[Music] Foreign Abbott and I'm here today to give you my Video review of the Tamron 150 to 500 Millimeter this is an F5 to F 6.7 it is Di3 meaning it's designed for mirrorless It is VC it has their image Stabilization and it has their vxd Linear Focus motor I've reviewed this Lens previously on Sony a few years ago But there is now a fresh release of this Lens for the Fuji x-mount now I've been Reviewing some of the Tamron x-mount Lenses over the last several months and Many of them of course are very logical Transitions they were designed for aps-c Cameras on Sony initially and so now Because Fuji has opened up their x-mount To third parties it is allowing them to Now bring those lenses over to Fuji Where they are a welcome addition This lens however is the Oddity of the Bunch and that this isn't actually an Aps-c lens this is a lens that Tamron Designed and released for Sony full Frame e-mount and so it's a full frame Lens being ported to an aps-c specific Mount which is not really something that I have seen before now fortunately for Tamron the design was compact enough That it actually slots right in between The 100 to 400 millimeter from Fuji Although this lens is roughly similar to That and it's obviously considerably
Smaller than the 150 to 600 millimeter Fuji lens that I reviewed a few months Ago it undercuts both of those in price By a large margin but the question is Does this lens survive that porting over To Fuji and does it make sense on an Aps-c Mount camera well we'll explore That today after a word from our sponsor By this point you all know that Ridge Makes high-end minimalist wallets but Did you know that Ridge also makes rings To match those wallets Ridge rings come The same kind of Premium materials as Their wallets from carbon fiber to Tungsten to Titanium and yes even Traditional gold every Ridge ring also Comes with a silicone band to wear when Working out or wanting a more casual Look My son is getting married this summer so We chose the forge carbon look for him The ridge also offers a unique lost in Sizing protection so if you lose your Ring or lose 20 pounds Ridge will give You up to two future exchanges for the Same ring in the same or a different Size as with all Ridge products their Rings come with a lifetime warranty and They'll even let you test drive it for 99 days so visit ridge.com forward slash Dustin Abbott and use code Dustin Abbott To get 10 off that's ridge.com forward Slash Dustin Abbott So let's talk about the build and the
Design here and I will note that as Noted this is a uh it's not a compact Lens by any stretch of the imagination This is automatically going to be one of The larger largest lenses on the Fuji Mount in the top five however because of Its relatively compact size for a full Frame design it actually doesn't feel All that out of place here now how big And heavy it is is going to be somewhat Dependent on the body you're mounting it To on my xh2 here which frankly is is as Big and as far as the grip goes more Comfortable than any of my Sony Full-frame bodies it feels completely Natural like and the natural fit there And so that's not necessarily a big deal The lens itself is 93 millimeters in Diameter giving you an 82 millimeter Front filter thread which is the same as 150 to 600 from Fuji and it is 210 Millimeters in length so that is 3.7 Inches by 8.3 inches which if you look At the dimensions is actually within a Millimeter essentially of the exterior Dimensions of the Fuji 100 to 400 Millimeter that being said the Tamron is Considerably heavier it's got a little Bit more sturdy design it's also Remember designed for full frame and so As a result it has more glass to cover a Larger sensor size and as a byproduct it Is heavier even though it's the same Size in fact it's even heavier than the
150 to 600 millimeter coming in at 1.7 Kilos or about three and three quarters Pounds it has an incredibly useful range From 150 to 500 millimeters which Translates to a full frame equivalency On Fuji's x-mount with a 1.5 times crop As 220 35 millimeters so from this out To 750 millimeters that looks like looks Like this Also a strength for this lens relative To the Fuji competition is it does offer A higher level of magnification you can Get up to about 0.32 times magnification Almost one-third life size and so that Is considerably higher than what either The Fuji lenses has to offer Now you will find that the dimensions Are relatively compact for the lens when It is retracted but this is unlike the 150 to 600 millimeter this is an Externally zooming design and so it will Extend another roughly eight centimeters About three inches when you zoom it all The way out I will note that the zoom Action is nice and smooth it is for that Reason it's actually no less rough than The zoom action than what I saw on the 150 to 600 millimeter which I found a Little bit stiff for an internally Zooming lens and so I was very pleased With that regard of it and I will note That if you are so inclined uh you know You can grab onto the hood and you can Use kind of a push-pull type design if
