Tamron 150-600mm
DicaHub shared the MTF charts of the new Tamron 150-600mm lens that will also be available as A-mount. That looks very decent for such an Überzoom lens!
P.S.: The A-mount lens is now listed at BHphoto (Click here).
Zeiss 55mm FE:
You remember that Sony Korea teaser? Well it was for the first 200 Zeiss 55mm FE lenses that would be sold online on Dec 4. A source wrote that the 200 lenses were sold out within 2 minutes.
Zeiss preorder links: Zeiss 55mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT. And in US at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
37 Responses
Why does Korea get them first? They made there or something? If it was in Japan I’d make more sense… But yeah, go Koreans – spend, spend, spend!
Zeiss is having fun time then!!!
Good news for Sony 🙂
I spoke with a tamron represenyative about the lack of stabilization in the a mouont 150-600.
All the stabilzation components are present except for the motors. The stabilization cannot be made funtional in the a mount lens and because of the nature of the manufacturing process the a mount is not any less expensive to make.
I asked why they could not therefore allow a finctional stabilization systemto be turned on and off like sogma.
I was told that would not work because tamron uses a proprietary system that is differrent and cannot be used with ibis. It seemed like they were concerned it might be harmfull or something.
Lastly I asked about tamron teleconverters for sony and was told thier existing ones are very old desighns intended for video and they have no current plans to release new ones.
So apparently there is zero chance of changing the situation.
Dam it that had the potental to mout on the A7 .
Still does… just get the EOS mount version and use a metabones adapter. Presto! Auto-aperture, IS and autofocus. You’d have to use an adapter to use the alpha version anyway, so why not use the version that isn’t crippled. Got love the FE options 🙂
I would wager that the AF with the metabones adapter will be practically useless and why use a Speedbooster ? People buy this lens for the 600mm and not the 150mm.
Thirdly I wonder how long the adapter will last with this huge lens attached.
Important but bad new…
hope tamron would make more native e-mount lenses
Eh, all that’s only half true. Sounds more like they were trying to get you to stop bugging them. Basically, they don’t want to engineer lenses with IS for A mount. Not they can’t or have proprietary stuff. Yes, IS in the lens will screw things up if you have IBIS also turned on (makes the image extra blurry as the two stabilizers fight each other), but to solve that, other lens companies just tell you to make sure you turn one off.
It costs them more to put full IS controls on the lens body for A mount, since the camera body won’t send IS commands (since the lens is not supposed to have IS on A-mount). All those buttons and supporting parts are actually relatively expensive on the manufacturing and component side. People will complain that turning IS on on their A-mount camera makes images blurry and silly things like that. It also costs them a little more to put the motors in the lens (they’re not free).
In short, they don’t want to do it. It’s not that they can’t.
all the components are there except the actual motors and those are not very expensive components.
It would be too expensive to actually change the manufactiring process.
This part of his explanation made sense to me but I did not totally understand why it could not be functional with an on off switch.
He did say tamron was not willing to trust the user to turn off the switch.
Although he would not explain ot sounded like the use of both systems together could be harmfull but i cannot be sure of that.
I have heard this a while back and it makes no sense to me. All you would have to do is turn off the ibis on the camera. They charge the same amount for the sony lens. I guess they think people will return the lenses saying they don’t work because they are not smart enough to turn off ibis and switch on oss on the lens.
You could be rite.
I wonder if it would make any differrence if HUNDREDS OF SAR readers called tamron and told tjem we want stabilization that works?
Do all A mount Sony cameras have a switch for turning stabilization on and off. And even if they do, does it turn it off where a separate stabilization would still be on and operating? There is a lot more to this than just the foolish talk of people who don’t design or build the lenses.
In camera A mount stabilization works quite well with my long tele. So the lens will be stabilized, who cares about E mount and the errors in design Sony did with it.
It can be turned off in camera but requires navigating a complicated menu.
The lens has a simple on/off switch for Canon and Nikon mounts and would be easier to shut off than the camera.
