Tamron 70-300mm f/4.56.3 Di III RXD

£699/$999 Tamron has reinvented the 70-300mm budget tele genre for full-frame mirrorless

Originally developed for Sony E-mount mirrorless cameras, this Tamron lens is now available in a Nikon Z-mount option. The biggest difference between the two is the price, the Z-mount edition is very much more expensive.

Plus points include a tough, lightweight construction based on an aluminium-magnesium alloy barrel and plentiful weather seals. Autofocus is fast and precise, thanks to a linear stepping motor. A minus point is that the lens doesn’t feature optical image stabilization. You could argue that the in-body stabilizers of Nikon FX mirrorless cameras should suffice, but optical stabilization is often featured in the telephoto lenses, as it tends to be more effective. And if you shoot a Nikon DX Z system camera, you end up with no image stabilization at all. Handling feels pretty good overall but there are no switches or buttons on the lens so, for example, you need to resort to in-camera menus if you want to swap between autofocus and manual focus. But the electronically coupled focus ring operates with smooth precision and enables manual override of autofocus.

Performance

Autofocus proved fast and consistently accurate, and image quality is mostly impressive. Sharpness is excellent in the central region of the image, through the entire zoom range even with wideopen shots. But sharpness is lacklustre towards the edges and corners of the image frame at all focal lengths. Pincushion distortion and colour fringing can also be noticeable at longer focal lengths, without in-camera corrections.