Forgot Password
Pentax Camera Forums Home
 
Log in or register to remove ads.

Third-Party Pentax Lenses - Reviews and Database » Tamron Lenses » Zoom Lenses
Tamron LD 75-300mm F4-5.6 Review RSS Feed

Tamron LD 75-300mm F4-5.6

Sharpness 
 7.3
Aberrations 
 6.0
Bokeh 
 7.7
Handling 
 7.7
Value 
 8.0
Reviews Views Date of last review
11 42,353 Sun August 7, 2016
spacer
Recommended By Average Price Average User Rating
82% of reviewers $80.38 7.70
Tamron LD 75-300mm F4-5.6

Tamron LD 75-300mm F4-5.6
supersize
Tamron LD 75-300mm F4-5.6
supersize

Description:
Model: 672D - Made for conventional/film; compatible with Digital.

Specs:
Construction (Groups/Elements): 9/13
Angle of View: 33°-8°
Type of Zooming: Rotation
Diaphragm Blades: 9
Minimum Aperture: 32/45
Minimum Focus Distance: 59.0in. (1.5m)
Macro Magnification Ratio: 1:3.9
Filter Diameter: ø62
Weight: 15.3oz. (435gm)
Diameter x Length: ø3.0 x 4.7in. (ø76.6 x 118.7mm)
Autofocus: Screwdrive
Price History:



Add Review of Tamron LD 75-300mm F4-5.6
Author:
Sort Reviews by: Date | Author | Rating | Recommendation | Likes (Descending) Showing Reviews 1-11 of 11
Junior Member

Registered: March, 2014
Posts: 38
Review Date: August 7, 2016 Recommended | Price: $89.00 | Rating: 8 

 
Pros: Sharp, cheap and useful
Cons: plasticky in feel
Sharpness: 8    Aberrations: 7    Bokeh: 8    Handling: 8    Value: 9    Camera Used: Pentax K10, Pentax K-S1, K3   

My copy is more than adequately sharp. At f11 to f16, where you're going to use it most, it's excellent. Fine at f8, and f22, too!

Best in-the-bag travel tele-zoom I own. Now, granted, I don't use teles that much, being semi-wide to semi-tele most of the time. My operative lens on my K3 is a Sigma 24-60, and I don't shoot much out of that range except when I'm travelling.

The Tamron 75-300 has gotten shots for me when nothing else would do. It's very disadvantages (plastic build, light weight, and so forth) work as an advantage when you are travelling by car. My copy as mentioned above, is very sharp at f11, so I try to use it there as much as possible. Outdoors it's not usually a problem, because at ASA 400 and 1/500 of a second, f11 is usually spot on in exposure, or close enough you can draw out all necessary info on a jpeg. At 1/500 you are usually okay to handhold as well, especially with Pentax lens stabilization. If not, the lens is light, and turn off the car and use the door as a support and you're fine with shutter speeds down to 1/125th. If you are not sure, well, a tripod will solve all of the problems.

If you find one, pick it up. It's cheap, works great, and is small and light so doesn't take up much room.

Yeah, the lens isn't going to win a beauty contest, but here's a couple of shots to prove it's worth. Both taken with the Pentax K10, and handheld at f11, and whatever. Oh by the way, use the lenshood. It solves a lot of problems, and goes on reverse for storage very nicely.

Alberta, Icefield Parkway, at 270mm and f11.



Carrier Native fisherman at Telkwa, British Columbia about to get a fish for me!

   
Senior Member

Registered: July, 2014
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 123
Review Date: February 11, 2015 Not Recommended | Price: $50.00 | Rating: 5 

 
Pros: Cheap, Good Reach
Cons: Soft, Abberations Like Crazy, Build Quality
Sharpness: 7    Aberrations: 4    Bokeh: 7    Handling: 7    Value: 7    Camera Used: Pentax K5II   

This was the second lens I bought for my Pentax, the first being a 50mm f/1.7 manual lens. The sharpness on this lens can be good IN THE RIGHT circumstance. Any high contrast areas and you will be editing out a lot of chromatic aberration. You know what I love about this lens though? F/45! I used f/45 to stop down the sun during an eclipse. Not recommended but I did. I didn't even know that small of an aperture came on these lenses.

Anyway. Would I recommend it to a friend? Hell no. BECAUSE. I would recommend my friend save their 50-100 dollars and buy something at least decent. I have since made an investment into a Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8, and while that is a 2 to 10 situation, even a Pentax 55-300 or a sigma 70-300 will be better than this lens.

You get what you pay for.
   
