Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] Re: Tamron lens (was Re: Stop the insanity! )

Subject: [OM] Re: Tamron lens (was Re: Stop the insanity! )
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2004 19:55:27 -0700
I was only commenting on a post in the thread about the Tamron 70-350 
zooms and a specific comment proposing that they should be better than 
the SP 60-300 because they had more elements. Since the SP is about 10 
years later in design and part of the SP series using ED glass, I 
proposed that it was likely the better lens.

Alienspecimen wrote:

> I agree, with the aid of computer design, the zooms got better and better.I 
> dont know what the age of the Tamron is, but there are miles and miles of 
> thread on the net on the issue of the quality of zooms and all of them come 
> to the same conclusion:  as a rule of the thumb, the zooms from eighties up 
> to early nineties are notoriously bad (it seems that this list is the only 
> place where this is largely ignored...:)
>
I don't know how good this is as a generality, but it is clearly wrong 
in some specific cases, depending on what early '90s means. The Tamron 
SP 80-200/2.8 is generally regarded as one of the greatest performance 
MF zooms ever made and clearly dates from this 'dark age'. I'm pretty 
sure the Zuiko 35-80/2.8 dates from this period and I seem to recall one 
test report calling it the best zoom they had ever tested. There are 
several other zooms from that period that I think are first rate lenses, 
but I don't want to get into some sort of lens list pissing contest.

The early '90s thru today is also a period of vast different ranges of 
zoom performance, even from the top manufacturers, with more crummy 
zooms sold than in the prior period. That doesn't mean all zooms were 
poor. It does reflect the market reality that retailers started 
packaging good bodies with cheap, off brand zooms in price oriented 
packages and camera manufacturers responded by producing lines of cheap 
zooms to compete.  Thus, if the generality  has any validity, it would 
only be for top line lenses.

>I really doubt that the SP 60-300 is a better performer than my 75-300 APO 
>(which I bought for $62 shipping included), but I might be wrong.
>
I made no claim whatsoever about whether the SP 60-300 is better than 
any lens other than opining that it is likely better than a couple of 
specific mid-70s zooms. I have no idea how it performs relative to your 
Sigma. I do know that it is a very good performer on its own both from 
my own experience and from the experience of others I trust.

Moose



==============================================
List usage info:     http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies:        olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz