Well built & sharp.

A bit slow. f/3.5-5.6 But making it faster, would make it considerably more expensive.

I hesitated for some time, before pulling the trigger on this purchase. My mistake. I promptly burned two rolls of fine grained film with it, and the results are VERY good. Upon glassing the negs, (10x loupe on light table) I found the negs to be very sharp and defined. Great color & contrast. I used it on the F100 body, and had no issues with focusing. Quite fast. It's not too heavy or awkward. It very well, will probably become my "go to" auto-focus lens.

Quiet Light Photography

Customer Service

Not needed.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 28-105

LOTS...

-sharpness
-natural color replication
-near perfect zoom range ( Tamrons 24 compared to the Canons 28 full wide )
-excellent build quality
-cost/value
-comes with a good lens hood

Some...

-Slightly slow auto focus (I got all the time in the world)
-its a little heavy, a bit unbalanced on my Canon 350XT
-zoom ring is smooth but a little firm

I bought this lens off ebay new (overstock). I was looking for a lens that could cover most ranges efficiently while keeping good quality through-out the zoom range. A perfect walk-around lens (without breaking the bank)

Yes i know we all want L lens quality for cheap. But truely i believe after numerous reviews, tests, my own tests, that this lens can compare very well to the Canon EF-S 28-135 USM. Your probably thinking ya right... Sorry to let you down. It does. Take out the IS from the Canon, and do a side-by-side test and you'll definately see that they both are very near to each other. If 10 tests were done they would both be close to each other. The Canon barely beating the Tamron lens in one and vice versa in another, and so on. It was back and forth between the two.

I have to give the Canon the edge due to its IS and USM features. But its cost... Thats the biggest negitive with it. The Tamron fell behind due to that and that alone. In another aspect, The tamron has an edge of its own. What is it you may ask... COST! Actualy, i rather call it value for your dollar. New, The Tamron lens is a whopping 1/2 price compared to the Canon 28-135 IS USM... D***, 2 lenses for the price of one... With around 5-7% loss in quality compared to the Canon, better full wide range, on top of the fact its half the price of the Canon, very respectable build quality, and so on.

My only true example of what quality this lens puts out, would safely be "almost" identical to the Canon EF50mm F1.8 II prime. Sharpness was within 5% in most cases, saturation was exact also. Obviously the Tamron wont perform in low light like the EF50mm but were talking "n most normal situations for "amature/novice/casual" photographers. Although, this lens will satisfy a broader range than just that.

What can i say, I was always told to skip Tamron, and go for Sigma when it comes to 3rd party lenses. I honestly regret believing that as this lens proved me wrong. Its no L lens, and you shouldn't ever expect quality of that nature in a lower budget market range. Comparing any consumer lens to a L lens is ignorance and a waste of time. I see that all the time with reviews and laugh. People compare try to compare the Canon EF-S 18-55 (kit lens) to a Canon 17-40L.

Just get your camera, load yourself up in your car and drive to your local photography store. Try lenses out and go home and look for yourself. Dony just go by reivews, 75% of them are totaly biased to the reviewers preference, not yours. Dont take my word for it. But try this Tamron 24-135 for yourself, this lens is my new walk-around lens in general, and will be till it fails, breaks, or me keel over lol. Very good bang for the buck !!!

There are no 1/2 ratings so i gave it a 5, in the real world considering everything... I'd rate it overall a 4.5/5...

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A variety of lenses... Not many L lenses though.

An outstanding professional quality lens on all counts and a great value as well.

Autofocus precision and accuracy may be an issue with Pentax AF cameras, but I can not confirm it at this time.

I've tested the 50th Anniversary edition of this lens in Pentax mount on Pentax K10D against Pentax-K 24mm f2.8, Pentax-M 28mm f2.8, Pentax-M 135mm f3.5, and recently Pentax DA 16-45mm in the range of 24-45mm. Strictly manual focus was used during resolution testing to eliminate any AF errors. Side-by-side image comparisons were performed on screen at magnifications of up to 200%. Autofocus was tested in a separate testing session (read on).
The lens I have is EXTREMELY sharp. It resolves significanly better than Pentax-K 24mm f2.8 prime at all apertures,while equalling 28mm and 135mm primes in performance. It equals 16-45 DA in performance from f8 on, while beating it hands down at all apertures wider than f8. Its contrast and color saturation are marginally lower than Pentax lenses. Flare is very well controlled, on the par with Pentax DA 16-45mm lens.
Depth-of-field issue: Due to design specifics this lens has a significantly shallower depth of field than the primes and many other zoom lenses, especially at focal lengths beyound 80mm. Tamron published a depth-of-field chart for this lens on their site - I recommend downloading and reviewing it, so that one would not have any unrealisting expectations in this regard.
Autofocus: I've encountered a significant number of autofocus errors with this lens on Pentax AF cameras, although I am not sure whether it is caused by this lens or by Pentax AF system. In either case, I recommend manual focusing for critical applications. Although Tamron 24-135mm lens lacks the Pentax DA lenses on-the -fly focus compensation, its focus does not drift as you zoom, therefore focusing at 135mm and then zooming back to desired setting works great and AF errors are thus essentially eliminated. However, I prefer to focus it manually most of the times.
Since these tests the lens travelled around the world with me. It performed equally well in Moscow at -15C and in Bangkok at +35C. It seems fairly resistant to dust, moisture and moderate shocks. It also performs very well in close-ups, where sharpness and degree of resolved detail are nothing short of astonishing.
I highly recommend this lens.

Customer Service

None required as yet.

Zoom Range - this is a great range for a daily lense.

Optics - just plain bad (even after factory adjustment). Worse than my Canon Rebel kit lense (for $100.00).

My Canon 28-80 USM f3.5-5.6 left the Tamron in the dust ...

This lens was purchased based on glowing reviews seen elsewhere on the web. I took it on vacation to Williamsburg, VA to use as a walkabout lens. The zoom range is fantastic for this type of photography - wide enough for indoor shots, but with enough reach to grab the occasional long shot as well. I was very disappointed with the performance of the optics, however. For the average shot they were acceptable, but the photos all appeared soft to me. When i returned from vacation, I did a series of test shots with my four main lenses with the following results (comparing sharpness only):

Canon 70-200L f4.0 - tack sharp. easily the best of the bunch.
Canon 28-80 f3.5-5.6 - surprisingly sharp, not 'L' quality, but very good.
Canon 17-55 f3.5-5.6 - (Digital Rebel kit lense) - average quality, good for wide shots.
Tamron 24-135 f3.5-5.6 - easily the worst of the bunch. Below the $100 kit lense.

I sent the Tamron back to the factory thinking maybe there was an adjustment to be made, but it came back just as it went out ... disappointing. Maybe I just got a bad copy. It certainly seems that many other people have been satisfied with it, but when the factory adjustment didn't help, I pretty well decided that this is just not that good a lense.

Customer Service

Good - sent lens back for adjustment and it was returned promptly.

Similar Products Used:

Canon 28-80 USM f3.5-5.6