Tamron AF18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) Macro Lens Review

The barrel is made of plastic with the mounts being metallic. The construction feels sturdy and is quite lightweight. This will be particularly appreciated by trekkers and mountain hikers who avoid taking a long zoom lens to the hills just because of its heavy weight.

The lens barrel features knobs for autofocus and vibration compensation (optical image stabilization). There’s also a lock knob for locking focus which also prevents zoom creep.

The large zoom ring occupies most of the barrel, and is perfectly placed with a ribbed rubberized surface. The zooming action has good tactile feel to it, and one can feel a distinct resistance after the 70mm mark.

The focus ring is right in front and naturally within the reach of the fingers, and offers a smooth action, though I also felt it’s a bit too smooth for precise manual focusing. I’d personally have liked it to have a bit more resistance, like the zoom ring.

One issue with the zoom lock button is that it locks zoom only at the minimum, i.e., 18mm point. So, if you’re taking a long exposure photo on a tripod with the lens pointing up or down, at anything other extreme wide-angle, or extreme telephoto, the lens tends to collapse or extend under its own weight. And the zoom lock is pretty much useless in this scenario. This may not be a concern for all, but can definitely cause irritation to some photographers.

Apart from this minor flaw, overall the lens is perfect in terms of design and construction with all controls being very accessibly placed.

For a lens with such a high zoom range, chromatic aberration was comparatively negligible. Images were optically quite clean throughout the zoom range from 18mm to around 200mm. Thereafter, at the highest telephoto settings, some purple fringing does occur in high contrast situations.

Images were very sharp throughout the zoom range, with truly exceptional results in the mid range of zoom. At both the extremities, there is some image softness, but nothing too noticeable.

Vignetting was not a problem throughout the zoom range from 18-270mm. This is quite commendable for such a long zoom range.

Except when shooting directly into the sun, lens flare was not a problem at all. Shots taken at high zoom, backlit with strong sunlight produced negligible lens flare.

I felt the autofocus to be slightly sluggish. But for most situations it was quite accurate and gave sharp images.

The optical image stabilization, known as VC by Tamron, works fairly good. The motor is super-silent, and provides good stabilization for up to at least 3 stops, if not 4. I took handheld images at even ¼ of a second shutter speed and they were quite acceptable in nature. Though at higher end of the telephoto range, the most stable handheld shot I could take was 1/20 of a second. But that’s quite decent, in my opinion, and if you use the burst mode along with it, you might just get very sharp shots even at low shutter speeds!

The lens retails for around $600. That may seem steep, but considering that this lens offers a tremendous zoom range, and is extremely light weight, the price seems quite justified. It has no direct competition with a similar zoom range, and near rivals from Canon and Nikon, offering a lesser zoom range, are also similarly priced. This is one lens which is worth the money spent on it.