I´m fed up with Tamron

Lupti · Apr 27, 2009

Seriously. I won´t buy any Tamron lens anymore. I´ll stick to original Canon ones.

January I bought the Tamron 18-270mm VC. The first sample suffered from unsharpness in the left corner. I send it back and got a new one. This one was unsharp in the RIGHT corner!
This time I send it to Tamron. I send it to them at the middle of February.

Around 2 months later I got it back, after I called the service there. 2 months without this lens. I could have needed it in a holiday in this time. Good that I have other lenses.

I tested this lens. Was it repaired? NO! The unsharpness issue was fixed between 18-100mm, but any higher focal length settings showed still some unsharpness in the right corner. Oh and the lens wasn´t able to focus to infinity(not possible to take a picture from the other side of a lake).

So I send it back to the seller for refund(I got my money back then).

Seriously, Tamron seems to be unable to get their quality control right. I thought Sigma was bad there but Tamron is also bad.

--
You made a picture...fine!

Finch · Apr 27, 2009

Never used a tamron lens myself but I might hazard to guess that there is so much complexity in a lens that zooms from 18-270 that getting it right may not be that easy. Although selling a lens that's flawed isn't a good move I'm not sure it speaks badly of tamron. The compact Superzoom lenses are known to be a bit wonky and none of them are really great lenses, they are cheap and marketed towards people who hopefully won't be critical of image quality. Even canon's 18-200 isn't that great of a lens. If you can scale your zoom range needs down a bit to the 28-135 range I think you'll find the quality is much better regardless of brand.

I owned a Canon 75-300 and found it to be a constant letdown in terms of image quality.
--
-Finch

gdjoslin · Apr 27, 2009

I used Tamron service once on my 18-250. The zoom creep had got so bad I wanted something done about it. The went thru the lens cleaned it and got it back to me in about 2 1/2 weeks.

All in all I would have I have had better luck with Tamron's service than Canon's. I had to send my 70-300 is in twice, and it is still bad. Last time it took them about a month. Funny thing they never contacted me once. I called them, they repair guy told me that I had left my PL filter on the lens and it would be returned. I told him I did not own any filters for that lens, so how did a filter end up on it? Makes me wonder about there quality control.

--
Gary

http://joslin-family-photos.smugmug.com/

Yuri Klepach · Apr 27, 2009

I have sent my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 for softness on the left side (about 25% of the image). It took about 4 weeks for Tamron to repair the lens. It came back sharp from edge to edge and they cleaned the inside of the front element from dust.
I'm very satisfied w/Tamron's service. That's my experience.

Yuri K
--
http://www.ShutterShotPro.com
Canon 2OD
Sigma 1O-2O/24_f1.8/5O macro/7O-2OO AP0 macro
Tamron 17-5O
Canon 7O-3OO IS USM

G10Rebel · Apr 27, 2009

than you probably have known that a third party "18-270mm f/3.5-6.3" is a sure call that the lens is compromised

I have been using this Tamron and its a good lens for non critical photo sessions. Heck, I have been using it for official occasions, taking pictures of my office easter functions and office ladies makeover session. It has been serving its purpose right.

I coupled this lens with my EOS450D/XSi, shooting RAWs, and process the RAWs with DxO Optics Pro, boosted up the sharpness to +2 and no, I don't see soft corners.

So I compromise on the hardware but not on the software, more optimized that way for me

And if you are not gonna use another Tamron, than you are missing the chance to use the cheap but totally sharp 17-50mm and the cool wide angle 10-24mm

And if you don't want to use third party lens, than you are missing out the superb Tokina AT-X 116 11-16mm f2.8 and the looking good Sigma 10-20 f3.5

and not all Canon are good. Some are just the same as third parties. Cue to their 18-200mm and 10-22mm.

===
http://hdr.strivearth.com | canon fodder

007peter · Apr 27, 2009

I agree with G10Rebel's assessment: expecting IQ from "any" superzoom is simply unrealistic. You need to curb your expectation down to that of a point & shoot. If you really want IQ, avoid any lens exceeding 4x zoom ratio. Any superzoom with 7x - 15x zoom ratio is just crazy.

While I am not the biggest fan of tamron's AF motor, I am a big fan of tamron's IQ. If you compare Canon vs Tamron vs Sigma superzoom, you will probably find tamron has the best IQ of them all.

Good luck

G10Rebel said:
than you probably have known that a third party "18-270mm f/3.5-6.3"
is a sure call that the lens is compromised

I have been using this Tamron and its a good lens for non critical
photo sessions. Heck, I have been using it for official occasions,
taking pictures of my office easter functions and office ladies
makeover session. It has been serving its purpose right.

I coupled this lens with my EOS450D/XSi, shooting RAWs, and process
the RAWs with DxO Optics Pro, boosted up the sharpness to +2 and no,
I don't see soft corners.

