Tamron AF 18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di-II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro Zoom Lens for Sony Alpha Digital SLR Cameras

by Tamron

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.3 x 2.9 x 2.9 inches ; 14.9 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000N8F694
• Item model number: AF018S-700
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

This breakthrough zoom covers the greatest range of any interchangeable lens in digital SLR photography—an astounding 14x wide-to-super telephoto ratio. That's the 35mm equivalent of a 28-400mm on an APS-C format DSLR. And it focuses down to 0.45m(17.7") over its entire range for dramatic close-ups. Remarkably compact and lightweight, its sharpness, resolution, and color accuracy are outstanding thanks to special lowe dispersion (LD) glass, high-tech molded aspherics, the latest multi-coating, and second-generation digital optimization (Di II). This is the most powerful zoom lens on the planet, and it literally puts the world at your fingertips, delivering crisp, flare free images of scenic vistas, sports, nature, and intimate close-ups of kids. It's the perfect all-in-one lens for traveling light and capturing the unanticipated.

AF 18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II Highlights

Di II:
Lenses are designed for exclusive use on digital cameras with smaller-size imagers and inherit all of the benefits of our Di II products. These lenses are not designed for conventional cameras and digital cameras with image sensors larger than 24mm x 16mm.

14x Zoom
Capture your world with the longest-range zoom lens you can buy--experience the great power of a 14X zoom range with Tamron's 18-250mm--a single lens capable of shooting both wide angle and telephoto scenes. At nearly 14x, Tamron's lens is the world's most powerful zoom and delivers all the photographic freedom of this enormous zoom range in a single, compact lens.

Long range zoom - 8mm zoom, 130mm zoom, and 250mm zoom

Low Dispersion (LD)
Low dispersion (LD) glass elements in a lens help reduce chromatic aberration; the tendency of light of different colors to come to different points of focus at the image plane. Chromatic aberration reduces the sharpness of an image, but glass with an extremely lowdispersion index, has less of a tendency to separate (defract) a ray of light into a rainbow of colors. This characteristic allows the lens designer to effectively compensate for chromatic aberration at the center of the field (on axis), a particular problem at long focal lengths (the telephoto end of the zoom range), and for lateral chromatic aberration (towards the edges of the field) that often occurs at short focal lengths (the wide-angle end of the zoom range.)

Low Dispersion (LD) Glass for Greater Lens Sharpness

Internal Focus (IF)
Internal focusing (IF) provides numerous practical benefits to photographers including a non-rotating front filter ring that facilitates the positioning of polarizing and graduated filters, and more predictable handling because the lens length does not change during focusing. Even more important, Tamron’s Internal Focusing (IF) system provides a much closer minimum focusing distance (MFD) throughout its entire focusing range. In addition, IF improves optical performance by minimizing illumination loss at the corners of the image field, and helps to suppress other aberrations that become more troublesome at different focusing positions.

Anomalous Dispersion (AD) for Better Color Correction
Anomalous dispersion (AD) glass is a special type of optical glass that is used to achieve more precise control of chromatic aberrations, thereby enhancing overall imaging performance. Glass of this type provides an abnormally large partial dispersion ratio (amount of diffraction) for light of specific wavelength ranges (colors) within the visible spectrum. By combining AD glass having these special characteristics with elements made of normal glass having different dispersion characteristics, it is possible to control the dispersion factors of a specific wavelength. This enhanced level of control results in much lower levels of on-axis (central) chromatic aberration for telephoto lenses (or zooms used at tele-photo settings) and a significant reduction of lateral (peripheral) chromatic aber-ration for wide-angle lenses (or zooms used at wide-angle settings.)

Anomalous Dispersion (AD) enhances overall imaging experience

Aspherical Elements (ASL) Provide the Ultimate in Image Quality and Compactness)
Tamron uses several hybrid aspherical lens elements in many lenses bearing the Aspherical designation. These innovative optics allow us to achieve the ultimate in image quality, and at the same time produce lenses that offer remarkable zoom ranges in extraordinarily compact packages. By perfecting theses cutting-edge advances for series production, Tamron has advanced the state of optical design, and virtually eliminated spherical aberration and image distortion from the high-power-zoom series.Through the effective application of Hybrid Aspherical Technology, one lens elemen tcan take the place of multiple elements without compromising performance. This is what allows us to produce remarkably compact long-range lenses that deliver a uniformly high level of image quality at all focal lengths and apertures.

Achieve the ultimate in image quality with Asperical (ASL) lenses

Zoom Lock
Another original Tamron mechanical engineering concept is the Zoom Lock (ZL), a simple convenience feature that prevents undesired extension of the lens barrel when carrying the camera/lens unit on a neck strap.

