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

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I purchased this lens to replace the Pentax 18-55 and 50-200 lenses that came with the K10D I bought. The benefit of this lens is that it means you don't need to change lenses and miss shots as a result, and you get a little extra reach.When you build this much zoom into a lens it means that some image sacrifices will result such as sharpness, distortion, CA, speed.However, with this lens the overall performance is actually quite good when compared to other zooms and super-zooms in the same price range (see Internet professional reviews) and it's significantly better than Tamron's own 18-200. In doing a compare with the Pentax SMC DA 50-200, I found that the Tamron 18-250 is markedly sharper from center to corner at all focal ranges and aperatures. Color saturation and contrast is slightly better, too. Auto focus performance is on par with the Pentax kit lenses and is generally fast and accurate enough for most shooting with the exception of low light situations or fast moving subjects.Although it's not easy to focus accurately in manual mode with the smooth focus screens found on digital SLRs, don't be afraid to simply set the focus ring for the approximate distance to the subject for quick point-and-shoot situations if you have a good sense of distance.At a dark reunion event where auto focus and looking through the viewfinder for manual focus was impossible, I simply set the camera on manual focus and pre-set the focus ring to the distance I planed to shoot for the next wide angle shot.This allowed for fast "hit and run" candid flash shots that came out perfect, even with the lens wide open.

The big let-down I've found with this lens is the CA (chromatic aberration - or purple fringing) which is just a hair short of the point of being unacceptable.In bright sunlght I almost feel like I'm once again shooting with my Canon S3 ( a "super-fringer"), always hesitant to take pictures of those situations where dominant CA lives such as high contrast shots like tree branches with sunlight showing through, shadow details on a bright sunlit building, sunlight reflection off of chrome or ocean waves, even someone's skin in bright sunlight.I had a local camera store get out a new 18-250 Tamron, place it on a K10D and shoot one-on-one with my camera outside.The resultant CA in high-contrast shots was the same, so it's not my lens alone.The CA is the worst at the corners but can be reduced slightly by shooting around f11 to f16. Interestingly, the Pentax kit lenses have significantly less CA.This may be attributed to their SMC coatings.Pentax has its own version of the Tamron 18-250 just released with some believing it's actualy made by Tamron.What would be interesting is whether the Pentax version with SMC coatings will have reduced CA as a result.You may want to wait for the reviews to show up for the new Pentax lens and determine whether you want the Tamron or the Pentax based on the comparative results. Although I have not shot in RAW mode yet, I understand that CA can be corrected for with software when the picture was shot in RAW. I just don't like the idea of investing all the time and effort at the back-end when better lens performance can prevent all that in the first place.

Overall, the Tamron 18-250 is a respectable "walk around" and travel lens worth considering.Just be reminded that you'll need to shoot at ISO 800 or 1600 more often than you might think as a result of the slow aperature performence.It looks great on the camera, feels a lot better and is tighter than the Pentax kit lenses, the plastic has a nice quality texture to it, and it takes impressive pictures (including macro).If the CA was controlled to the same levels as the Pentax lenses, I'd rate the Tamron at five stars instead of four. With the CA issue, I'm between three and four stars, but rounding up to four because of the overall appeal and performance of the lens.

Update (11/21/09): I've had this lens now for a few years and as I have expanded my collection of lenses, I have used the Tamron 18-250 less and less. The reason is that I have grown accustomed to bringing multiple lenses with me and switching to the lens best suited for the need.I have also found that the image quality of this lens is not in the same league as other consumer lenses - actually it's the worst of all my lenses (Tamron 28-75, Pentax 16-45, DA*50-135, DA*200).There's a price to be paid for having such a wide range in focal length in one lens. The only time I use the 18-250 is when going on long bike rides in Europe, and I only wanted to carry one camera with one lens. But even then after looking at the pictures taken with it, I always think about how I wish the picture could have been taken with one of my other lenses due to the overall softness, corner softness and distortion and pretty bad CA's. On the plus side: I only recently discovered that this is not too bad of a macro lens.For Pentax owners, I'd recommend going with the Pentax 17-70 over this lens since most of your pictures will be in that focal range.

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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.

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