Lol
So, Sony’s E mount has “errors” because it doesn’t suit your needs, although it’s easily the most popular camera that has come out in the digital era?
I say it’s more along the lines of education back in your time being more like militant brainwashing camps 🙂 It sort of explains a lot of things actually lol
“I asked why they could not therefore allow a finctional stabilization systemto be turned on and off like sogma.
I was told that would not work because tamron uses a proprietary system that is differrent and cannot be used with ibis. It seemed like they were concerned it might be harmfull or something.”
That response makes no sense. IBIS has its own on-off mechanism. In fact, Sigma specifically points out (to Sony and Pentax users) to turn off IBIS if using OS on the lenses they do include it. That is the solution (and also one that I have used on Sigma 18-250 OS for a while). Tamron appears to not get it.
This is what tamron told me despite asking multiple times in multiple ways.
Although I could not get a better explanation from him he seemed clearly convinced thatcit had to be this way and could not be changed.
I was not totally satisgied with the explaination but i am shring it with you.
Despite the situation this is one impressive lens amd of the price is rite will be a good value.
I also asked about price and availabilty but he would not answer that i washowever able to get a guestinate of one or two months.
I asked about quality and was told best performance at the 600mm end…not as good as a top qiality prime…but he did not know anything more specific.
I suspect that they wanted to save money[ make more profit ] by not including the IS on the lens. But now it’s backfiring on them because they look like they’re exploiting the Sony users whereas Sigma appear so much more reasonable.
Besides which, they now have a configuration issue in manufacturing whereby the IS for SOny is a peculiarity to take care of instead of having a homogenous process.
It won’t kill them to simply let it be activated by the AF signal if they really don’t want to put a switch in it.
Then they could simply tell the user to switch off the IBIS just like Sigma does.
People are not the complete idiots they’re making them out to be.
What you undoubtedly have in the Sony cameras is programming that’s running all this and I believe what Tamron is saying is that the Sony programming is not compatable. It’s not a simple old style mechanical switch these days, even if it looks like one. The cameras that Tamron puts the stabilization in the lens are already designed to interface in their software to the lens stabilization.
I’m looking forward to the release of this lens. Sigma does not have such a lens, period. And neither does Sony. I’m very happy that Tamron has moved ahead with a longer lens which has been a long time coming.
Also since stabilization in lens involves shifting the arrangement of lens elements a better lens image quality can be obtained not doing that, and Tamron is probably locking all those elements at ideal optical alignment. Could be a image advantage not to have stabilization in the lens.
There’s going to be a whole bunch of wildlife photographers that are going to be very happy to grab this lens. I may even break my lock on not adding to my A mount system to get one to use with my a700s. If I can find the money.
Great marketing. Made to sound like good news with a system dearth of native lenses. Only 200 lenses?
The headline said FIRST two hundred lenses, not THE two hundred lenses.
I also preordered the FE55 1.8. It’s a no brainer like the E24 1.8
As did I. Hopefully B&H pulls through on it. I don’t have any FE lenses yet.. using a Canon 40mm f2.8 pancake for the time being. Not bad, but not a Zeiss.
The sagital performance is better than the meridinal perfornsnce ..particularly on the edges that would most effect ff performance.
Can anyone tell me what those two terms mean so i can understand the chart better?
One is how sharp it is when looking from the center outwards (and vice versa), at the given distance from the center. The other is how sharp it is looking clockwise (or counterclockwise) in an arc around the lens at the given distance from the center. I think Meridional is the former, Sagittal the latter? You’ll find the sagittal is often sharper on most lenses. The difference between the sagittal and the meridional shows some types of optical aberrations in the lens (usually people look at it for signs of astigmatism).
So ideally, the higher the lines are the better, and the closer the pairs are to each other, the better. But that’s not all there is to the lens. First, these charts are usually offered as mathematical simulation, not measured data (some companies do offer measured MTF charts). Second, not all aberrations are captured by an MTF chart, and some lenses which are excellent for certain types of photography may appear to have poor MTFs. Some classic portrait lenses that create very flattering images, for example, have seemingly poor MTFs. It’s because those aberrations actually create a ‘dreamy’ look to images without seeming soft, better subject isolation, and a certain feel to the picture that a ‘good’ MTF lens won’t create. Other lens with similar MTFs may just look smeared. So MTFs won’t tell you everything. Just an idea of how the lens might perform.
