Tamron SP 24-70mm Di VC USD Canon Mount AFA007C-700 (Model A007E)

I have been looking for a great lens to keep on my camera a majority of the time. I wanted this as my "kit" carry around lens. The jack-of-all-trades (close). My criteria was that it should be a midrange (between 16 and 80 mm or around this range in the mid-level), have weather sealing if possible, acceptable focus speed, and be a fast (2.8 aperture) lens. Above all of course the IQ (Image Quality) had to be great. Image Stabilization would be a big bonus because I love shooting in low light and am not a big strobe fan. IS (VC, VR, whatever) would allow me to shoot a few stops down if needed and stay within a reasonable ISO range without hauling a tripod or monopod where it was either forbidden or inconvenient. Enter the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 VC lens. All I can say is I just received it for the past weekend and so far I love it. Currently I tested it around the house, but most importantly I tested it out in the real world at an amusement park in the dark. I think the bokeh is good, the image quality is great, and the focusing is fantastic. I only missed one shot or so trying to focus in the dark with no assist on some smoke! It is very good and it is fast enough for me. I have not noticed the focus being slow at all. The Ultrasonic Silent Drive (USD) focus is good. And quiet. The VC works as advertised and I could take shots down to 1/10 or 1/4 second shutter speed and I shot on ISO 1600 in manual mode. I shoot RAW or RAW and JPEG. In order to test the VC: What I did was in a darker room at night, I switched the camera to manual mode and set it up so that my ISO was usually around 800 - 1600, Aperture is around 2.8 or so wide open, and then I played with the shutter speed usually around 1/8, 1/10 or so. If you depress the shutter half way to obtain focus, and move the camera back and forth ever so slightly while looking through the viewfinder, you should see VC in action. It looks like the image is slow or stuttering and occasionally freezes. This is VC working and grabbing the image. Works great in the real world testing. Sometimes the lens will click or you'll hear funny noises. Not loud or distracting. This is normal. This lens has vignetting, somewhat heavy wide open and across the focal length when wide. It has some distortion. None of this matters to me. Sometimes i actually like the look depending what I want to accomplish. The majority of the time I select lens correction in Lightroom 4.1 and select the lens make Tamron. The lens is recognized automatically at this point and the proper corrections are applied. Piece of cake! This review has no brick wall images. I don't feed my family through a web site. I don't pixel peep and make comparisons with this corner or that corner. Google this lens and look at these reviews if you wish to get technical. I just shoot real world pictures and decide myself if I like some equipment, and make my images available for others to view to help them decide if they might like the same lens by comparing some photos. YMMV. My images are posted for many reasons and I normally edit them from RAW using lightroom so they are modified in varying degrees but nothing that could not be duplicated within a few minutes. A link to my images taken with this lens can be found in the comment section. I was eyeballing the Nikon 24-70. I couldn't justify the price. Even this lens was expensive but this is the best option for my needs. The build quality on this is great. It is heavy but not overly so, like my Nikon 80-200 f/2.8 D. That lens is a metal boat anchor. The 24-70 Nikon doesn't even have 5 stars and it has a few bad reviews itself. I guess you'll get those reviews everywhere - either from a truly bad copy or I believe more so from some folks who don't know what they are doing. The $600 I save between my Tamron and a Nikon I can purchase another lens like the Nikon 85mm 1.8g or almost have enough for the Tokina 16-28 FX wide. I am an advanced amateur. I shoot a Nikon D700 and a Nikon D90. As of this review I have not tested this lens on my D90, and I consider this more of a FX lens for my D700. I am extremely pleased with the decision I made so far. I would not hesitate to take this lens and shoot anything important including weddings (even my own coming up) ;-) . Don't forget to check the comments section for a link to some photos I shot with this lens. -- UPDATE 2/26/2015 -- I'm still shooting with this lens, and it is still a favorite. I have taken thousands of pictures and have at least 700 plus online. I am still shooting with a Nikon D700 and I also now own a Nikon D810. Things I tend to notice as I have used it more (on all cameras): the autofocus is slightly slower than say a Nikon. But no where unusable. The lens is a little soft at wide open (2.8) but again not unusable, just a little soft which can be sharpened up easily in Lightroom or Photoshop, etc. Still working great after two years. I just had it to an indoor car show and the photos were stunningly sharp ... more than I even expected ... at f/4 and smaller on my new D810. Fantastic. I love this Tamron and have purchased two more: the Tamron 70-300 with VC (Sharp and stunning for such a "cheap" lens, and the VC again is remarkable. I also purchased the Tamron 150-600 for sports and wildlife. Beautiful. Again, VC pulls it's weight as I was shooting handheld at 600mm and 1/160 and the photos were acceptably sharp. What a fantastic lens. I would currently recommend any modern Tamron lens. I think the 70-200 VC and 15-30 VC are in my future for next year. I'll have the holy quintrinity (15-30, 24-70, 70-300, 70-200, 150-600) in Tamron. I also own Nikon, but I think value per dollar, Tamron and Sigma are big contenders to their big-brand counterparts and in a lot of ways beat them out in cost and sometimes quality.

