Customer Reviews

Tamron Autofocus 28-200mm f/3.8-5.6 XR Aspherical (IF) Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Silver)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you are the adventure type holiday fotographer, this is the lens you need. Much better then it's predecessors in optical quality and weight. I got triggered to buy one, because it won the joint European Foto Magazines prize of 'lens of the year'.

When you like to travel light, this is the only lens you need.

Watch out, that you get the right lens, because there are 5 different Tamron 28-200 predecessing models around.

I have been using the black intl' version of this lens or some time now (I think) and I have been quite happy with it, except that that if you like using Canon's the direction you have to twist your hand to zoom is the OTHER WAY as with Canon! It's a small annoyance, but yes it will get you frustrated if you turn the lens one way to zoom but start pulling back!

The zoom is slow compared to the new USM's from canon, and it seeks a lot. At the far end of the lens spectrum (about 130-200mm) the lens gets really dark and the picture quality degrades, and since the lens gets longer every little vibration in your body gets exaggerated if you are using a long exposure (on a canon 10D around 1/30 or longer).

This is a solid buy but honestly I think that if you can afford the extra cost invest in a Canon lens.

I recently bought a Canon EOS Rebel XT digital SLR, intending to use some Sigma lenses I had for my old EOS 630, and was disappointed to find they wouldn't work on the Rebel and couldn't be upgraded. I picked up a couple of used Canon lenses which covered the range I needed, but still missed the versatility of my old Sigma 28-200mm.

I have had good luck with Tamron lenses in the past, and the reviews looked good, so I bought a new Tamron 28-200mm f/3.8-5.6 XR lens, thinking it would be an equivalent replacement for the old Sigma.

The first tryout of the lens was extremely disappointing. The first images shot in the back yard were soft, edge definition was fuzzy, and contrast was muddy. To give the lens a second chance, I took it out for a nature photo session, running the gamut from macro shots of flowers to landscapes, over the full range of f/stops and zoom positions. Again, the images were poor, exhibiting chromatic aberration, flare, and coma, with no improvement with reduced f/stops. I hadn't seen a lens this bad since a Vivitar 180mm telephoto I had in the 1970's.

Thinking that no one would intentionally manufacture a lens this poor, I returned it as defective, for exchange for another. The replacement arrived, and its performance confirmed that the first one was defective.

While the replacement lens performs acceptably, it isn't up to the quality level of my old Sigma 28-200, or the Canon 35-135mm zoom I recently bought used (but it probably is as good as the 18-55mm zoom that came with the Rebel XT). It exhibits some softness at object edges, but improves at smaller apertures. I'm impressed with the lack of flare, even with no hood and shooting toward a bright overcast sky. After some moderate sharpening in Photoshop most images are pretty good.

So my conclusion from all this is:

There's apparently some quality control issues with Tamron's Chinese assembly facility. If you buy one and it performs poorly, try another before giving up on it.

The lens I finally got is "pretty good" but not terrific. It's adequate for casual use, but I'm keeping the Canon zoom, and saving up for a Canon macro lens for the serious stuff.

The MSR price for this lens is ridiculous, and the "street price" is kind of high for what you get.

I'd buy Tamron again, but not without there being a return policy from the seller.

I've owned a number of Tamron lenses over the past 30 years and this one is much as I'd expected. It's a good tough lens that will stand many, many hours of shooting in all types of conditions. I use it on a Canon 350D DSLR and it is my 'go to' lens; on the camera and in action 85% of the time. This is a fine lens for close-in and mid-range image capture.

The 28-200 XR tamron lens is the only one you'll need for every day shots. I bought a rebel XT to take pics of my infant son. The 2 lenses that came with it 18-55 and a 70-300 zoom lense, where good, but who has time to switch chasing the kids around. So far I have taken some unbelievable pics with this lense. Dont hesitate to buy one, just make sure you look around for the best price. I got mine for under $[...].

I'm a novice camera user, I have the canon XTI. This lens works better than the lens that came with the camera. Great everyday lens. I used the lens at zion national park in Utah, the pictures were fantastic.

I got this lens recently and it's very nice. I'm impressed with the size and weight.

I wanted a telephoto lens that could also go wide enough to use for everyday photos. I like how wide this one goes. On my Canon Digital Rebel, which has a 1.6x focal length multiplier, the 28mm focal length is effectively 44mm. That's not quite wide enough to use for interior "party" shots, but it's great for everything else.

I've been taking a lot of photos at the full 200mm focal length and I'm very impressed with the image quality and color after reading about the lackluster image quality of other "cheap" lenses. It must be the XR glass. I'm glad that I went with this one.

I picked up a new 28-200mm xr for $99 a few years ago for film and it was a sharp lens. Last month I picked up a full frame EOS 5d and this lens came back out.
I am amazed at how uniformly sharp this lens is center to edge at all focal lengths. This lens Blows away the 18-200mm from Tamron and Sigma for apc cameras(I've had both). Canon's ef 28-105mm and 28-135mm are not even close. It's a real winner!!

the pros:
great focal range
sharp at all focal lengths
cheap
effective lens hood
relatively large aperture
light
small
durable
great optics
fairly pretty (mine looks different than the picture)

the cons:
LOUD and SLOW af motor

all-in-all a superb walk around lens, and everywhere that has decent to good light, the images it produces honestly rival glass costing 10x as much.

I use this lens, a canon 50mm 1.8 VII and a Rikonen 8mm exclusively on a canon t1i, this lens stays mounted most of the time because of its versatility and day-to-day performance.

Could not objectively review this product because it was damaged upon receipt. There is a loose lens element within the lens barrel.