Price. Won't wreck anyones budget. Light. Easy to carry with. Average picture quality for the price.

Only average quality.. Very fragile. Slow and noisy AF. Dark.

It feels as cheap as it is. Very light and fragile. Perhaps ideal, if you want to "travel lightly". Autofocus is very slow and sometimes inaccurate, especially in low light. Autofocus is also quite loud. Pictures are quite sharp, which was a bit of a surprise for a product this cheap. Unfortunately it has the tendency of adding chromatic aberration to the pictures.. Some might be able to live with that, but it really bugs me! Aperture minumum of 4.5 - 5.6 requires plenty of light, especially at the far end of the zoom. I hav not tested the lens for distortions, but for this price.. who cares :D If you want a really good telephoto lens, go for the Canon Canon EF 70–200 mm F 4 L USM. It ain't cheap, but there is no such thing as a cheap and good lens.

Similar Products Used:

Sigma's and Canon's similiar zooms.

Good quality photo taker at reasonable price. Light. Ideal for backpacking when combined w/a small wide angle. If you want light & inexpensive this is a good buy. I would use a tripod or a steady rest though because it is a slow lens.

Weak/light build quality-fragile if dropped, focus ring small and at front of lens, focus throw is too quick for manual focus in order to speed up its slow autofocus, searches a little, small f-stop opening makes for dim viewing even when shooting wide open when light levels are low. Should be fine in daylight conditions.

I actually got the Kodak badged version of this Tamron lens. I tested it against a new Sigma 180mm F3.5 APO and the Sigma won but not by as much as you'd think when the Kodak/Tamron was stopped down. The Sigma's pretty sharp wide open @F3.5 and this lens' aperture is at F5.6 wide open near 210mm. Stop it down 2 stops and it's good.

Customer Service

Not needed. I think B&H got a lot of these from Disneyland and marked them down for a quick sale. I guess I'd have to get the "Mouse" on the phone to get anything done if it ever did break down! Anyway it worked out well for me!

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 70-300mm APO, Nikkor 75-300mm F4.5-5.6 (makes a great macro w/6T and flash but I do not like it as a regular zoom lens), Tamron 70-210mm F3.8-4 (great build quality for the $-good quality glass that adapts w/different t-mounts).

cheap lightweight quite sharp

slow loud cheap dark

Cheap zoom. And because it's cheap it's fully plastic, motors are loud and AF is slow. Poor at 210mm and 80mm but in the middle when apreture is set at 8.0 or more its sharp.

Sharpness Value

Build quality Slow (but what do you expect for less than $100)

I am very pleased with the performance for the money of this lens. I have shot aerial photos, portraits and action photos of my horses with sharp results. The build seems a little weak but I'm not planning on using it to hammer in tent stakes. For the money, this lens is better than I expected.

Customer Service

Not needed

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 28-80 Tamron 200-400 Nikon 28-80

Light Cheap Sharp photos

none that I have encountered

I recently bought my first SLR and this is the first extra lens I bought. I paid $99 and got a $15 rebate bringing total cost to $85! The lens has performed great for me. I used it over the holidays to do some sports photography at a soccer tournament. The vast majority of the photos came out very clear and sharp. Some shots were bad, but I don''t know that I would blame that on the lens... I think the autofocus had a little trouble choosing what to focus on sometimes. Depth of field is pretty much exactly what I wanted with the action in clear focus and the background blurred. I am very pleased with this lens, but find that I need a little more "reach" so I will probably spring soon for a zoom that goes to 300mm. For the money I paid this lens is a real bargain.

Similar Products Used:

None

Sharp focus, easy read scale, Hood.

feels like it could be very easily broken just by a small bump

I purchased this lens after buying my Nikon N6006. The lens is a beutiful light weight lens that does an excellent job for the reasonable price I thought.

Customer Service

None required yet.

Similar Products Used:

Tamron 28-200mm for Cannon, Promaster 28-200mm for Pentax

Provides sharp images; light and compact; good price.

The pieces that hold the lens to the camera's body are made of plastic. Yes, plastic, and of bad quality. My lenses broke during the very fist week of tests (and, believe me, I know how to change my camera's lenses), so bad they were! I barely could believe that. You save your money to buy what you hope to be a good equipment, and there you go: destroyed in the first rolls of film. Shame on Tamron!

Image quality is good, anyways. If you will never want to take the lens out of your camera, buy this one. The Tamron 28-80 /3.5 also has the same problem. Tamron says these are only plastic ones they make, if it helps.

So, if its not the case, consider buying something stronger, even if it costs a little bit more. You won't want to wait for 3 weeks to have your lenses back and spending time and money in long-distance calls. And make sure the store you buy them from tells you whether their lenses are so fragile or not and if they will have them back in case they accidentally break, or if they won't.

I would NOT buy these same lenses again!

Customer Service

I called the store from where I bought it [Broadway Photo (NY)] back and related what had happened. They told me to contact Tamron Customer Service, which, by its turn, adviced me to return the broken piece to the store. It was very confusing. After taking a look at the lenses, they said it was my fault and charged me extra 40 dollars. Besides that, it takes almost 3 weeks to get it done!

Similar Products Used:

none

sharp pictures at both extremes, inexpensive, came with hood

none found yet

I bought this at the same time I bought my N60 to compliment the Nikkor 35-80 and have been very happy with it through +/- 15 rolls shooting mostly nature. This would be a good lens for a beginner with a budget.

Customer Service

not needed

Similar Products Used:

none near this range

Good sharpness throughout zoom range. Stable lens and light weight. Being compact is a great advantage.

Not a rugged lens. Requires very careful handling.

A very good lens if you are on a budget.

Customer Service

None required so far.

Similar Products Used:

Vivitar 80-210 MF, Olympus Prime 200mm, Tokina 80-210 for Nikon Gold.

light weight, crisp images and included hood was nice touch.

plastic bonnet makes you treat it a little more carefully. Sometimes my mirror locks up when using this lens and it's only this lens. I have to push the shutter release on my Canon A2 a second time to be able to see through the viewfinder again - has anyone else experienced this problem?

Overall I have been pleased with the pictures I have taken with this lens (other than when my mirror locks up). All in all a good lens for someone on a budget.

Customer Service

Haven't needed it yet.

Similar Products Used:

none