The spanish DSLRmagazine (Click here) just posted a super news! Tamron launched the first E-mount lens, the 18-200 mm f/3,5-6,3 Di III VC. Yeah there is already an [shoplink 10533 ebay]Alpha lens version[/shoplink] of it but this lens has been specifically designed for NEX and the main feature is the “step-motor” which is designed to align 100% with the contrast AF system of the NEX, particularly good for video! In addition, the “DMF” (Direct Manual Focus) allows focusing by hand if necessary, even in AF mode.
There is no info about the price and availabiliy yet. Here are the specs:
| Coverage | APS-C |
| Focus | 18-200 mm |
| Focal “equivalent” | 27-300 mm |
| Angles | 76 º 10′-8 ° 03 ‘(diagonal) |
| Maximum aperture | f / 3.5 to 6.3 |
| Minimum Aperture | f/22-40 |
| Number of blades | 7 |
| Lenses / groups | 17/13 |
| Aspherical lens | Not specified |
| Special lenses | Not specified |
| Floating lens | For internal focus |
| Coatings | Multilayer |
| Minimum focusing distance | 50 cm |
| Reproduction Ratio | 1:3,7 |
| Area covered | Not specified |
| AF | Yes, internal |
| Engine Type | Stepwise, redesigned |
| Motorized Zoom | Not |
| Engine Type | Not applicable |
| Manual Focus | So, with fine control in AF mode |
| Or filter | 62 mm |
| Ø x length | 68 x 96.7 mm (102 mm including lens mount) |
| Weight | 460 grams |
| Design | Exterior metallic silver and black finishes |
| Mount | Metal, “E” for Sony NEX |
| Data transmission | Electronics |
| Optimized for video | If, stepper motor specific for NEX |
| Included Accessories | Tapas, petal lens hood |
| Optional Accessories | Not specified |
| Approximate price | To be announced |
| Availability | To be announced |
53 Responses
Awesome! Finally some more 3rd party lenses. Here’s hoping it’ll be under $400 or there’d be no point in getting this over the Sony.
And it actually comes in BLACK to match my NEX-7!!
It is a big step for the Nex-System that Tamron jumped in.
But why another 18-200 clone? A remake of the 17-55 would have been
a far better deal.
Indeed. I second to that. But I also for Linh statement above.
Its actually very smart of them. Many people would love to have an affordable superzoom lens.
I’m sure this is just the beginning. Bring on the fast primes!
I was expecting something like the SP AF10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di II or the SP AF60mm F2 Di II 1:1 Macro. Sorry that I was wrong.
The entering of 3rd party lenses demonstrates the system’s success! Won’t be surprised if there’d be another couple lenses coming from Sigma or Tokina next yr!
Seems to be a little bit smaller than the Sony one.
HOPE the will also bring something like their really good 17-50/2.8 VC !!!
Yeah a good news !!
I hope pancakes and fast primes !!
Finally a 3rd party lens for NEX!!! Hopefully this is cheaper than the Sony version.
Excellent news !!!
With the primes… We already have a backup solutions with 3rd party lenses and adapters…
For long zoom… (video and stills)… No choices there except the sony ones…
Realyy good approach from Tam…
Hope other lenses will follow.
Included Accessories: Tapas??? Awesome!
Google Translate fail.
Tapa = Lens Cap in spanish 🙂
this is very exciting in the sense of marking the beginning of autofocus 3rd party lenses. now remake the 17-50/2.8, then we r talking.
Don’t get to happy too early here!! These are long ratio zooms from a 3rd party manufacturer. The BIG question is – Will they have the moxie to handle the 18 and 24PM sensors or will they be cheap (or not so cheap) and cheerful use at your own risk?
It’s smaller and lighter than the SEL18200 but feels redundant unless the price point is really much lower.
Great news… finally the wheel starts spinning.
Hopefully this make Sony lower the price for their SEL18200 to compete.
Please please please be good!
The Sony is overpriced and there are rumours it was made by either Tamron or Sigma anyway.
