Tamron 55-200/4-5.6 Di II LD Review - Part II

by Bob Atkins

Optical Performance

55mm

All these images are 100% crops from large/fine JPEGs shot using a Canon EOS 20D.  At 55mm comparison shots were made with a EF-S 18-55/3.5-5.6. The first set of images shows performance in the center of the frame.

As you can see there isn't a lot of difference between these two lenses in the center of the frame. The Tamron is a stop faster of course and does show a little increase in sharpness when stopped down to f5.6.

Below are crops taken from the top left corner of the frame.

Here it's pretty clear that the Tamron does better than the Canon lens, even wide open at f4. It does sharpen up when stopped down from f4 to f5.6, but even at f4 it's better than the Canon lens stopped down to f8. As I said in an earlier review of the EF-S 18-55, corner performance wide open at 55mm isn't it's strong point!

100mm

At 100mm I used a Canon EF70-300/4-5.6 IS lens for comparison. This is a much more expensive lens ($560), but since it's the curently only zoom I have that covers 70-200mm, it's what I used! Note that it has an SD glass element and it is not the same optically as the cheaper 75-300/4-5.6 lenses.

In the center of the frame the Tamron lens isn't quite as sharp as the Canon when used wide open, but does improve a little when stopped down. Overall sharpness is pretty good in the center of the frame.

At the corner of the frame, especially wide open, the Tamron is a little soft. It doesn't really sharpen up fully until stopped down to f8. I ran a couple of tests on other targets to double check this and I found similar behavior

200mm

At 200mm center sharpness is pretty good. Not quite up to the image quality of the more expensive Canon lens, but certainly very acceptable.

At the corners, you can see some chromatic aberration in the Tamron lens shots. They're also not quite as sharp as the shots from the Canon EF 70-300/4-5.6 IS, but again I'll remind you that the Canon lens is $560 and the Tamron lens is closer to $180.

Flare

Flare seems very well controlled. In their press release Tamron state "By the employment of “Internal Surface Coatings” (i.e., multiple-layer coatings on cemented surfaces of plural elements) and new multiple-layer coating technology on ordinary elements, ghosting and flare due to reflections that occur when light enters through the front element and reflections caused by the imagers themselves are reduced to the absolute minimum". Whatever technology has been used, it does seem quite effective.

Above are two shots. The one on the left has the sun in the top left corner of the frame, which is about as sever a test of flare resistance as you can devise. On the right is the same shot, but this time with my hand used to block out the direct sun. Though contrast may be very slightly lower in the left hand image, the difference is small and the lens shows good reistance to flare.

Macro

Though the Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro has "Macro" in its name, it's not really a macro lens. Maximum magnification is about 1/3 life size (Tamron spec it at 1:3.5) as you can see from the following image, which was shot at 200mm and at the closest focus distance (0.9m/37.4"). This isn't too bad, but it's more of a close focus telephoto lens than a "macro" lens.

Conclusions

The Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro is clearly aimed at a  narrow - but significant - market segment. That's the people who have bought a DSLR with an included 18-55mm "kit lens" and now find that they'd like something longer than 55mm. Now some people won't blink at paying hundreds of dollars (if not thousands...) for fast, "L" series glass, and some won't mind carrying lenses which are significantly larger and heavier than the Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro. However there's certainly a good number of new DSLR owners who will be looking for something small, light and fairly inexpensive, and the Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro fits that bill. It's only a fraction larger than the EF-S 18-55 and I'd expect it to retail somewhere around  $170 at reputable discount stores. On a Canon Digital Rebel XT or 20D, a 200mm lens has the same "reach" (field of view) as a 320mm lens has on a full frame 35mm camera, and that's enough for many users.

Optically, at 55mm the lens is certainly better than the Canon EF-S 18-55/3.5-5.6 (which is where the EF-S lens is weakest). Both center and corner sharpness are good, especially if you stop down to at least f5.6. At 100mm center sharpness is good, but corners are soft wide open and don't fully sharpen up until the lens is stopped down to f8. At 200mm center sharpness is again good and the corners somewhat softer. Some chromatic aberration (CA) is visible at longer focal lengths but it's pretty well controlled (the Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro does use one LD element to better control CA).

Overall the Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro makes a reasonable companion to an 18-55. It's optically decent, if not outstanding, especially when stopped down to f5.6. It would be expected to give good 4x6 and 5x7 prints, but at 8x10 and up, especially in the corners wide open, it's not going to be as good as a more expensive lens.

Obviously for around the same price you could get something like a Canon EF 75-300/4-5.6 III USM [though note that this is a different lens from the 70-300/4-5.6IS lens used in the comparison testing here and does not have UD glass]. The choice here then depends on whether the gap between 55mm and 75mm would bother you, and whether you want to carry around a significantly larger lens in order to cover the 200-300mm range. Neither lens is likely to satisfy the highly critical users, but both are pretty good value for the average photographer who is mainly interested in smaller prints.