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Tamron 18-250mm Zoom by Jon Sienkiewicz The best choice for an all-around versatile lens. Article rating: 8.05

The Tamron AF18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro is about 3.3 inches long (shorter than its name) and less than three inches in diameter. It becomes the equivalent of a 27~375mm zoom when attached to a digital SLR like the Sony Alpha 100 that was used to capture the accompanying images. At roughly 15 ounces it’s about one ounce heavier than its sister product, the Tamron 18~200mm zoom, but amazingly it’s the same size otherwise. Like all Tamron lenses it comes with a specially designed lenshood and the best warranty in the business (six years).

This digital-only lens was designed exclusively for digital SLR cameras with APS-C size image sensors. Inside there is one LD (Low Dispersion) glass element and one AD (Anomalous Dispersion) element in the first lens group to mitigate aberration. The compact design also incorporates a pair of aspherical lens elements. Minimum focusing distance is a scant 1.5 feet throughout the entire zoom range, yielding a 1:3.5 magnification ratio at 250mm.

At the 18mm wideangle position the lens is well suited for landscape shots, group pictures and general picture taking. Because it can be cranked all the way out to extreme telephoto it’s the ideal lens for street shooting. You can quickly go from shooting crowds to zeroing in on faces without changing glass. And at f3.5 (in the wide position) it’s fast enough for dim conditions.

The Tamron 18~250 is also a great choice for shooting sports or wildlife. The 250mm allows you to get close to the action and extended zoom range enables quick adjustments in composition.

One reason why portraits shot by professionals surpass amateur efforts lies in the manipulation of depth-of-field. By using a longer focal length and larger aperture, pros keep the depth of field very shallow. This technique forces the background out of focus and isolates the subject—and that creates impact. You can do this, to one degree or another, with just about any telephoto lens. But wait until you try it at 250mm.

Build quality is outstanding, which is typical for Tamron. The lens mount is metal and precisely machined. The zoom ring is richly knurled and provides a sure grip. Cosmetically the lens is clean and tasteful and is distinguished by a single gold band between the zoom ring and manual focus ring. Like many Tamron lenses, you can lock the zoom ring at its shortest position for easy transport.

As with all long telephoto lenses, slight camera movement is exaggerated and magnified and can cause images to be unsharp. Use a fast shutter speed. If necessary, increase the ISO speed. If you own a DSLR with built-in image stabilization like the Sony used here, all the better. Otherwise, consider a tripod for the dim light telephoto shots, or at least a monopod.

Is the Tamron 18~250mm lens sharp? Judge for yourself. The spider web image below is a small section of the larger image below that. The Tamron lens produced razor sharp images that were richly saturated and free of obvious aberrations. There was none of the dreaded deadly “purple fringe” that plagues so many telephoto zoom lenses.

Priced below $500, the Tamron 18~250mm zoom lens is truly an all-in-one solution that deserves serious consideration if you’re looking to step up from the kit lens that came with your digital SLR.

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	I bought the tamron 18-250 with sony/minolta mount 2 months ago primarily for wedding photography with my Sony Alpha 700 DSLR. Range, sharpness , colors and contrast are brilliant. AF is reasonable at 18-200 mm and very slow at 200-250 mm. But distortion on vertical lines at 18mm is a disaster. Door frames look like the hulk passed by. Also the the zoom mechanism moves so lite that even under an angel of 45 degrees you have to stop the lens from sliding out by itself. (zoomlock only works at 18mm) This makes it unsuitable for wedding photography, I'm switching to the tamron 24-135 SP now. Posted by: Robert Poirot (www.priceless-photography.nl) Nov 21, 2007 @ 5:49 AM EST
	I think the tamron 18-250 judging by the results shown is great, the look as good as any marque lens costing 3-4 times as much, and some them get a poor review, just one thing I would like to be confirmed are the shots shown "straight out the camera" without any alterations of any sort in photoshop. thanks Jim Barr. Posted by: Jim Barr Jun 29, 2008 @ 4:22 PM EST

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