The newest Tamron 18-270mm gives a surprisingly acceptable performance considering the huge range so the 18-200 seems less ambitious optically now, if it’s just an old design breathed over it will be poor but if it’s a new design using some of the same tech as the 18-270 then it could easily outperform the Sony.
From the specs it looks like a remodelled DSLR 18-200mm. It’s about 20mm longer than the DSLR-version which corresponds to the 20mm shorter flange focal distance of the NEX-system. All other specs are similar (like magnification etc.).
Wrong. See optical diagram at http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20111208_496689.html
Still waiting for something smaller. What is the point of using that large lesn with small Nex body? Mirrorless cameras are great but combined with small lenses, even pancakes. We need affordable 24mm 1.8(there is Zeiss but..), 35mm 1.8. It is weird that we can buy that kind of lens for DSLR but not for Nex. Nikkor 35mm 1.8 is quite nice lens and very affordable. By the way, my friend has Sony A 55 with SAM 35 1.8, and that Sony lens is a joke. Build quality is horrible, poor quality plastic (the worst of made in china). It costs the same as Nikon 35, also plastic but much better quality with metal bayonet. I wish something similar but smaller for nex. 18-200? No thanks!
Great news! It’s the first third party AF lens for any mirrorless system.
Well maybe the first is the Zeiss, but well I think it is manufactured by Sony and Zeiss makes the quality control.
Is the lens optically stabilized for video and stills like the SEL18-200? If it isn’t then what’s the point other than it might be cheaper in cost?
It should be stabilized. Did a short web search and as far as I can tell “VC” is Tamron’s shortcut for “Vibration control”, so their shortcut for integrated OS. Why the heck does every company need a different shortcut (from Wikipedia: IS [Canon], OS [Sigma], VC [Tamron], VR [Nikon], MegaOIS [Panasonic], SSS [Sony], SR [Pentax])?
I simply can’t understand the manufacturers! Now the nex system has many leaks on the offered lenses and 3rd party manufacturers could have god money to make a missing lense.
No Tamron makes a lens, which sony has already and nobody is interested about it because of the size and weight.
Would the management cut the head off the engineer, if he would try to make a 35/1,8 or a 16-50/f4 lense?
Great! 🙁
I’m waiting for:
-EVF for NEX3 (lower price nex camera)
-35 1.8
-17-50 2.8
Than I will go in to NEX system
EVF for nex-3 not going to happen. the accessory port does not support “videosignals”.
35/1,8 or 30/2 would be nice.
18-105 would be great.
Just get a NEX-5n if you want the EVF. And it’s a far better camera. I don’t understand why you’d want to dish out top dollar for those lenses but get an older body. The 5n is still an incredibly low price.
I don’t understand why they didn’t simply make it a 3.5-5.6 instead of the common slow 6.3. The difference in size is miniscule. I suppose it’s got to do with re-design and manufacture – but then Nikon has already done it and it makes so much more sense than that revolting 6.3.
Awesome news! This is the first 3rd party AF lens (as mentioned) for any mirrorless camera. It also shows a commitment by Tamron to E-Mount even if it is a tidied up older super zoom, Tamron super zooms are generally pretty cheap so I would expect this one to be significantly cheaper than the SEL18200. Also think it is very smart of Tamron to release this first as a halfway decent and not super expensive super zoom is exactly what the majority of NEX owners would be after. They would be needing to prove a business case to support a whole new platform (and form factor – not just mount) so bringing out one of the most popular lenses would be good for that.