So I compromise on the hardware but not on the software, more
optimized that way for me

And if you are not gonna use another Tamron, than you are missing the
chance to use the cheap but totally sharp 17-50mm and the cool wide
angle 10-24mm

And if you don't want to use third party lens, than you are missing
out the superb Tokina AT-X 116 11-16mm f2.8 and the looking good
Sigma 10-20 f3.5

and not all Canon are good. Some are just the same as third parties.
Cue to their 18-200mm and 10-22mm.

===
http://hdr.strivearth.com | canon fodder

Cartmel Veteran · Apr 28, 2009

007peter said:
While I am not the biggest fan of tamron's AF motor, I am a big fan
of tamron's IQ. If you compare Canon vs Tamron vs Sigma superzoom,
you will probably find tamron has the best IQ of them all.

I completely agree. I recently bought the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8. And while its focus motor isn't top notch (which isn't an issue for my usage) the optical qualities are frankly astonishing. It's is easily the best lens I've owned in terms of image quality.

Lupti · Apr 28, 2009

G10Rebel said:
than you probably have known that a third party "18-270mm f/3.5-6.3"
is a sure call that the lens is compromised

I have been using this Tamron and its a good lens for non critical
photo sessions. Heck, I have been using it for official occasions,
taking pictures of my office easter functions and office ladies
makeover session. It has been serving its purpose right.

I know that a superzoom don´t has the best IQ, however, I think I can see the difference between just unsharp pics due to it´s construction and unsharp pics due to a lens failure. The right side of the image was totally soft, the lef and the center were ok. This has nothing to do with "not so good superzoom IQ".

Tamron wasn´t able to fix this issue. I don´t need the 17-50mm, and for me the focussing speed of it is too slow.

G10Rebel said:
I coupled this lens with my EOS450D/XSi, shooting RAWs, and process the

RAWs with DxO Optics Pro, boosted up the sharpness to +2 and no, I don't see soft corners.

Um, you use lens softness(DXO don´t has a normal sharpening slider) with setting 2.0? I tried this and the results are tons of sharpening halos...

--
You made a picture...fine!

G10Rebel · Apr 28, 2009

Well, if it's a lemon, and you're sure of it, no excuse for you to put general blame Tamron and their entire lineups then. Even Canon has their lemon L lenses, several people here have returned their lenses SEVERAL TIMES to Canon and still get lemons.

Old adage of buying lens work here: try it in the shop if you are very concern about quality.

Lupti said:
Um, you use lens softness(DXO don´t has a normal sharpening slider)
with setting 2.0? I tried this and the results are tons of sharpening
halos...

I use the lates version of DxO and never seen any halos since I started boost Lens Softness (a very misleading name) to +2.0, surely much better than very much visible sharpening artefact of Nik Sharpener.

my internet is slow now. I will post a portrait using the lens at 270mm and DxO at Lens Softness +2 when it gets better.

===
http://hdr.strivearth.com | canon fodder

G10Rebel · Apr 28, 2009

EOS450D + Tamron 18-270mm Di-II VC + DxO Optics Pro Lens softness +2.0

No Halo! Even on the edges between focused portrait and the bokeh!

full image here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25167761@N00/3483091530/

while we're at it: C&C please

--
http://hdr.strivearth.com | canon fodder

gdjoslin · Apr 28, 2009

it Tamron had it two months, and did not fix it or replace the problem, Tamron ?Service is still at fault!!! They should have quicker turn around, and should have resolved the problem.

G10Rebel said:
Old adage of buying lens work here: try it in the shop if you are
very concern about quality.

Lupti said:

Um, you use lens softness(DXO don´t has a normal sharpening slider)
with setting 2.0? I tried this and the results are tons of sharpening
halos...

Click to expand...

I use the lates version of DxO and never seen any halos since I
started boost Lens Softness (a very misleading name) to +2.0, surely
much better than very much visible sharpening artefact of Nik
Sharpener.

my internet is slow now. I will post a portrait using the lens at
270mm and DxO at Lens Softness +2 when it gets better.

===
http://hdr.strivearth.com | canon fodder

--
Gary

http://joslin-family-photos.smugmug.com/

Lupti · Apr 28, 2009

gdjoslin said:
it Tamron had it two months, and did not fix it or replace the
problem, Tamron ?Service is still at fault!!! They should have
quicker turn around, and should have resolved the problem.

Yes, 2 months without a lens I payed 500 € for...that´s a joke. If their repair service is overwhelmed with work, they should improve their quality control.

I think I can blame Tamron for bad QC and service when !two! samples of these lens are lemons.

I don´t say that Canon is perfect but I never had problems with any of my Canon lenses. I owned several Sigma lenses and most of them had problems. I bought an 17-50mm 2 years ago and it ruined the AF of my 30D so the camera had to go to the service.

--
You made a picture...fine!

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I´m fed up with Tamron

Lupti

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Finch

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gdjoslin

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Yuri Klepach

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G10Rebel

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007peter

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Lupti

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