000s!

Upgrading to a Nikon 70-200VR is certainly on the cards one day into the future.. although with the quality of the Tammy there's definitely no rush to do so.. the VR all I need

[Seesee]

Ummmm...I'm not so sure I'd put the blame for this entirely on the lens in use, my D300 has similar focus issues on all my lenses, no one in particular is worse than others, sometimes it's most frustrating. I am finding this to be the case mostly with my Tokina 300 f2.8, but that may also be because I am using that lens more than any of my others.

Hey Arthur, so you've bought a Tammy 70-200 ?...what happened to your Nikon 80-200 ?

[arthurking83]

Ummmm...I'm not so sure I'd put the blame for this entirely on the lens in use, my D300 has similar focus issues on all my lenses, no one in particular is worse than others, sometimes it's most frustrating. I am finding this to be the case mostly with my Tokina 300 f2.8, but that may also be because I am using that lens more than any of my others.

Hey Arthur, so you've bought a Tammy 70-200 ?...what happened to your Nikon 80-200 ?

Sold it

I wasn't using it, and I went in to get that Tammy 18-270 I promised myself.. err.. my son!
had a few quick shots with the 70-200 and was convinced!... without even asking to see the Nikon 70-300VR!

For my immediate purposes the Nikon would have been ideal, for my sons purposes the Tammy 18-270VC was close to perfect!...so what did I do?

LOL!

The focus issues seem to be slightly magnified with this lens, there's no doubt about that, and all lenses suffer some degree of hesitation sometimes, and the Nikon 105VR is my other worse lens for that, but you don't hear too many complaints about that lens(not as much as the very loud noises you hear about the Tammy anyhow)

I just tried the test again, indoors lights off and it's quite dim here at themoment due to cloudy conditions, and it sometimes it hesitates to focus at a different distance and other times it doesn't! A quick press of the AF button always gets the ball rolling again and it could also be a delay function I set on the D300.
Did you know about the delay function for AF on the D300?
Custom Setting Menu item a4 Focus Tracking with Lock On can be set to long, medium or short delay or OFF.
I had it on medium, and now I'm going to try OFF.
Problem with OFF or short, is that if you are skittish, or if there's a wind blowing and you subject is occasionally obscured by a closer distracting element(eg. a bird on a branch with a twig in front, where the wind is swaying the twig in and out of the line of sight). The longer delay will not let the camera change focus at every whim. Sometimes it's good, other times it's bad.. I just wished that computerised hocus-pocus in the camera was just smarter.

[MarkChap]

I have not had a single issue with the lens not wanting to "start" when focusing.