Tamron 28-300 VC A20 and A20NII -- what's the difference?

I'm considering picking up a Tamron 28-300 for my D700, and I see two versions for sale second hand, the A20 and the A20NII. Does anybody know what the difference is? I've been searching the web, but I'm coming up with nothing. Obviously the A20NII is newer. It costs $50-100 more where I live (Japan). Are the focus speed and optical quality different between the two versions? Do they both have internal motors? What about focus accuracy?

Any general comments on the Tamron 28-300 lenses are welcome, too. To be honest, I'm having trouble deciding whether I should get the Tamron or the Nikon version. I'm sure the Nikon is overall the better lens, but I think I would prefer the bokeh and maybe the VC of the Tamron. Definitely the size and price, too (the old A20 version costs just a little over a third of what I would pay for the Nikkor), though I wouldn't mind paying for the Nikkor if I thought it was a lot better.

The thing is, I have the 28-200G and enjoy that lens, but I often find myself wishing it had VR. The Tamron is fairly small, so I wouldn't mind if it was only really sharp up to 200-250mm.

Thanks!

Julie

Not familiar with the two versions, but there are plenty of posts comparing the Nikon version. Consider that and also consider resale value before deciding.

In my case, I had both the Tamron and Nikon version. I ended up keeping the Nikon and selling the Tamron for what little I could get for it.

My first long telephoto was the Tamron 28-300XR - predecessor of these lenses. Quality is okay in fantastic light, but I'm not a fan. The lack of sharpness if you pixel peep and subdued contrast/colours, along with slow focus and hunting in low light just aren't satisfying. I now have one on a D70 on permanent loan to my mother in law. The other, intended for my wife, now sits on my throw around camera - a D70s. (Actually I was using it to shoot my kids at their playgroup this morning - they're 1 and 3. Found it frustrating) . One of my first posts here was about the lack of sharpness of the lens.

For any serious photography my most used lenses are the 18-70dx and 70-300VR on a D90 body. It's night and day. With these lenses and a decent flash I get results that look like they could be part of a magazine.

If I had to take one lens and needed the reach it would still be the Tammy, but begrudgingly so. It is convenient for it's range but that's it. You better not need anything wider, and you better have excellent light. You can get great results but it's HARD work.

I do not know how much the newer Tamrons are improved over this superzoom.

--
Sammy.

My forum postings reflect my own opinions and not those of my employer. I'm not employed in the photo business.

AustinTed said:

Not familiar with the two versions, but there are plenty of posts comparing the Nikon version.

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I've read most of them, I think, including your comment that you sold the Tamron and kept the Nikon!

The problem is, the user reviews don't tell me what I want to hear, which is an overwhelming consensus that the lighter and cheaper Tamron is maybe not quite as sharp as the Nikkor, but they're really, really close, and the bokeh and stabilization are superior, resulting in overall better pictures. Or something like that!

Seriously, though, the reviews that I'm reading not just here but on other sites as well are so mixed that it's hard to get a clear idea of what the image quality is really like. The best thing would be if I could look at a bunch of samples, but I've never seen any images posted that were large enough to judge.

AustinTed said:

Consider that and also consider resale value before deciding.

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I don't generally sell my gear unless I can find someone locally who wants it, but it's a good point. Thanks for your comments.

Julie

Sammy Yousef said:

If I had to take one lens and needed the reach it would still be the Tammy, but begrudgingly so. It is convenient for it's range but that's it.

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Well, it sounds like you feel about your 28-300 the way I feel about my 28-200G. It's small and convenient, and parts of the range are excellent. I've taken some pictures with it that I like, but overall, it doesn't exactly wow me optically. But a lightweight superzoom is nice to have sometimes, and the Tamron VC versions at least have stabilization, which my Nikkor lacks.

Hmmm. Maybe I can test out a couple of copies at the local camera store and see for myself what the lens can do.

Thanks for taking the time!

Julie

If you can find it I had a post on Nikoncafe last year with a bunch of samples.

Summary of that was that the Nikon was vastly superior wide open at the edges of the frame. And I mean vastly.

At center frame wide open the Tamron was superior, but at that point I swapped the Nikon for a second sample that did much better and was comparable.

The Nikon seems to focus faster in low light where the Tamron hunted.

The Tamron seems to have less distortion.

The Nikon seems to have less CA

If it matters at one point I had to send the Tamron out for repair, since it stopped focussing when I was on vacation. It turned out that the contacts just needed to be cleaned. I was annoyed anyway, since I never had such an issue on any lens and hadn't used this one much.

Pick your poison. No secret here which one I favor.