I'll begin this review by saying that I am a new Nikon convert after shooting with Canons since the film days with an Elan IIe to my most recent 5D Mark I. I had used the Canon 24-70 Mark I since 2003 and loved it. But when I switched to a Nikon D600, I was in total sticker shock to see how much the Nikkor version cost. The only alternatives were either the Sigma or this Tamron. The Sigma won on pricing but the Tamron was newer and had Vibration Control, which I needed for videos. So naturally, this became the only choice. The Tamron 24-70 is a terrific value and it's incredibly sharp. The Nikkor 24-70 cost about $600 more and doesn't have image stabilization. To the Nikkor's benefit, I will say that it is marginally sharper at the long end and it is better built. So for those of us who don't make a living shooting outdoors in adverse conditions, the Tamron is a dream come true. I will note that the review I am writing here is based on a replacement lens. The first one I got had severe front focus. Playing with the AF micro-adjustments didn't really make a whole lot of difference. In fact, I've read that adjustments really work best at the focal distance you make the corrections at. In other words, if you adjust for front focus at 70mm, the lens will be great there but may be off at 24mm. So I returned the first unit and Amazon overnighted me a new one. KUDOS to Amazon for being the best vendor in the world when it comes to returns. I will keep making my purchases here based on my excellent customer service. The 2nd unit was of a later build and nailed the AF on the first try. I tend to shoot with center point AF and recompose as needed. However, the 2nd unit does exhibit some slight zoom ring play. But the lens has excellent AF, is sharp, and doesn't suffer from any decentering issues. So I am keeping this one. I have a 6 year warranty so I am not too concerned about issues down the line. So here's how I would sum up this lens: PROS: 1) The only 24-70 f2.8 lens to offer a terrific image stabilizer (good for 2-3 stops at the most...4 is really unrealistic) 2) Definitely sharper compared to my Canon 24-70 Mark I throughout the enter zoom length. It's super sharp from 24-35mm. Very good from 35-50mm. And good from 50-70mm 3) Fast and silent Ultrasonic AF that is barely slower than the Canon's 4) Incredible quiet image stabilizer unit when you half press the shutter release. Canon's tended to be louder. I hear it more on the canon 24-105 and the 70-200 f4. 5) Has a 6 year warranty 6) Nice neutral color rendition when shooting jpegs 7) Creamy bokeh with NO evidence of the "onion" phenomenon noted. . 8) Full Time Manual override when autofocusing 9) Very good flare resistance CONS: 1) A little soft on the 70mm end (but still better than the Canon Mark I) 2) Some QA issues based on the 2 samples I have received (despite being Made in Japan) 3) Not environmental sealed so be sure to not get water on it. 4) Rear most lens element actually is not sealed so zooming away from 24mm will "suction" in dust eventually. Make sure you ALWAYS remove the lens at 24mm where the rear element is seated most closely to the lens mount. 5) 70mm looks slightly less than 70mm. It looks a little like 60 or 65mm. I used to shoot at 70mm on the Canon so I noticed this right away. On the other hand, 24mm looks more like 23 or so which is nice for landscapes. 6) Contrast slightly low at wide open aperture. Sharpness and Contrast are amazing at f4 and above till you hit f16 where diffraction comes into play. In conclusion, I have no regrets with my purchase. I saved $600 vs the Nikkor and gained IS. I am a serious hobbyist and money IS indeed a consideration. Tamron priced it a bit high IMHO, but it's worth every penny when you see the end results. At, $999 or even 1099, they can sell many more of these babies. So until Nikon and Canon decided to not gouge the public, the Tamron 24-70 is the ONLY game in town. And it's a very decent option at that.

