Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 VC USD review – Our verdict
Tamron has made a very good job of producing what must be an incredibly difficult lens to design and build. All lens design is a balance of one compromise against a host of others, but when dealing with a set of focal lengths such as this and trying to direct it all into a budget that will still appeal to the enthusiast pocket, the acceptable middle ground is mighty slim. It would take a miracle, and a couple of extra thousand pounds to make those wide apertures anything other than an opportunity to let light onto the AF sensors, and we shouldn’t expect to be able to use them for fine detailed work.
Even though this is a lens that costs all but £1,000, there is no getting round the fact that for the focal lengths it offers, it is a budget option. That we have to use f/10 and beyond for critical sharpness is just one of those things, and we will have to learn to live with it. When the lens is sharp it is sharp enough, and more than capable of producing excellent results. We have to tailor our conditions somewhat to gather enough light, and that might mean Kenya instead of Kent, but we have sunny days in the UK too. Tamron’s colour controls are admirable, and for the natural subjects we are all most likely to aim this lens at, the other aberrations are in the main insignificant.
That only leaves the physics of the specification, and as someone who did manage to become an astronaut famously reminded us from the control room of the Enterprise, there’s not much even Tamron can do to change that.
