TAMRON - 16-300 mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Nikon F Cameras - Black - B016N

Product Information

That means the maximum aperture, or maximum amount of light that passes through the lens to the sensor, reduces as you zoom in. At 300mm, for example, this lens’s maximum aperture of f/6.3 lets in around 1.5 stops’ less light than at 16mm f/3.5. The maximum aperture ultimately has an impact on the shutter speeds you can use for an accurate exposure, so if you’re planning to shoot sports or wildlife, for example, where long focal lengths and fast shutter speeds are essential, then you’re going to need very good light to use this lens. That said, the 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro does feature Tamron’s lens-based Vibration Compensation (VC) image stabilization technology, which enables the use of slower shutter speeds at the telephoto end of the zoom without images suffering from the effects of camera shake.

The smaller lens on top is the Tamron 16-300mm. And the giant lens below is the Tamron 150-600mm. Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the Tamron 150–600mm telephoto lens. However, it is big, bulky, and heavy. In this photo, you can see it is more than double the size of the 16-300 mm Tamron, and much, much harder to carry around and shoot handheld.

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the AF 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD lens, Tamron have employed an iris diaphragm with seven rounded blades, which has resulted in quite nice bokeh in our view. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we've included some 100% crops for your perusal. The Tamron focuses closer than most superzooms, down to 9cm (3.5 in) from the front of the lens. At 300mm focal length setting, it delivers a maximum magnification of 0.34x. Or to put that another way, it will fill the frame on APS-C format with a subject6cm (2.4 in) wide. This small rose wouldfit easily in the palm of your hand. There's no such cure for 'focus breathing' - the reduction in focal length at closer focusing distances. All internal focusing lenses do it to some extent, as it delivers good close-up capability without the attendant increase in physical lens length, but Tamron has been unusually greedy here (details in the review). Focus breathing is not often a problem, but if you need maximum focal length at close range, with subjects like small garden birds perhaps, then it canbe. The Final Word But there's a fairly long list of downsides too, with image quality at longer focal lengths being perhaps at the top. Sharpness is very high at the wide end when stopped down a little, right across the frame, and that's great for landscapes. At F8, high edge-to-edge sharpness is available up to 100mm or so, but then there's a notable downturn with the edges in particular taking a hit. From 200-300mm, edge sharpness is never very good, not helped by the plentiful levels of chromatic aberration present, but to be fair it stays crisp in the centre. It looks as if Tamron has prioritized central sharpness, on the basis that this is most likely where the main subject will be at longer settings - and as a very rough generalization, that's probably true.

This is a common feature in telephoto lenses, particularly those with a slow aperture. It helps minimize camera movement and shake while in motion. Manufacturers use different names for this feature; Image Stabilization (Canon), Vibration Reduction (Nikon), Optical Stabilizer (Sigma) and Vibration Compensation (Tamron).A fear of dust on imaging sensors was another massive plus point for bridge cameras, as they never had to expose their innards to the elements. Also, people generally liked the convenience, while swallowing the disadvantages of the bridge camera’s inevitably smaller sensor. Chromatic aberration (CA) is never far away, and most prominent at shortest and longest focal lengths. It's very noticeable here around the rear wheel. 16mm, 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO 100, on Canon 7D.