Very happy with the Tamron 24-70 Di VC lens so far. Much better perfomance than my Nikon 24-70 had. Let me give a little background on my experience with the Nikon lens: Used it on a D90 and D700 initially, with pretty decent results on the D700, but not so good on the D90. After upgrading the D90 to D7000, the lens still did not produce very good images on DX, but still worked fairly good on the D700. I figured it was just optimized for FX and was simply not going to work well on DX. I upgraded my D7000 to D7100 early this year, and had the same experience with this combo. I really wanted to use the new camera with it, so I sent the lens in to Nikon for adjustment, and to replace the filter thread at the end of the lens and ended up with a $612 repair bill from Nikon. That would be totally worth it if the lens was working better afterward. Unfortunately, performance was still not very good on the D7100. Kept it anyway, since it was working OK on the D700. Sold the D700 in August and bought a D810...lens problems were more evident on the new 36MP camera that I had not noticed before. Many images were slightly out of focus, and far left and right sides were not terribly sharp. To be fair, printed images looked fine if not enlarged much, but screen viewing showed the problems. Did a ton of testing and found that the lens required different AF fine-tune settings at different focal lengths. -8 at 35mm, -20 at 50mm, and -11 at 70mm. No wonder some shots were OK and others were soft. Both cameras showed similar variances in fine-tune values. And Nikon said that the lens was within specs? Wasn't too impressed by that... Finally sold the lens and bought this Tamron. First shot with the D810 at f2.8 was sharp, sharp, sharp, with no fine-tune. Tried it at all focal lengths with the same awesome result. Put it on the D7100 and was amazed at how good the shots looked. I could never get anything that good out of the Nikon without stopping down. The optics are super sharp and the stabilization makes a huge difference. Both cameras nail focus every time, and color and contrast is nearly equal to the old Nikon. The lens is not perfect, though. Distortion is higher at 24-30 mm, and also at 60-70mm. The lens vignettes more on full frame than the Nikon did, too. And the auto focus is not as fast. You get spoiled with the blazing fast focus that Nikon's higher end lenses deliver, and the Tamron is noticeably slower. The corners are also a tad bit softer than the Nikon at equivalent apertures. However, the lens deserves 5 stars, due to the following: I will take slightly slower focus with a consistent hit rate, over faster but inconsistent focus, any day of the week. The distortion and vignetting is easily corrected in post processing. The corners, while not quite on par with the Nikon, are still really, really good. In fact, the overall quality of the optics is so impressive, it is difficult to tell the difference between images shot with the Tamron, and ones taken with the more expensive Nikon. And, lastly, the image stabilization really puts the other lenses by Sigma, Nikon and Canon to shame. Especially for the Nikon and Canon versions to be close to, or above, the $2,000 range and not have it. I believe this is easily the best value in this category of lens. Happy that I can use this lens without any hesitation, knowing that it will deliver the results that I always wanted out of the Nikon. Turns out to be a very nice "upgrade" for me.