Would I buy it – probably not. But I am glad Tamron are repackaging their lenses for NEX and CDAF 🙂
This announcement is just semi-good and semi-disappointed. I believe Tamron already made SEL18200 for Sony already. However, the lens structure seems different as SEL18200 use 4X aspherical + 1X ED while Tamron uses 3 X aspherical, 1 X combined aspherical + 2 X LD + 1 X XR (High refractive index) lens. It is really unknown either the lens performance better before test. But Tarmon seems save some good stuff for herself as the diameter is shorter of 62mm vs 67mm and the weight is 460g vs 524g. You can go here to this link and google translate it.
http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20111208_496689.html
What I am expecting is some large aperture prime for NEX because the options are still quite limited, especially for the ultra / wide angle side. I don’t know what Sony is thinking about but F1.4/1.8 aperture should be the good segment to explore. Tamron seems quite conservative and just want to stay around the high ratio zoom. The 50mm F1.8 and 30mm Macro Sony are just no surprise to any of NEX users while 24mm F1.8 is crazily high priced. I hope Tarmon should fill up the gap.
Bring on the third party lenses!
It’s rather a shame that Tamron haven’t taken the opportunity to put in a powered zoom which is highly desirable for video work as manual zooming tends to be less than smooth. Of course that might have been handicapped by the NEX’s limited battery capacity and cost/size implications, but it would still be nice to see.
Imagine that same zoom motor could be reversed to charge batteries instead 😉
Here’s what Sony/Sigma/Tamron/???? need to make:
35/1.4 or 35/1.8 or 35/2
and make it a native e-mount AF lens and very compact.
Reply if you agree.
Agreed.
And add a 16-50 f2.8 zoom to make us happy…
Ahhh greeed.
end of line.
According to Tamron official site, it’s 80,000 Yen without tax (>$1,000) and available from Dec. 15 in Japan. couldn’t find information for other region.
At that price, what’s the point? Might as well get the Sony version.
Hi Anonymous, I agree 🙂
The official price 80k yen is same as 18-270 Di2 (for DSLR), and it’s sold at $509.95 in Amazon.com (after rebate price).
I hope the E-mount version also to be discounted (it may be after several month).
Kudos to Tamron!! …And good move for making both silver and black.
Now, we need affordable fast primes. Tamron/Sigma, are you listening?
Im hoping they release a 17-50mm 2.8 that would be nice, I would like to see Tamrons VC on this new lens.
Very happy to hear!!!
80k Yen is probably just MSRP, street price should be a lot lower, just like all those Sigma out there, for example, the MSRP for the 85mm is more than 1k, but you are paying few hundred less than that.
does Tamron even make prime lens other than Macro? which never seems to be compact?
my hope would be 17-55 F2.8 with or without VC
a 16-85 F4
and from sigma:
30mm 1.4 or slower
57mm (85mm eq) F1.8 or so.
if there is no lenses everyone is complaining about missing lenses, if there are lenses, they are the wrong ones.. its hard to make people happy i guess 😉 i for one highly welcome this addition to the Nex lens lineup.. looks pretty small+high quality for what it is.
It’s actually very easy – make the lenses people are asking for.
How about the new 23mm SLR prime that’s on Steve Huff’s site right now? No AF or OIS but looks promising for the price.
50 cm minimum focal distance !!! let me laugh !!
don’t believe it will be as good as the sel 18-200 !
Isn’t this lens similar to Sony’s 18-200? If so sorry, I prefer my redundancy in the cockpit thanks!
Sorry that simply looks ridiculous. NEX Cameras are best with small prime lenses, otherwise why not carry a DSLR instead and get all the benefits of a photographic tool?
Tamron need to jump on the prime market and capitalize on the popularity of small primes on mirrorless systems, not this kind of lens right now.
Yes the lenses look nice, but paired up with even the larger N E X 7, that just looks so wrong.
end of line.
Will in camera lens correction as applied by the NEX-5N still apply to these up and coming 3rd party lenses or is that just purely Sony lens benefit? Additionally, if anyone knows, does the lens correction get applied to Sony A-mount lenses that are mounted via the LA-EA2 adapter or just E-mount lenses ?
18-200 is the wrong lens to have produced. Peoplelike myself are wanting to switch to the Nex 7 because we’re tired of lugging around great big long heavy lenses and cameras. Small short light primes are what I think are needed. The Zeiss 24mm for example is way too big (and expensive). Tamron should have gone for a short 24 mm f 2.8 lens and they would have been on a winner.