| Latest Review Posted | Tamron AF Aspherical LD [171D, 271D, 571D, 171A] 28-200mm F3.8-5.6
I bought this lens a few years ago when I had my K100D, and I used it almost exclusively. I had bought the K100D without a lens, and this was my first lens.
Being that it was my first DSLR, I didn't realize what some of the gripes I was dealing with were.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first:
For what it is, it's extremely heavy. It's subject to a lot of zoom creep, but fortunately it has a lock for 28mm. But it's too heavy to be a casual all-around shooter.
On my K100D, it read out as having a maximum aperture of 4, not 3.8, though it likely was opened all the way up. At any f/stop, the light this lens transmitted to the viewfinder was dim. It was fine in bright situations but once you went inside, it became a problem. I only realized how bad it was once I got my (admittedly also heavily flawed) FA 28-80 f3.5 . . . for only being 0.3 stops faster, that lens was brighter and . . .
It autofocused faster than the Tamron. The 28-200 would really hunt around, and though the manual focus ring was nicely damped, it seemed slow to focus.
However, in well-lit situations, it was capable of producing sharp images with good color reproduction. The copy I got had a cracked filter ring and the coating was wearing on the front element, but it produced great images. Other than that wear, the glass was clean and the thing was built like a TANK. Very sturdy and hardy.
If you're willing to work with its limitations, and you really want a zoom with THAT MUCH ran... |
