New toy Tamron 28-300 Nikon D mount! Great lens so far!

[Thomas Smet]

Just received my new toy. Well not so new but newer than vintage glass. The Tamron 28-300 Nikon D mount super zoom.

I have always felt the Nikon D mounts could be a good compromise between the vintage lens users and the modern electronic lens users. Vintage is great but of course can be a little soft and flare easily when wide open. Ok if you want that look but they are sometimes hard to get to look modern when wide open. I have a couple of Canon FD lenses and older Nikon lenses and they are great when stopped down.

Modern electronic lenses of course can be a pain due to no aperture control. Great sharp lenses but harder to set and control and work with compared to vintage lenses. I am too afraid to even try them with a more expensive adapter that may have crude aperture control.

This is where I thought maybe the Nikon D mount would be a good option. I haven't heard a lot of people trying these lenses so I finally thought I would one a shot. Didn't want to spend too much since this was an experiment but thought a good zoom might be a nice option.

I picked a zoom because I finally broke down and bought the Lumix 14-140 lens. Nice lens but even stopping the lens down cause the aperture to change while zooming. It shouldn't change since it is at f8 for example but it does. I also felt 140mm isn't the greatest reach either and perhaps I could fill that gap. So I bought the Tamron 28-300 hoping it would be a good zoom while shooting in those rare moments I need it. The extra reach is there and I was hoping the brightness wouldn't flicker during zooming. Yeah 28mm isn't super wide but I think in the situations where I would need a 300mm reach the 28mm will be just fine. Wide enough to still get a lot of stuff in the shot. Personally I would have loved it it this was 17mm on the wide end. Since I mostly shoot with the 20mm pancake when I want to go wide some of Tamron's 17mm wide zooms would be more than enough for me.

The Nikon D mount is great because they are somewhat modern lenses but they still have an aperture ring. Something I believe is almost impossible to find on a lens built in the 21st century.

I now have the lens and honestly it is a rather nice lens. I thought it would be huge but it doesn't seem all that much larger than the Lumix 14-140. Focus is full manual with stops although a very short range to adjust focus. Very sensitive but finally something that should work great with a follow focus. Zoom seems pretty smooth so far and best of all it seems to hold brightness during zooming. Well as long as you stop it down to f8 or f5.6 that is. The lens is my super 1 minute quick test seems to be parfocal. I can zoom in, focus and it will keep focus as I zoom out and back in again. I will have to test this a bit better very soon along with the quality. If things go well I may be buying more Nikon D mount glass very soon. I hope to post more updates and samples very soon.

 

[mcbob]

FWIW Nikon also makes a 18-300/3.5-5.6 in G mount... needs one of the adapters with aperture, but it might work. I was itching to try one with the mythical MFT Speedbooster someday.

 

[Thomas Smet]

Well it may not be a perfect parfocal. Seems to hold focus much better than Lumix lenses and it will hold focus at 300mm but it does shift a bit back and forth while zooming. Still lightyears better than my Lumix lenses but no where near a great video lens.

It is dark here now so I can't really shoot anything interesting. I have no cats here so I will have to wait until tomorrow or the weekend to shoot some good stuff. What little I quickly did at ISO1600 looked very sharp. Aperture does seem to hold steady during the entire zoom. That is as long as you set it to f8. It will change of course from f3.5 to f6.3 if you have it set lower. Outdoors and in decent light however it should give a solid brightness through the zoom.

Focus is a nightmare on this thing since it has such a small range to turn focus. A tiny nudge changes focus a lot. It doesn't stick so thats good but it takes an insane tiny amount of movement to set focus. My follow focus helps a lot but it is still a small small amount of movement to focus. At f5.6 focus only shifts slightly during the zoom range but locks back in at 300mm. At f3.5 it shifts a lot more which may be partially due to the aperture changing when it is opened up all the way. Setting focus at 300mm will not have perfect focus when zoomed out to 28mm. It will be slightly off but marks can be set on my follow focus to pretty much lock in what to set for the different ranges. Something impossible with Lumix.

The lens is of course dark at f3.5 to f6.3. I knew that going in. There is however a Tamron lens like this at f2.8. Very limited zoom range but I may actually consider getting it now. The nice thing about these as since they are Nikon I believe the Speed Booster should work well. That could turn my new zoom into a f2.5 to f4.5 and the other lens I am thinking of getting into a f2.

Overall so far I like this lens so much more than the Lumix 14-140. Yeah she is dark and I do miss some of the auto controls at times but it is sharp, looks great, can hold aperture when closed down a bit and holds focus much better during zooming. Cannot wait to try it outdoors to shoot some nature which is why I bought it.

 

[Thomas Smet]

FWIW Nikon also makes a 18-300/3.5-5.6 in G mount... needs one of the adapters with aperture, but it might work. I was itching to try one with the mythical MFT Speedbooster someday.

That is why I went with the D mount. Wasn't too crazy about the special adapters. I may eventually go that way since they have an awesome 17-50 f2.8 lens I am dying to try. Really thinking of getting the Tamron D mount 28-105 f2.8 however. It is gargantuan but could be a great lens with a limited zoom range. 28-105 is actually a pretty cool range to work with and slightly more range than the Lumix 35-100 f2.8 for a fraction of the cost. I'm really dying to try some of the primes with the Nikon D mount. May pick up a 50mm dirt cheap as well. Should beat the pants off my Canon FD 50mm.

 

[Thomas Smet]

One other interesting detail is the lens sort of has a clickless aperture. Well yes and no. If you hold down the button you can actually move the aperture freely. There is a tiny groove in there somewhere where it will sort of snap into place but you can freely move in between the f stop grooves. First lens I bought that could do that. It is a good thing because the notches for f stops are in whole f stop ranges. It works but it equals a pretty large jump when you may only need a subtle change. Hey at least it has an aperture ring.

 

[Thomas Smet]

I will say focus is a bit of a pain with this lens. The very short focus throw is ver annoying. Still beats a focus by wire lens but I really wish they would have put more focus range on this sucker. Focus is slightly off from 300mm to 28mm. I guess this means it isn't true parfocal. It is close but not close enough and the focus just needs to be nudged a tiny bit to stay in focus during the entire zoom range. Wondering if my cheap Fotodiox Nikon adapter may have something to do with this since I recall these having issue with infinity focus. Could a better adapter help or is this to be expected from this kind of lens?

Constant brightness aperture when stopped down to f5.6 or f8 is almost perfect. Even if I let it adjust from f3.5 to f6.3 during the zoom it is perfectly smooth and gradually gets a bit darker as I zoom. No sudden brightness shifts or flickers. Just a perfect clickless brightness change. In fact outside of being darker I'm kind of fine to let it go from f3.5 to f6.3 during the zoom since it looks so smooth and clean. For this alone I could consider getting rid of my Lumix 14-140. Of course focus is a pain so I think I will keep the Lumix as a walk around vacation lens. Still have not had a chance to get outside after work to shoot some good stuff. Hopefully this weekend I can get outside and shoot some stuff to post.