Product Description

Designed exclusively for digital SLRs with APS-C sized imagers, the AF 18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di-II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro has the largest zoom ratio of 139x. Features include: Designed exclusively for digital SLRs with APS-C sized imagers, the AF 18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di-II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro has the largest zoom ratio of 139x, Use of LD and Aspherical elements, zoom lock mechanism, and internal surface coating to reduce ghosting and flare.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good for the purpose - not to be handle as a shorter lens, October 18, 2007

By 

Olivier Douin - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

My wife got it in June before a summer trip where she took almost 3,000 pictures with her alpha 100.
The idea was, for her, to use only one lens. Therefore, it was exactly what she needed. You just have to remember that it is not a 18-250 and that you have to hold your camera especially at range 250.
For the negative aspect: this zoom has more difficulties to focus than the average lenses when there is not much contrast. It is necessary to find another spot then to recompose. You need also to anticipate a little bit more when shooting fast targets (birds...).
Now, when I compare her pictures with the one I shot with my Minolta 7D and my usual lenses during the same trip, I prefer hers under average light and I prefer mines under very bright (high mountains, sea), heavy contrast light... But I tested it recently on my 7D, at the seaside... and liked the results very much (and I anticipated for the birds flying in the blue sky). That is to say, that the camera is important too and that when you know yours very well you can enter the right settings.
Finally, it is a very useful zoom. The extra range is a must. But, for Sony and Minolta users, it is probably worth it to consider the brand new adaptation made by Tamron for Sony (Sony DT 18-250). Of course, it it about $100.00 more expensive but the internal focusing should explain this. I suggest to be patient and to wait for the reviews.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice traveling lens, February 12, 2009

By 

J. Martin (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tamron AF 18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di-II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro Zoom Lens for Sony Alpha Digital SLR Cameras (Electronics)

I originally owned a Tamron 28-300 lens that I used on my old maxxum film cameras. After many years of use, the zoom mechanism froze up (it has since worked its way loose). Still, I was in transit to the Far East on vacation and found a shop to sell me the Tamron 18-250 lens in LA. In the year and 3 months that I've owned it, I have shot over 5000 pictures with it in varied settings.

One of the problems with the 28-300 was the lack of wide angle that the 7d created with sensor crop. The crop factor on my 7d is 1.5 so the 18-250 is effectively becomes a 27-375 lens which makes it very useful in most travel photo situations. Obviously, my fixed lenses like a 90mm 2.8 are better for low light and a mirror lens has a longer zoom but for a general purpose lens, this is rather great.

There is some vignetting that occurs at the edges of some highly zoomed pictures but its seldom noticeable.

The thing is, I'm not a professional photographer, I don't spend an hour setting up a shot. I can't carry around 2-3 bodies with different lenses on them. When traveling, I give myself the best chance of getting the shot and that means being able go wide angle in one moment and zoom in tight the next. Can it possibly be blurry at 375? yes. However, if all I had was an 18-70, I might be so far away to not get the shot at all. I've learned how to shoot with this lens on the 7d and have had good success with it.

If I had the 12Mp Sony A700 (which I'm planning to get soon) being farther away wouldn't be such a big deal but with the 6.1MP 7D, digital zoom in Photoshop only goes so far without getting pixellated.

My hints for using this lens (and maxxum/alphas):
1. bracketing is your friend. I find that taking three shots of varying EV makes it more likely that one will be non-blurry, particularly at the long end of this lens.
2. Learn to watch the anti-shake sensor carefully and practice pushing the shutter release gently. Low light shots, even with low speed lenses are possible with practice. (see the 1/20th 160mm w/o a tripod of a Balinese dancer I uploaded as a customer image)
3. If in doubt, take the shot. Mb's are cheap, just discard if the shot isn't good.

So overall, I really like this lens for touring. There are some shots that you wouldn't want to take with it, such as portraits or action shots where you need to stop a baseball player in lower light. However, even with its limitations, it has found its way into my camera bag more often than not as of late.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really versatile DSLR lens, November 6, 2007

By 

John W. Collins "Jack Collins" (Geyserville, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this lens for my Sony a100 DSLR (but it comes with mounts for virtually all the makes of DSLR cameras) and I have not been disappointed. Far from it. It has become my primary lens simply because it is so versatile for all kinds of outside shots. It's not a particularly fast lens but I have found it to produce sharp and crisp images at all zoom settings. It has quickly become my favorite and most used lens.