I've now purchased the
Tamron 18-200mm Di-II "macro" lens and am using it as the default lens on my K100D. I like the lens. I cannot say that it is obviously better than the two Pentax lenses (the kit 18-55 and the 50-200) that it's replacing, but it's no worse, might be a little better, and it's a lot more convenient.
But I'm wondering about a couple of things.
First, what does it mean to say that this is a "macro" lens? I know that macro means very close up photography, say, for photographing insects or flowers or rare postage stamps. But how do I use this capability of the lens? Is it simply a matter of using the telephoto capability while getting close to the subject? I don't see a button or anything else on the lens that turns "on" (so to speak) the macro capability. I'm sort of expecting that as, with my old Canon PowerShot S3 IS, you did have to change a setting in the camera in order to access the macro capability. Is this lens capable of doing close-up pictures any better than one of the Pentax lenses I mentioned above?
Second, if it is just a matter of getting closer to the subject, how close can I get? On my Canon S3, I could get so close the end of the lens was practically touching the subject. I gather that's not the case with this lens, but I'm not sure.
Third and finally, there's a "Lock" button on the barrel of this lens. What's it for? I have sort of figured out that, if I engage the lock, I can't change the zoom and perhaps not change the focus if I'm using manual focus. What I can't figure out is where I would want to use this feature.
Just so you know, there is a little user's guide inside the box the lens came in, but it's all in Japanese, which, alas, I do not read.
Will
Last edited by WMBP; 01-07-2007 at 10:32 PM.
Reason: originally linked to product page on sigma4less.com; changed link to tamron.com