Perhaps it will have a ton of lateral CA at the long end and be software-corrected?
Onl the meridinal percormance lacks contrast in the higher resolutions at the perimeter…therefore c size sensors should produce exceptional results with this lens at 600mm based on these specs.
Only meridanal performance..particularly inthe corners of the ff image at higher res seem lacking and that may be related to the sensor it was tested on .
The lens also incudes a software correction that may specfically address the issue so raw files processed with the tamron specific silkypix provided may be very good indeed.
The 150mm performance seems a little less impressive as would be expected if as tamron claims this lens is optimized for 600 mm performance.
This does sound like a lens I want…I am hoping for a reasonable price.
Here are some more sample images. You can click on them to get the full size image.
http://www.tamron.com.hk/TamronSP150-600mmF5-6.3DiVCUSDA011.htm
This Tamron looks very promising… at the right price.
I am very interest in this lens,
but will not buy this lens if Tamron won’t put back the In Lens stabilization system in Sony version.
The sony in body steady shot is less effective when using a long tele lens
I think the main reason why Tamron did put vc in Sony version is because they want to avoid trouble.
Because many users forget to turn off the in body steady shot when the in lens vc is on,
or they accidentally switch the vc on, when using in body steady shot is active.
They may not notice until they went back home, load to the computer,
and find out that all the photos are blur.
Then they complain to Tamron about they should not create a lens that have potentially cause problem.
Also,when user bought a new lens, 99% of user will not read the manual
they may even dont know that both vc cannot turn on at the same time,
then they will think the lens is damaged and request exchange.
So the best way to avoid trouble is to remove vc in sony version.
I think they will not add vc to sony version,until they find a way to avoid this problems.
For example auto de-active the steady shot when vc is on,
but i don’t sony will allow them to do so.
If thats how you feel call tamron and tell them what you think.
It may or may not help but it cant hurt.
“I think they will not add vc to sony version,until they find a way to avoid this problems.
For example auto de-active the steady shot when vc is on,
but i don’t sony will allow them to do so.”
Indeed, Sony A mount cameras are not programmed for having two versions of stabilization. I expect Tamron’s stabilization is more integrated into programming of the cameras that are built for lens stabilization. That is what they responded, that their programming could not run on Sony cameras. And the problem clearly is in the camera, not the lens. It’s up to Sony to fix this, with the programming of every A mount camera they have built is probably what’s necessary.
Since it’s possible Sony might do a deal with Tamron to sell the lens with their label, if they do that Sony might address the problem. Otherwise Sony will probably be like usual and ignore customers.
As is typical of Sigma they are not interfacing near as closely with the camera when they turn on their stabilization.
What programming experience do you have to state this so confidently? 🙂
Genotypritter
You are wasting your time.
In the entire time I havevread sar WK has never responded to a reply to his own comments.
I believe he makes his comment then never looks back.
I actually would rnjoy a two way conversation with him if possible because he seems interested in much of the same type of photography as me.
Admin
How about adding a question to your lens survey
Should Tamron include stabilzation on sony mount lenses
Choices
Yes…dont care…no…
Including it in lens survey will increase the number of responses and you can share results with Tamron.
My reply, don’t care, it’s a very minor issue for those who are used to using long tele.
The 55 1.8 seems a very high quality lens but seeing how it’s just one of many (manual and even AF) fast normal lenses that are out there and how everyone who can’t manual focus even on the a7r is getting one, I’m going to pass on this. The a7/a7r are the cameras that digital small format (35mm) has always meant to be. It doesn’t make sense to use them the same way people have used cameras so far. If it’s a matter of convenience, OSS is a must. Hope Sony comes out with say a 40mm f/2 OS that’s a bit more flexible.