I typically don't write reviews on products I purchase. But I know that there is a shortage of user reviews of this lens out there on the internet as this lens was just released in the US by Tamron. The shortage is even more for the Nikon mount version. I was one of the lucky few (serial no. is less than a 1000) to get my hands on the Nikon mount version of this lens from Amazon. I have it mounted on my D7000 (crop body). I have not had enough chance to play with it but below are my initial impressions: Pros: 1. Photos come out sharp at f2.8 and even more so at higher stops. 2. No vignetting when shot wide open ... but that probably has to do more with the fact that I am using a crop body. 3. VC works amazingly well. I have taken some sharp sharp photos as 1/5 shutter speed. 4. Decent ISO and low light performance. 5. Fast focusing. Virtually no lag. 6. Bokeh is nice and "creamy". No instance of "onioning" noted thus far, contrary to some Canon mount users. Cons: 1. Build quality is nice but I was expecting better for the amount of money you have to cough up for this lens. 2. Weight may be an issue for some users at 865g. 3. But mostly, the internal lens mechanism is quite noisy. So I am not a fan of Tamron's Ultra Sonic Drive. I am a through and through Nikon user and the difference is quite noticeable. I will update my review as I get to shoot some events in the near future. But hopefully this helps out some of you out there who were looking for a initial first glance review of the Nikon Mount version of this lens. Thanks for reading! UPDATE (7/15/2012) - The "onioning" bokeh effect is definitely there. Shot a friend's daughter's birthday event the other day and onioning happens when you have indoor lighting in the background. I have not noticed any onioning when taking photos with natural outside light. Does anyone think this is a manufacturer's defect worth following up with Tamron customer service with? Update (8/2/2012) - I am adding a star to my initial review to give this lens a full 5 star. My biggest qualm against this lens was that at times it appeared to have problems focusing which was accompanied by noisy movement in the lens barrel. But it looks like i had a bad copy of the lens and there is no such problem existent in the new copy of this lens that I have right now. Amazing lens ... go get it now!!! Update (8/13/12) - Changed rating to 1 star ... lens lost AF capabilities after roughly 2 weeks of very careful use! this one is going back ... I will get the Nikon version albeit for more money.

Purchased from Emmy Photo, fulfilled by Amazon. This is a grey market lens, hence the great deal and the fact that Emmy Photo includes a 7 year MAC warranty. At first, I was put off when I tried to register my warranty and found the lens was "grey". I voiced my concern to Emmy Photo customer service and they responded immediately, explaining that the lens was indeed originally distributed to Canada. They assured me that the MAC warranty would cover the lens for USA repair, and also offered to have me return the lens for a full refund with no questions asked. So I decided to check the lens out, and it is perfect! I actually did lab and field tests, ensuring I was level and at 90 degrees to the subject on both planes, shooting at all focal lengths and apertures, using both a resolution chart and a brick wall (very scientific, that) and if there is anything wrong with this lens, I sure can't tell. Performance was precisely as noted by the professional testers, with the expected vignetting and barrel distortion at the expected settings ... in other words, my sample is perfect and I saved a bunch of $$! Your mileage may vary, but I feel compelled to applaud Emmy Photo for their professionalism and excellent responsiveness to my concerns. They took a potentially poor experience and turned it completely around. As for the Tamron SP 24-70mm Di VC lens - for the difference in price vs. the overall performance of this lens, to me it is a no-brainer that you're getting better value than you would purchasing the manufacturer's lens. For the purists out there that want nothing but L series or Nikkor glass, I get it. If money were no object for me, I might be right there with you. I am aware that Nikon has released a VR version of this lens and I am sure it is a fine lens, but for me, the difference in cost is significant enough to go with Tamron. All that being said, the Tamron SP 24-70mm Di VC USD is razor sharp, focuses quickly and without hesitation, and is nicely constructed - great lens! Updated to respond to the "Pros" who bash the performance of this lens ... while many of your comments have merit, as others have said, the value proposition cannot be ignored. I bought my sample as a gray box with a 7-year MAC warranty for $800 total. For $800 you can't touch this lens. For perspective, I am also very picky about my gear and do give full quarter to your concerns regarding IQ when wide open. However, as with most zooms the sweet spot will lie in the 5.6-ish part of the range and this is no exception.It really all depends on what you want to use the lens for, and since I'm primarily a landscape, macro, still life shooter, this lens fits the bill easily. It also has the low light capability of f2.8, and I have had no issues with image quality shooting wide open. I have paired it with a Nikon D750, and after almost a year, am still quite pleased with this purchase.