You want that as a quicker action it's Not all that bad however for the Rotation you can quickly zoom in and out By using the ring as well this is a Thoroughly well-built and well sealed Lens designed for professional grade use It has about 11 internal seal points and Is a flooring coating on the front Element and so all of that translate is Being very nice and I will say having Held the lenses side by side the Tamron Certainly feels just as nice as the Fuji Lenses do in terms of its construction It also does come with a tripod collar Uh some of the things that I like about The tripod collar it is fully removable The foot itself is ARCA Swiss compatible And so in that sense it has a little bit Of a leg up on either one of the Fuji Cameras as the tripod collar is not Fully removable on the 150 to 600 and it Is removable on the 100 to 400 but the Foot there is not ARCA compatible the 150 to 600 millimeter does have an ARCA Compatible tripod that's a big deal to Me because a lot of times I want to go Right onto a tripod and just crank it Down and then so it saves you having to Mess with a quick release plate and so I Like both of those aspects of the design Now of course coming to a new platform The standard for you know features is a Little bit different and so the main Thing that the Tamron is missing
Relative to the Fuji lenses is there is No aperture ring so you're gonna have to Control aperture from within the camera And unlike the 150 to 600 there's also No custom buttons and so that's another Thing that you may miss there however it Does have a few of its own unique Features and one of those I really Really love and that is that there is a Clutch lock mechanism here that will Keep you from you can just lock it into Place and the nice thing about this is You can use that that clutch mechanism At any focal length and lock it into Place and that way you can hold that Certain length I did notice that when it Came to the 100 to 400 for example it Suffered from Zoom creep really bad but You can see here I've locked this lens Into place using that clutch and even Upside down like this there is no Creeping at all now for storage there's Also a traditional lock that is here and On the side but what I really prefer About this clutch mechanism is it allows For a one-handed operation you can lock It into place say if you're carrying it On a you know on a strap or on some kind Of harness but the moment you go to Shoot all you got to do is use those Fingers release that clutch mechanism And zoom without having to mess with any Kind of locking mechanism on the far Side of the lens so I really really like
This particular design and so it makes This handle more nicely in the field Than what some Alternatives do There are four switches in the bank here On the side and I will note that those Switches are nicer feeling than the ones On the Fuji counterpart those switches Include a focus limiter a unique to Fuji Manual focus speed here and so there's Not an AF MF switch instead of that you Have the ability to control the speed of The manual focus action either a little Bit slower or a little bit faster and I Will note that neither one of them are Particularly fast at least but from my Expectation there is an on off for the Image stabilizer and then there is a Fourth button that allows your switch That allows you to control various VC or Image stabilization modes so the first Of those being the standard or the Balance number two being for panning Action and the third is kind of a Dynamic one where it does less of of Stabilizing the viewfinder and just Focuses on stabilizing the image at Capture a lot of times you get a Slightly better stabilization result but If you're moving with erratic action it Also keeps the the lens from trying to Stabilize the viewfinder and thus Messing up the flow of your tracking of Action and so it can be a useful mode There as well now I wasn't particularly
Blown Away by the VC performance on Sony And probably the lens performance has Not improved however I do find that Fuji's in body stabilization if you have A body that's so equipped it's a little Bit better so here on my xh2 I was able To hand hold photos without too much Trouble all the way down to about six Stops which is obviously very very Useful I will note however for video use that It's still hard to get a really steady Shot handheld with these longer focal Lengths it's just a little too much for The stabilization to handle so if you're Going to want to get like actually if You're looking for stable long distance Shots you're probably still going to Want to utilize a tripod for that The lens Hood itself is very nice I Would say nicer actually than the Fuji Counterparts it has that rubberized Front transition it's made of a little Bit tougher feeling Plastics than the Counterpart but one final negative on The design here is that this lens is not Designed for use with with any kind of Teleconverters and so you're not going To get that option whereas you can have That option with the Fuji counterparts This lens is just not designed around Use with teleconverters autofocus comes Courtesy of tamron's vxd Focus motor Which is currently their fastest folk