You can also check out the DxOMark scores for these lenses which pretty much show what I already said.

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Lenses/Compare-Camera-Lenses/Compare-lenses/ (lens1) 323 (lens2) 212 (brand1) Nikkor (camera1) 441 (brand2) Tamron (camera2) 441

From the scores you might conclude that they are both terrible and you should just buy a 24-70mm. Hey, I'm here to help

I don't know how the new vc models compare, but I have had the older 28-300 xr version for six years, five as my primary lens. I have always been pleased with it and have several shots using it posted to my gallery here. Although I have broken up the zoom with two up-to-date lenses (vc, usd, etc.), I have not sold my superzoom and use it on occasion. The small size and light weight alone make it fun to use. It doesn't have the sharpness of my newer lenses but my newer lenses don't have the sharpness of pro lenses, either. Here is one from the old Tammy:





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http://www.flickr.com/photos/brev00

I'm not a member on Nikoncafe, but I have been considering signing up. If I do, I'll check out your post. If not, I'll take your word for it.

Julie

AustinTed said:

If you can find it I had a post on Nikoncafe last year with a bunch of samples.

Summary of that was that the Nikon was vastly superior wide open at the edges of the frame. And I mean vastly.

At center frame wide open the Tamron was superior, but at that point I swapped the Nikon for a second sample that did much better and was comparable.

The Nikon seems to focus faster in low light where the Tamron hunted.

The Tamron seems to have less distortion.

The Nikon seems to have less CA

If it matters at one point I had to send the Tamron out for repair, since it stopped focussing when I was on vacation. It turned out that the contacts just needed to be cleaned. I was annoyed anyway, since I never had such an issue on any lens and hadn't used this one much.

Pick your poison. No secret here which one I favor.

Click to expand...

AustinTed said:

You can also check out the DxOMark scores for these lenses which pretty much show what I already said.

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Lenses/Compare-Camera-Lenses/Compare-lenses/ (lens1) 323 (lens2) 212 (brand1) Nikkor (camera1) 441 (brand2) Tamron (camera2) 441

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Oops, I can't get the link to work. I didn't realize DxO had reviewed the Tamron. I'll go check it out, thanks.

AustinTed said:

From the scores you might conclude that they are both terrible and you should just buy a 24-70mm. Hey, I'm here to help

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You are helping. However, I probably won't be tempted by the call of the 24-70, to be honest. I shoot action, and I try to put my money more toward good telephoto lenses. I have the Tamron 28-75 and am very happy with that.

If I do decide against one of these superzooms, I might consider the 24-120/4, though, as it's got a pretty broad zoom range, and it has VR.

Julie

I haven't really looked into how the older versions compare to the newer stabilized ones, but your image looks pretty nice, and you make a good point about a lightweight superzoom being simply fun to use. This is important! I do enjoy using my 28-200G. I think the Nikon 28-300 is rather too large to be "fun." I often wish Nikon had just updated the 28-200 with VR and made it better optically, even if it meant a slight increase in size and weight.

Julie

Brev00 said:

I don't know how the new vc models compare, but I have had the older 28-300 xr version for six years, five as my primary lens. I have always been pleased with it and have several shots using it posted to my gallery here. Although I have broken up the zoom with two up-to-date lenses (vc, usd, etc.), I have not sold my superzoom and use it on occasion. The small size and light weight alone make it fun to use. It doesn't have the sharpness of my newer lenses but my newer lenses don't have the sharpness of pro lenses, either. Here is one from the old Tammy:

Click to expand...

The difference is most probably that the later version has a built-in motor to enable AF on lower-end bodies. I don't know whether VC was improved as well.

I would actually recommend the older version over the newer one: I had some AF reliability issues with my Tamron 17-50 2.8 "NII" which were similar to the ones posted above by another photographer (bad contacts?). It got fixed under warranty but reappeared once or twice. Not such issue reported with the screwdriven lens.

In terms of IQ, I think the Nikon and Tamron are quite close (don't have any but looked and considered both for my D700), and I would not pay 3x as much for the Nikkor.

For what the resale value concerns, I find that you usually lose much less, in absolute terms, with third party when buying new. When buying used, resale value is a non-issue.
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Equipment in profile...

noegd said:

The difference is most probably that the later version has a built-in motor to enable AF on lower-end bodies. I don't know whether VC was improved as well.

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That's what I assumed. I'd just like to know for sure, but strangely I can't find any info online. Maybe I need to search in Japanese, as the only place I've seen the two model names is here in Japan.

noegd said:

I would actually recommend the older version over the newer one: I had some AF reliability issues with my Tamron 17-50 2.8 "NII" which were similar to the ones posted above by another photographer (bad contacts?). It got fixed under warranty but reappeared once or twice. Not such issue reported with the screwdriven lens.