I was looking for a lens I could use as a faster alternative to my Canon 24-105f/4L. I currently shoot with a Canon 7D, with plans to add a Canon 5Dmk3 in the not too distant future. While the 7D is a great camera, its images are a little noisy when you push the ISO much past 800 (as most crop sensor cameras are), so I was hoping that the extra stop would help me avoid the higher ISO shots. Plus, the shallower depth of field with the 2.8 lens is always a nice option. My wife has a Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM lens that takes phenomenal images, but 55mm is a little too short for me, and it won't work on a FF camera when I finally take that plunge. I think I read every review of every 24-70f/2.8 lens available. The general consensus was that the new Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L USM II lens is the best of the bunch (I'm not including the Nikon, since I'm a Canon shooter), but with a street price of $2300 it was out of my reach. It seemed that the next best thing was this Tamron...Image quality that was very good, and vibration compensation at a price $1000 less than the Canon. I started focusing on this lens in my research. Specifically, I looked for comparisons of IQ between the Tamron and the Canon 24-105L I was already using. In nearly all cases, it was reported that the image quality at comparable aperture and FL was the equal of, or better than, the Canon lens. Based on this info, I ordered the Tamron lens. It arrived this morning, and I quickly set about testing it and comparing it to my canon lenses. First impressions while using the lens were as follows. The build quality of the lens is very good. Yes, it's body and barrel are plastic. So are most lenses these days. This one was solidly built, with no play in the barrel, and no lens creep. The barrel has a lock, but you won't need it. The zoom ring is large and operates smoothly, though it's slightly stiff. The focus ring, OTOH, is very smooth and relatively easy to move. It also seems to be in exactly the wrong place for me. I found that while supporting the camera to take a shot, I had to consciously avoid touching the focus ring with my support hand and accidentally overriding the automatic focus. The auto focus seemed quiet and fast. It was quieter than my canon lens, though perhaps not quite as fast. But certainly, no complaints with how fast it focused. It did, however, seem to be a tad inconsistent in it's focusing accuracy. Often, I'd take a 2 or 3 shots of the exact same thing, and would find one to be out of focus compared to the other two. It worked best when I had my camera set on single point focus, which is where I use it most of the time. The vibration compensation was a mixed blessing... It does work...I took a couple shots at 70mm handheld at 1/10 of a second and got good solid images. But, if you're trying to take a picture fast, you're not going to like the VC. It takes a noticeable amount of time before the image 'settles' in the view finder. I don't know what would happen if you just mashed the shutter anyway, because I didn't think to test it. And to be fair, ALL stabilized lenses do this...but my Canon and Sigma stabilized lenses seem to do it much quicker. It was in the image quality department that this Tamron let me down. I took a couple hundred test shots at 24, 50, 60 and 70mm, at apertures of 2.8 up to as high as f11. The majority, however, were taken at f2.8-4, because IQ was generally acceptable to me at any aperture above f/4. I also took test shots with my Canon 24-105L, at the same FLs, using f/4 since that's the widest aperture on that lens. I found that in my opinion, this Tamron is unacceptably soft at 2.8, at pretty much any FL. At focal lengths from about 40mm on, it sharpens up nicely by f/3.5. Shorter focal lengths remain soft till you get past f/4. In general, it might as well be an f/4 lens, because it's not much use at apertures wider than that. Comparing images taken with the Tamron to those taken with my Canon 24-105L show that the Canon just edges out the Tamron in terms of sharpness, though in most cases the difference is very small. Until you start looking at 100% crops, it's tough to pick a winner. IMO, if you already have a standard zoom lens in this range that you're happy with, don't bother replacing it with this Tamron. But, if you want a standard zoom lens with stabilization, and don't mind stopping down to at least f/3.5, this might be an acceptable option. A better option, IMO, for crop sensor camera users, is the Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM. It's sharper wide open, and several hundred dollars less, however you do sacrifice 15 mm in length at the big end and it won't work on a FF camera.