Focusing motor that they're putting in Any of these lenses and it's the Equivalent of Fuji's linear Motors and For the most part I found that Focus Speed was quite good though I will note That you will get faster faster focus at 150 millimeters than you will if you go All the way out to 500 millimeters where Big transitions are just a little bit Slower however I did find that I had Plenty of speed for tracking Birds and Flight and it had no problem keeping up With those the biggest challenge for Birds in Flight as with any long Telephoto lens is actually just Acquiring the subject in the frame Because it's such a narrow angle of view That it's hard at first to get yourself On a rapidly moving subject once you Lock on however it tracks really really Well less demanding is that I saw very Easy use for use in tracking softball Action and I was able to get very good Focus results there I also found that it Had very good animal tracking I had a Couple of sequences where I was tracking A squirrel out moving around and Foraging and the eye detect and then the AI tracking was doing a great job of Just staying up with the scroll and Ignoring the various distractions as it Forged around then likewise with a snake I had very good focus on the eyes depth Of field was very shallow because I was
Quite close to it but I was able to get Really good and well consistent or Consistently well focused results during That sequence I also did caught a cool Sequel sequence of a kid on a beach Doing a soccer flip kick football and And it was able to track him throughout That kind of Rapid action without any Problem I will also note that unlike on Sony Where Sony artificially limits burst Speed with third-party lenses Fuji seems To have no such limitation so I was able To access the Full Burst speed of my xh2 Without any kind of slowdown by using a Third-party lens all of those being good Things so autofocus in general was quite Good for Stills I was far less impressed However for video work not so much if I Was just using it to track things for Example you can see in the shot of of Tracking action at my beehive no issues There but if I needed to do any kind of Focus pull it was just downright painful And and that is that I just saw very Very it was very sluggish to start the Focus pool and then there was a number Of visible steps in the actual Focus Action uh it's it's nothing but Frustrating and you're not going to be Satisfied with that it's just an area That it didn't perform nearly as well on Fuji as what it did on Sony I suspect That is both a Tamron and a Fuji thing
Because I've already been able to see That the Lin alone on Sony is able to do That just fine so it's it's an issue in The transition to Fuji I will also note That unsurprisingly for a lens it has a Maximum aperture of f 6.7 on the long m In low light conditions autofocus is Going to slow down the sensors got less Light to work with and thus it's just More of a challenge but that's going to Be true for any lens with a smaller Maximum aperture like this in general Autofocus was good for Stills not so Great for video Let's talk about image quality now see There are pros and cons when you bring a Full frame lens over onto aps-c the pros Include the fact that you are cropping Off some of the outer portions of the Frame where there tends to be more Problems so that means you often ended Up with less Distortion a lot less Vignette because the heaviest areas of Vignette are actually clipped off and You have lower amounts of chromatic Aberration particularly the lateral type Which is Consolidated to the edges of The frame But in this case in particular bringing A full frame lens onto an aps-c platform Means that often you're stepping up in Terms of the pixel density and that's Never been truer than on bodies like the Xh2 with its 40 megapixel sensor if you
Do the math from the sensor size with The amount of of pixels packed on there You would need somewhere a little over 90 megapixels on a full-frame camera to Have similar pixel density so obviously There is no such camera on the market Right now that's a good 50 percent Higher than the 61 megapixels found on The a7r Mark V or similar cameras and so As a byproduct this lens is in its most Challenging condition for sharpness than We've ever seen so let's see how it Holds up as we dive into our image Quality breakdown we'll take a quick Look at chromatic aberrations here first The longitudinal type here I've got a High contrast subject with the white Lots of potential for longitudinal Chromatic aberrations not really an Issue here as you can see there is no Fringing as we transition out towards Defocus and so a nice neutral result There likewise here looking for lateral Chromatic aberrations near the edge of My test chart this is at a very high Level of magnification with any Corrections turned off and again nice And clean so no issues on that front so Let's take a quick look at vignette and Distortion here at 150 millimeters there Is the tiniest amount of pincushion Distortion not really hardly enough Worth correcting and a little tiny bit Of vignette though as you can see