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I like the screw drive lenses and try to buy them where possible. The THWACK sound they make is very reassuring.

noegd said:

In terms of IQ, I think the Nikon and Tamron are quite close (don't have any but looked and considered both for my D700), and I would not pay 3x as much for the Nikkor.

For what the resale value concerns, I find that you usually lose much less, in absolute terms, with third party when buying new. When buying used, resale value is a non-issue.

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Yup. That's why I rarely buy new these days. I actually don't tend to sell my gear, but I might someday!

Thanks,

Julie

This is a pretty old thread, but I had to put my two bits in. The IP wanted to know about the Tamron A20 in Nikon Mount. This is a 28-300 lens with VC image stabilization and no aperture ring. It is for full frame and DX bodies. It works just like a G type AFS lens, only a lot cheaper than the Nikon equivalent, if there is one. There is no drive screw in the mount, so it must have an on board motor. Perhaps this is why it takes a larger 67mm filter than the 62mm found on the older non VC version. It works just fine on my D2x and D7000. Since my cameras are all DX, the lens works great and I never see the soft corners people complain about. Any softness at 300mm is probably due more to shaky hands at an effective 450mm focal length than any lens faults.

The main reason I buy any Tamron is that the color quality is very close to Nikon's, and I have had acceptable sharpness.

gotglasses said:

This is a pretty old thread,

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Better late than never.

gotglasses said:

but I had to put my two bits in. The IP wanted to know about the Tamron A20 in Nikon Mount. This is a 28-300 lens with VC image stabilization and no aperture ring. It is for full frame and DX bodies. It works just like a G type AFS lens, only a lot cheaper than the Nikon equivalent, if there is one. There is no drive screw in the mount, so it must have an on board motor. Perhaps this is why it takes a larger 67mm filter than the 62mm found on the older non VC version. It works just fine on my D2x and D7000. Since my cameras are all DX, the lens works great and I never see the soft corners people complain about. Any softness at 300mm is probably due more to shaky hands at an effective 450mm focal length than any lens faults.

The main reason I buy any Tamron is that the color quality is very close to Nikon's, and I have had acceptable sharpness.

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Thanks for the feedback.

After I started this thread, I did have a chance to do a head-to-head test of the Tamron and Nikon versions at my local camera shop. I found that the Nikon was sharper on the long end and had much faster AF, but I ended up with the Tamron, because it was wider on the wide end (more like 25-26mm?) and had better corner performance there at f8, plus the VC seemed more effective than the Nikon VR. I also thought the bokeh seemed a little more pleasing, though it's hard to do a thorough test of that in a camera shop.

I used the Tamron for a while, and though it's not the best lens in the world, it was terrific for dog walks. It was compact enough that I could stick it on my D700 and throw it in my purse, and I always had a "P&S" on hand. The VC was great in real-world use. I got sharp shots at 1/6" at the long end (not every single time, but much of the time) and even had a reasonably sharp one-second exposure at the wide end. The AF could have been faster, but I didn't find it as frustrating as I had feared. It wasn't super-sharp at the long end, but it was decent enough for anything other than wildlife shooting. It was really sharp at f/8 between around 50-100 mm, so I didn't feel like I was losing much, if anything, in terms of sharpness by walking around with this lens rather than a good prime.

I talk about the lens in the past tense because I was taking snapshots at a gardening show last year, when suddenly it just fell right off my camera, onto the asphalt. (I don't think this was due to any defect in the lens. Apparently it just happens sometimes.) The lens hasn't been the same since then. The corners are screamingly bad now, even stopped down. It's a pity, because I really did enjoy the lens. I've even considered buying a new copy, but I think I'm going to wait on it, because I've heard rumors of a new version coming out soon.

Julie

The correct answer in "NONE". See below from Tamron release

Notice of Classification Code Change for Nikon Mounts:


Since the introduction by Tamron of the first Nikon mount lens featuring an internal AF motor, the AF28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di VC (Model A20), all Nikon mount lenses with the internal AF motor had used the classification code “N II.” Lenses using a coupler system* without an internal AF motor were designated as “N.” Because future Nikon lenses will have the internal AF motor as a standard feature, Tamron has decided to simplify the designation and consolidate all Nikon mount lenses as “N,” eliminating the “N II” designation for future models.


This classification code change was made effective with the 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD (Model B008).


The “N” classification lenses with coupler systems are: SP AF200-500mm F/5-6.3 Di (Model A08); and SP AF180mm F/3.5 Di (Model B01).