I'm loving this lens. I am extremely picky about image quality. This Tamron is amazingly sharp! And my new copy actually focuses perfectly! :) The reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because my first copy had focusing issues. Majorly inconsistent, and hard to focus in low light. The VC also had issues. I knew going in that Tamron's quality Assurance isn't the best. But I also knew that the lens was worth waiting for and worth the hassle of trying to get a good copy. Luckily, I only had to send it in to be replaced once. Some have had to do it a 2-3 times before finding a good copy. Amazon is so great for returns, I had my new lens the very next day and they gave my 30 days to send back the defective lens. Plus, if I couldn;t have sent back the old one, Tamron has an excellent 6 year warranty and I could have sent it in to them to be repaired or replaced, and have it back in 3 days! My friend asked me why I didn't just go with a Canon and not deal with Tamron's bad QA issues. This was my response: "The Tamron lens had what I wanted and is the only lens in the world that does. 24-70, with image stabilization. I knew Tamron's QA wasn't good, but I also know that the lens I bought is sharper and better quality than any other 24-70 out there other than the $1000 more expensive Canon 24-70 f2.8 VII lens that just came out, and still doesn't offer IS. While I had to return a lens and wait 1 more entire day to get a good copy of the Tamron, it is more than worth it to me. Plus, if I couldn't have returned it, Tamron has a 6 year replacement warranty and I could have sent it to them and had a good copy in 3 days. Canon I have to pay extra to have a 3 day turn around. The Tamron is almost as sharp as the new Canon, and sharper than the V1 canon 24-70. Plus its weather sealed, and has the IS. Much better bang for the buck, and you add in the 6 year warranty vs Canons measly 1 year warranty and its completely worth it. If the lens has a problem in 5 years and 11 months from now, Tamron will fix it for free. If they can't fix it, I get a brand new lens. No brainer to me. Thats why." I have friends that have the new Canon 24-70 VII lens and love it. I'm sure I would have as well. But for $1000 less, this lens is completely worth it to me. If I would have had the lens that was shipped second to me the first time around, this review would have gotten 5 stars.

I'll start by saying that I'm happy with this lens. I have very little in the department of "complaints" especially given that it's $1000 cheaper than Canon counterparts, PLUS it has IS. Build quality is pretty solid. Much better than some other lenses I've seen, but not as good as Canon's L series. I have heard of dust getting into the Tamron 24-70, and while I have not had it long enough to see if that's going to happen, everything seems to be built rather well. The rear element isn't fixed which does bother me just a little as it will displace air within the camera body while zooming, adding to any dust issues. I own another Tamron lens that I was disappointed in (their 28-300), so it was hard for me to take the plunge and order another Tamron, especially a $1K+ lens. Upon receiving the 24-70, I was initially afraid that the sharpness wasn't what it had claimed to be, especially wide open. That fear was put to rest with a small microadjustment in the autofocus, and it is now tack sharp as advertised, even wide open. There's no doubt this is a strong contender with the far more expensive Canon non-IS 24-70, even setting price aside. I don't have one to compare to side-by-side, and I'm sure the Canon will outperform the Tamron at least at some points, but the Tamron is fantastic. Do use caution if your camera does not support microadjustments in focus- but that doesn't seem to be an issue I've heard many people have had. Focus is plenty fast. I've seen some reviews show it's not as fast as the Canon, but very close. My own experience is that it's close enough; it's quite fast. One thing that I was impressed with in their 28-300 was their IS (or VC, Tamron's IS) which was fantastic, so I was looking forward to that performance in the 24-70. The VC works as well as I had hoped. A few quick tests seems to me to be about 3 to 4 stops of performance from the VC, which is no small matter especially given that it's already f/2.8. I've taken shots while intentionally shaking the camera at 1/3 second shutter time at 70mm, and I get amazingly low blur. If Tamron does one thing exceptionally well, it's their VC. Couple that with sharpness that truly does compete with Canon's 24-70, and at this price tag you've got a no-brainer, unless tank-like build quality is worth trading in another $1K and VC. Perhaps for you it may be, but I'm happy with the Tamron.