Junior Member

Registered: November, 2009
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 42
Review Date: June 23, 2014 Recommended | Price: $40.00 | Rating: 8 

 
Pros: Lightweight. Decent quality for low price
Cons: A bit soft above 200mm's
Sharpness: 7    Aberrations: 7    Bokeh: 8    Handling: 8    Value: 8    Camera Used: Nikon film bodies   

You get your money's worth. Here is a set of snaps made with it,

https://www.flickr.com/photos/38463255@N00/sets/72157607255668110/with/2863413388/

Kiron Kid
   
New Member

Registered: January, 2007
Location: Portland Oregon USA
Posts: 7
Review Date: April 5, 2011 Recommended | Price: None indicated | Rating: N/A 

 
Pros: N/A
Cons: N/A

The photo here is for the tele-macro version. As there is a different thread for that variant, what is going on? Was there indeed ever a non macro version? I suspect that the reviews here properly belong in the other listing, and it's odd how the perceived quality varies so much between what would seem to be identical models?
   
Veteran Member

Registered: April, 2007
Location: Gainesville
Posts: 347
Review Date: December 18, 2010 Recommended | Price: $110.00 | Rating: 9 

 
Pros: Good Zoom Range, Cheap
Cons: Not the Greatest IQ, Definitely Not a Macro Lens, A Little Slow

This lens was my first purchase outside of the kit lens for my K100D. I went to the Rolex 24 Hours race in Daytona and tried to shoot cars from a 50 meters and found I needed a lot more reach. Since this was the cheapest lens I found, I went for it (not knowing how much of an investment lenses actually are). I was also hoping to be able to do macro photography with it because it had said macro (also, not knowing to check the magnification on the lens). In the end, I am satisfied with this lens as it is good for situations where you need the reach. I recently used it for candid street shots for a photo journalism assignment and it did the job well.

Pros:

Cheap:
For $100, you'd be troubled to find a lens this good. It might be slow and it's autofocus might hunt a bit, but in the end, it is a steal.

Good Zoom Range:
75-300mm is a good lens range for most applications. It means if your are shooting an event (such as a race), you can pretty much leave this lens on the camera and be able to capture 90% of your shots. 300mm is pretty long (and equivalent to 450mm on any Pentax) so being able to find our target at 75mm and zoom in to 300mm makes shooting much easier.


Cons:

Not the Greatest IQ:
This is barely an issue. There is some decent distortion due to the zoom range and I'm sure pixel peepers will find more wrong with it, but I have not seen anything that ruined a shot. It is not the sharpest lens, I would compare it to the kit lens as far as IQ goes. It works to get you the range, but if you are looking for professional grade, make your eyeballs bleed sharp, this is not the lens. It is still completely usable and I have made prints from this lens that turned out well.

Not a Macro Lens:
I was really disappointed when I realized this after getting the lens. I thought I'd be able to do real macro shots, but that is not the case at all. I believe the kit lens has more magnification than this lens. Check to see that this lens can do what you are looking for, because the "Macro" labeling is rather misleading.

Slow:
This lens has a somewhat small maximum aperture that can make the lens unusable in low light without boosting ISO or slowing shutterspeed. Since it is a longer lens, it is important to have a pretty high shutterspeed so you don't get shaky images. For the price though, it is hard to beat. Most f/2.8 lenses go for nearly 10x the price of this lens, so for the savings, I can deal with the slower speed.


Overall this lens is great for any beginners looking for the reach, but it will not do for a professional looking for a lens that will work in any situation.
   
Banned

Registered: June, 2010
Posts: 190

1 user found this helpful
Review Date: December 6, 2010 Not Recommended | Price: $80.00 | Rating: 7 

 
Pros: Reasonable size for its capabilities, Smooth zooming, Cheap lens compared to others
Cons: A bit soft at 300mm, slow on focusing on main subject, noisy,

I bought this lens used, in order to see if I really need a longer lens. Indeed I needed a longer lens, however many times I was disappointed with this lens.
The size it is pretty reasonable and not that heavy compared to other similar lenses. It can be used at Auto Focus and also Manual. Its zoom ring it is a pretty smooth.
However, is a bit soft on the 300mm and at low aperture (f4) I need to go down to 270mm and f6-9, in order to get some images to be sharp. It took me about 2 weeks to understand this, as initially I thought I had a problem with my skills, but then I realized that the setting used for this particular lens should be chosen with care.
In general when used at auto focus is a bit annoying as it s a bit slow to focus on the main subject, especially when this is moving!
Additionally when you are Auto Focusing, be sure that you are not next to a child sleeping, as it is very loud! However its biggest weakness is when you are photographing a dark subject onto a white background. A purple line comes around the subject when you zoom into the picture taken.

