Tamron 70210mm f/4 Di VC USD
Tamron’s latest telezoom offers fine optics at an affordable price, and fills an interesting gap in the market. Andy Westlake finds out more
andy Westlake tries out Tamron’s latest and affordable telezoom
For most photographers, a telephoto zoom is one of the first lenses they’ll buy after the kit zoom that came with their DSLR. When it comes to upgrading, the choice has generally been limited to mid-range 70-300mm f/4-5.6 lenses, unless you’re prepared to spend a four-figure sum on a 70-200mm f/4 or f/2.8. The only exception is Canon’s venerable £600 EF 70-200mm f/4 L USM, but this lacks image stabilisation (and the IS version is double the price).
Tamron has spotted this gap in the market, and moved to fill it with the new 70-210mm f/4 Di VC USD, which is available for Canon and Nikon DSLRs. It’s designed for full-frame, but also works on APS- C/DX cameras, giving a 105-315mm- equivalent zoom range. While not part of the firm’s premium SP range, it still includes a slew of attractive features, yet has been launched at a keen price of £699.
Features
In essence, the 70-210mm f/4 Di VC USD is like a scaled- down version of Tamron’s excellent SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2. It uses an internal-zoom, internal-focus design, meaning the length and therefore balance of the lens never changes. An ultrasonic- drive autofocus motor enables full-time manual focus, while the optical image stabilisation (or ‘vibration compensation’) promises four stops of benefit.
Examining the optical construction, it’s clear that the 20- element, 14- group formula is closely related to its big brother’s 23- element, 17- group design. This f/4 lens uses fewer special elements, though, with three lowdispersion (LD) glass elements to minimise chromatic aberration. But that’s only to be expected – smaller-aperture designs require less complex corrections.
With a minimum focus distance of 0.95m, the lens is capable of a very respectable 0.32x magnification for close-ups. The aperture diaphragm uses nine curved blades to
‘ The lens employs moistureresistant construction’
give an almost perfectly circular shape for attractive bokeh, and stops all the way down to f/32. Filter users will find a 67mm thread around the front element, and a petal-type hood is included in the box.
For extra reach, the 70-210mm can be paired up with Tamron’s 1.4x and 2x teleconverters, giving 100-300mm f/5.6 and 140- 420mm f/8 combinations, respectively, for £450 and £500. Just bear in mind that only recent high- end cameras are likely to focus satisfactorily with the latter. The lens is also compatible with Tamron’s Tap-in Console, which allows detailed autofocus fine-tuning and enables future firmware updates.
Build and handling
As befits its mid-range status, the 70-210mm is constructed from high- quality plastics. At 176.5mm long and 76mm in diameter, it’s pretty much exactly the same size as Canon and Nikon’s 70-200mm f/4 designs, while its 859g weight is near-identical to the Nikon, but some 100g more than the Canon. This means it’s rather larger than an average 70-300mm f/4-5.6, but considerably more manageable than a 70-200mm f/2.8, which would typically weigh in at 1.5kg.
The barrel employs moisture-resistant construction, including a rubber seal around the mount that compresses against the camera body to stop rain getting inside. You’ll find the usual set of controls, with large zoom and manual-focus rings joined by switches on the side to control the autofocus and image stabilisation. It doesn’t come with a tripod foot, but it doesn’t really need one. Tamron offers one as an optional extra, which even has an Arca Swiss- compatible tripod plate built-in, but at £109 I’d probably give it a miss.
Unlike conventional 70-200mm f/4 lenses, the zoom ring is positioned right at the front of the barrel, with the manual-focus ring closer to the camera. I didn’t like this design very much: the centre of gravity is positioned towards the centre of the barrel, so the focus ring naturally nestles into your hand. As a result, I often found myself inadvertently refocusing when I really wanted to zoom. What’s more, the zoom ring becomes obstructed and impossible to turn when the lens hood is reversed.
While a lens this size feels naturally more at home on larger cameras, the fact that you naturally support its weight with your left hand means it handles satisfactorily on smaller bodies, too. I used it on the minuscule Canon EOS M50 via the Canon EF- EOS M adapter and found it worked surprisingly well.
Autofocus
With its ring-type ultrasonic motor, the 70-210mm f/4 goes about the business of autofocusing in a quiet and unobtrusive fashion. In general it’s accurate, too, although of course you have to be aware of the very limited depth of field, especially at longer focal lengths. It’s crucial to position the camera’s focus point in exactly the right place in the frame.
On the EOS 5DS R test body, however, I found that if the lens started off obviously out of focus, it was prone to hunting, overshooting and ultimately failing to find the mark. This isn’t
entirely unusual for telephoto zooms on DSLRs, but could result in some missed shots. If outright AF speed and reliability is crucial to you, however, you’ll probably be better off with the camera manufacturers’ equivalents.
Performance
Looking at our Image Engineering MTF tests conducted on the 50MP full-frame Canon EOS 5DS R, you might predict the 70-210mm to be a patchy performer: sharp in the centre but poor in the corners. However, in the real world, things aren’t that bad. At least in part, those low measurements reflect curvature of field, which means the corners are slightly out of focus when shooting a flat test chart. This effect tends to be less problematic with real-world images, where the corners of the frame will often fall outside of the depth of field anyway. It’s also far less of a problem on cameras with the smaller APS- C sensor, where a £600 lens is more likely to be found.
In reality, the lens is a fine performer. It’s exceptionally sharp in the centre of the frame, and this zone of sharpness extends right across the APS- C sensor when shooting at f/4, and a decent way towards the edges of full-frame. Distortion is kept very low, and while vignetting is visible at f/4, it’s rarely objectionable, and gone by f/5.6. Chromatic aberration is effectively suppressed: you’ll see a little colour fringing towards the corners in JPEGs from Canon cameras, but most Nikon DSLRs will correct it automatically, and it’s a simple one- click fix in raw processing. As a result, images look clean directly out of the camera.
Tamron’s image stabilisation is pretty effective, kicking in on a half-press of the shutter button to give a rock-steady viewfinder image. It was able to shoot at shutter speeds as low as 1/20sec at 70mm, or 1/60sec at 210mm, and still get sharp results more than half the time. This counts as a gain of about three stops compared to shooting with VC turned off.