Nothing in particular they're showing up Manual correction took the form of just A minus two to correct for the Distortion and a plus 21 to correct for The vignette so obviously not a Significant issue at all vignette is Going to be lower here because this is a Full frame lens and so we're putting it On a smaller sensor thus most of the Area that is going to be affected by Vignette is actually cut off looking in The middle of the zoom range at about 300 millimeters you can see that there Continues to be a little bit of Pincushion Distortion very little in Terms of vignette and then right out to 500 millimeters at this stage there is Very very little Distortion to show There and again just a very minor amount Of vignette Distortion corrected with a Minus one and vignette with a plus 24 on The telephoto wind so obviously nothing To be concerned about at all on those Fronts now this is a unique test to Throw at the 40 megapixel Fuji X Mount Sensor because it's just such a unique Thing it is very very rare that we have Seen a full-frame design released on X-mount and so I was really actually Really interested to see how it holds up So as we're going to see here at 200 Percent magnification on my high Resolution xh2 this is a hard test for a Full-frame lens making this transition
And as you can see image sharpness is Okay but it's not exceptional here at 150 millimeters as we move on towards The mid frame again result is pretty Decent but not exceptional and a fairly Consistent result off into the corner Though as we can see here some of these Textures just are a little bit loose Feeling just by the way to let you know I did do a 10 second delay on all of These shots to make sure the vibration Was not part of the package here and and So what you see is basically what you're Going to get in optimal situations so Here wide open at 150 millimeters Resolution is good but not exceptionally Good now we'll check in a couple of Times just for comparison with the most Logical competing lens which would be The 150 to 600 millimeter F 5.62 f8 so The Fuji lens is slower all throughout The zoom range so that's one thing to Observe so here it's F5 versus F 5.6 However it represents wide open for both Lenses so in the center of the frame Quite obviously the Fuji is the sharper Lens it's actually engineered for this Particular sensor point and so it is Delivering the stronger and end result As we get towards the edge of the frame There is still an advantage for the Fuji It is not significant but there is a Clear win all across the frame for the Fuji lens so what if we stop the Tamron
Down it is giving it an opportunity to Sharpen up a bit before the diffraction Point we can see looking in the center Of the frame there is just a very slight Improvement of contrast looking here in The mid frame you can also see just a Little bit more contrast look at the Lips by comparison and here at the eye They're just a little bit more Sparkle And sharpness if we move off towards the Edge of the frame again there is an Improvement it's just quite mild now in This case stopping on down to f8 Provides a more noticeable Improvement So it shows there is quite a bit of Improvement on the lens because we have Passed the point where diffraction Begins and so this is something that's Happening kind of just as a result of The lens being that much sharpening Sharper that the diffraction actually Isn't reducing sharpness now Interestingly we don't have the same Impact in the center of the frame it's More on the edges where you see that Noticeable Improvement now minimum Aperture is F22 but I don't recommend Going really any smaller than f8 or f11 At most because as you're going to see Diffraction just continues to take a hit At the image now in this case it doesn't Show up all that strong but you can see Here that there is a softening effect we Didn't see it so much in the center but
We definitely see it here in the mid Frame and you're going to see it pretty Strongly here towards the edge as well So by the time we get to 300 millimeters Our minimum our maximum aperture is f 5.6 let's see how sharpness holds up Here in the center of the frame it looks Pretty much similar as to what we've Seen to this point and again at the mid Frame it you know there's there's Resolution and contrast there it's just Not off the charts and here towards the Edge of the frame pretty consistent with What we saw earlier on it is a useful Amount of resolution it's just not Mind-blowingly good now if we check back In with the Fuji 100 150 to 600 Millimeter we can see once again that it Is the slower lens and so here even by 300 millimeters we're working with a Maximum aperture of f 6.4 versus F 5.6 For the Tamron how about sharpness in The center of the frame as you can see There really isn't any different between The two if we look here at the mid frame The Tamron is giving us just a little Bit better contrast and a little better Detail and that's also true as we go Towards the edge of the frame and up at This point uh the Fuji is looking better Here up at this corner but there's Really not a whole lot of difference Between the two here's a look at some Real world sharpness at 100
