Lens Reviews

If, like many Shutterbug readers, you have a film SLR camera plus several interchangeable lenses, you might be wondering if you can use those lenses with your new D-SLR camera of the same, or even different, brand.

Here are some tips I discovered when researching this month’s column. One was from my wife who uses this technique all the time—smile! And you know what, people smile back, making you appear friendly and non-threatening. The other was from Michael Archambault, who suggests you “acknowledge that street photography is not perfect.” Or as my grandfather once told me, “If you spend your whole life looking for happiness, it’ll make you miserable.”

While the main body of my work has been with lenses such as the 24mm fixed, wide angles, and mainly my trusty 16-35mm zoom, I have often found myself wanting a long zoom for the scenes that present themselves along the way. It’s not that I am unwilling or just plain lazy to get closer—a long zoom, like the recently released Tamron 100-400mm, simply changes the way I see and helps me explore other visual options.

Tamron just released their new 150-500mm f/5-6.7 zoom and we received one of the first samples for review. Where would you take such a lens? We went to the NJ Audubon Center, a Somerset Patriots baseball game (they’re the NY Yankees’ Double-A minor league farm team), a nearby nature preserve and the patch of bee-attractant flowers in my back yard. Here’s our review and lots of pictures from these four venues.

The Tamron 18-300mm zoom has already made its bones in the Sony E (APS-C) mount. But how about the Fujifilm X version? Is it truly "Everything in one?" Here we test it on a Fujifilm X-T5.

Tamron just released the 28-300mm f/4-7.1 super all-in-one zoom lens for Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras, and Shutterbug was allowed to field test one of the earliest samples. Expected to reach Authorized Dealers’ cabinets by the time you read this, the lens weighs just 21.5 ounces (610g) and focuses as close as 7.5 inches.

Tamron has a long history of producing versatile, do-everything lenses and the Tamron 35-150mm F/2.8-4 Di VC OSD (Model A043) continues with that heritage. I received the Canon EF-mount version of the lens for testing, but a Nikon F-mount version is also available at the same price. While designed for Canon’s full-frame EF-mount cameras, the Tamron 35-150mm lens can also be used with their APS-C models where it produces a field-of-view equivalent to 56-240mm.