Glad we have choice with the 3rd party lenses, and glad we have Sigma, Tamron etc to help force and move along some of the development from Nikon. Now, if only Nikon could speed up AF-S into their 50/85mm f1.8 lenses.
If this is priced well, and comes close to the Nikkor in performance, this could be a great alternative. I expect it might even exceed the Nikkor.
Headline features:
Vibration Reduction - 4 stops
Ultrasonic Silent Drive
Extra Low Dispersion and Low Dispersion Elements
Full time manual focus override
BBAR (Broad-Band Anti Reflection) multilayer coatings (like Nikons Nano coating)
Seems to be a promising lens but has to be very cheap to compete with Nikon 70-300 VR that's a decent lens with good performance. Interesting this new Ultrasonic Silent Drive... If Tamron improves it's AF speed and the build quality can become an important player on this market. The glass of some lenses is really great (17-50 or 90 macro for instance).
I have both those lenses and can say they are excellent. The Tamron 70-200 shows what Tamron can do also but that lens is severely let down with less than average auto focus.
If the new autoficus USD motor is good, this will really change the market.
The most interesting thing about this release is that Tamron has finally produced a ultrasonic motor. If it performs as well as Sigmas (exept teh focus issues) then the 17-50/2.8 VC, 70-200/2.8 and 90/2.8 would be an awesome combo with the USD. Add VC to the 70-200 too.
Tamron was late to the stabilization party, but most folks agree that their VC implementation is very good to excellent. Hopefully their entry in the ring type focus motor arena will be similar.
Now if Tamron would do hard launches instead of paper ones. If it's like the 60mm f2 Macro, you probably won't be able to buy this lens for three to six months from the announcement. At least the Nikon version is coming first.
Gustaf Lindber wrote:
The most interesting thing about this release is that Tamron has finally produced a ultrasonic motor. If it performs as well as Sigmas (exept teh focus issues) then the 17-50/2.8 VC, 70-200/2.8 and 90/2.8 would be an awesome combo with the USD. Add VC to the 70-200 too.
I agree. My only concern is that they'll charge top dollar for it now. And if they raise prices, Sigma and more importantly Nikon, could follow suit.
I really hope not -- we need *some* brands on the bottom!
My Tamron collection is the 28-75mm and 28-300mm. Both are optically awesome and the vibration control is the best I've used.