Magnification so more typical and as you Can see contrast isn't any you know a Detail it's not off the the charts but It certainly is very usable here the Middle of the range and as you can see The bokeh quality is really really soft And creamy so in the middle of the range Stopping the lens down to f8 that's a Full Stop closed again in the center of The frame not a lot of improvement here In the mid frame again pretty similar Down into the corners also very similar Not a whole lot of improvement not a big Jump like we saw before up in this Corner there is a little bit more Improvement at f8 but by and large we're Not really seeing any kind of huge gains Here and so you can see here at 500 Millimeters there's good detail that's Showing up there real world context here Here is 500 millimeters wide open and You can see that you know the image Obviously looks sharp if you look at it On a global level if you punch into a Pixel level you know the fur detail is Okay but you can tell the contrast is Not off the charts and so as a byproduct It's not quite as sharp on this very Demanding sensor as what it could be I Did find the color rendition from the Tamron to be quite nice and so you can See here on the one of these Hazy Days Due to the forest fires but overall Color still looks good in this image
Here again there's a bit of haze as you Can see throughout but the colors are Are just nice and soft the overall image Looks good here and if I look at a pixel Level you can see that there's good Detail just not amazing contrast this Lens actually has really nice bouquet That gives you the ability to really Crush backgrounds and the bokeh from the Lens is quite nice you can see that the Background is just totally blurred out In this shot likewise here even though I'm not quite as close you can see that The rendering of the out of focus areas Is quite nice once again here you know Good enough detail that the image looks Looks really really crisp here but a Beautifully blurred out background and This image right here I thought was just Really really lovely a simple subject But really made beautiful between the Compression and then the bokeh from the Lens and as you can see the detail even On the 40 megapixel sensor looks really Quite good there in those needles I also Found just out and about for shooting You know environmental subjects here This little snake I was able to get a You know a nice shot of lots of reach to Getting close and I waited for the Moment when he was flick talking out its Little tongue there and as you can see There's plenty of detail there to make For a very interesting image likewise
Here of this squirrel that was intent on Showing off for me and as he foraged and You can see that even punching into a Pixel level lots of detail that's there Again it's not the best that I've ever Seen but really not bad for such a high Resolution sensor and this obviously Gives you a lot of cropping capabilities Shooting on such high resolution so in Conclusion there is you know some good And bad to take away from the image Quality section kind of like the Autofocus section that is that the Sharpness and contrast are not quite as Good as what I saw on the 150 to 600 and And no better than the older 100 to 400 Millimeter what I did find however is That I felt like the bokeh and the Rendering was actually nicer on the Tamron than either one of those lenses It does a lot of things well optically It just isn't incredibly sharp on this Fuji platform which is kind of a Recurring mantra and that I have found Very few lenses so far that really excel In this very pixel dense environment at The same time it makes for a great value Of a lens at 1300 US dollars that is Undercutting the price of the 100 to 400 From Fuji by about six hundred dollars And the 150 to 600 by about 700 US Dollars that is a significant difference And it means that those that have wanted To have a long telephoto lens but
Couldn't afford it might be able to Afford this one and as a byproduct it Obviously is a welcome addition to the Fuji platform yes it's a little bit of An odd transition and an odd porting Over and it's not perfect but it does a Lot of things well and I suspect for the Actual uses of a lot of people it will Probably meet their needs just fine I'm Dustin Abbott and you have to look in The description down below you can find Linkage to my full text review also to My image gallery there are some buying Links there if you'd like to purchase One for yourself and the typical linkage To follow me on social media to get Channel merchandise or become a become a Patron if you haven't already please Like And subscribe thanks for watching Have a great day and let the light in [Music] Foreign