In general I would recommend this to users that want an initial long zoom lens to play around. Would not recommend it brand new, and also would not recommend spending too much on this lens! I am sure you would get better quality lenses out there – if you want to spend more money of course – but for considering a used reasonable priced lens, this could be a good choice for you.

Personally I am just looking forward when I save some money and understand a bit more in photography principles to just sell this lens and buy another one… Definitely it will not stay with me for many years…
   
New Member

Registered: August, 2010
Location: Boise, Idaho
Posts: 9
Review Date: September 2, 2010 Recommended | Price: $125.00 | Rating: 9 

 
Pros: good photo quality, inexpensive, reasonable size
Cons: signifigant green fringing in heavy sunlight.

I got this lens for $125 off of b&h. for the price, this lens is unbelievable. the only problem i have with it is when you take pictures in broad sunlight, there is some really bad fringing.....don't know if that's a user error or if i have a faulty one or if that's just normal...?
i would definitely recommend this to a friend. it is a huge deal for the money.
   
New Member

Registered: February, 2009
Posts: 15
Review Date: March 30, 2010 Recommended | Price: $20.00 | Rating: 8 

 
Pros: Decent IQ for minimal cost
Cons: A bit soft on the telephoto end

Someone on eBay didn't know how to spell Tamron correctly so no one bid against me! I got some great images in Alaska with it on my *ist DL. It also works quite well with my K2000. This goes for about $125.00 new and is a decent performer. Stopping down to f/8 or smaller improves IQ.

This would be good for someone getting started with telephoto. It would be an inexpensive but decent step up from a telephoto (50-200mm) kit lens.
   
Loyal Site Supporter

Registered: January, 2008
Location: Paris, TN
Posts: 3,349

1 user found this helpful
Review Date: December 25, 2009 Recommended | Price: $129.00 | Rating: 8 

 
Pros: Excellent value as a new or used tele zoom lens, kit-lens-quality
Cons: IQ above 200mm soft below f8

This full-frame 75-300 macro zoom is often overlooked as it doesn't carry the Di label, but in my experience it's a far better choice than the Tamron 70-300 LD and generally at least the equal of the Tamron 70-300 LD Di and similar Sigma equivalents. It's still cataloged by Tamron along side the Di-rated Mdl A17.

I recently had the opportunity to do head-to-head comparisons with two Tamron 70-300 LD's, the Super Takumar 300/4, a Tamron 300/5.6, two DA 50-200's and three other 200mm primes. My copy of this lens matched or beat any of the other lenses in all practical situations including CA and PF. When present, PF cleaned up easily with simple post processing techniques.

Images and details of the Pentax 300/4 comparison can be seen here.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/60448-tamro...-part-1-a.html

None of the economy 7x-300's match my Tamron SP 300/2.8 or what I've seen of DA 55-300 results but for a consumer quality long tele zoom for less than $150 I can't fault this lens. With used versions regularly available for less than $75 I can easily recommend this lens as a kit-lens-quality long zoom that's easy to travel with and inexpensive enough to risk in hazardous places. If I lost this one I'd certainly plan to replace it.

I'd have rated this lens a 9 but for the availability of the DA 55-300 as a reasonable alternative at current prices.

Listed as Discontinued in 2005 but NIB stock is still seen in mid-2011.

H2
   
Loyal Site Supporter

Registered: January, 2008
Location: Paris, TN
Posts: 3,349
Review Date: December 25, 2009 Recommended | Price: None indicated | Rating: 8 

 
Pros:
Cons:

Moved to AF 75-300 Mdl 676 review. Originally entered here by mistake.
   
Senior Member

Registered: February, 2009
Location: SLovakia
Posts: 141

1 user found this helpful
Review Date: September 3, 2009 Recommended | Price: None indicated | Rating: 7 

 
Pros: Lightweight, good optical quality, rather good in direct sunlight, 9 aperture blades
Cons: not so sharp at 200-300mm range wide open

This lens is not designed for professional use. I do not recommend
to take pictures wide open at 200-300mm zoom setting because it is not
sharp enough. But when closed to f14 it is acceptable.
Direct sunlight performance is very good.
But new Pentax 55-300/4-5.6 ED is much better.
Add Review of Tamron LD 75-300mm F4-5.6



All times are GMT -7. The time now is 08:48 AM. | See also: NikonForums.com, CanonForums.com part of our network of photo forums!
  • Red (Default)
  • Green
  • Gray
  • Dark
  • Dark Yellow
  • Dark Blue
  • Old Red
  • Old Green
  • Old Gray
  • Dial-Up Style
Hello! It's great to see you back on the forum! Have you considered joining the community?
register
Creating a FREE ACCOUNT takes under a minute, removes ads, and lets you post! [Dismiss]
Top