In summary
The performance of the review lens was much better than we expected, given its 18.8x zoom range. Although not a match for prime lenses or significantly shorter zooms with respect to resolution, it is still an outstanding performer for a zoom with such a long focal length range.
Provided you’re not fixated on having edge-to-edge sharpness at wide apertures, the usable aperture range is actually quite broad. Even at maximum aperture with the 300mm focal length, image sharpness in the centre of the frame should be good enough to suit most potential users’ requirements.
Most aberrations were handled remarkably well and distortion, though moderate, is easily corrected in modern cameras. The small amount of vignetting we found should have little or no impact on most shots.
Mechanically, the lens performs exactly as it should, providing smooth and controllable zooming, negligible zoom creep and the ability to fine tune focusing manually. Autofocusing is virtually silent and the in-built stabilisation provided a reliable couple of f-stops of shutter speed compensation.
Combine these advantages with weather protection and a physical size that is both compact and light and Tamron’s 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro lens has a lot in its favour. It’s arguably the best extended-range zoom lens we’ve reviewed so far, and is well qualified for our Editor’s Choice award.
Full review
Released in April 2014, Tamron’s new 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro lens uses the same PZD (Piezo Drive) ultrasonic motor as the 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD lens we reviewed in March 2011. It’s also designed for DSLR cameras with APS-C sized sensors but provides a wider 18.8x zoom range with focal lengths equivalent to approximately 25.6-480mm on the Canon cameras we used for our tests.
Angled view of the 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro lens. (Source: Tamron.)
On Nikon and Sony DSLRs this lens provides a focal length range equivalent to 24.8-465mm in 35mm format. Lenses with the Sony mount don’t include the VC image stabilisation mechanism, since stabilisation is built into Sony’s DSLR cameras.
The optical design is complex and based upon16 elements in 12 groups. Three glass-moulded aspherical lenses and one hybrid aspherical element are included, along with two low dispersion (LD) elements, one XR (Extra Refractive index) glass element, and one element of UXR (Ultra-Extra Refractive Index) glass, as shown in the diagram below.
The above diagram shows the position of the various elements in the lens. (Source: Tamron.)
The lens is remarkably compact for the focal length range it spans, thanks to the UXR glass (which minimises the front lens diameter), optimisation of the layout of the moulded-glass aspherical elements and the adoption of a five-lens-group zoom system approach to provide greater design flexibility. Use of exotic glass elements also corrects common optical aberrations and the latest coating technology suppresses internal reflections to minimise ghosting and flare.
Like the 18-270mm lens, this lens has a piezoelectric internal autofocus motor, which also helps to keep the lens small and light. It uses a standing wave ultrasonic motor to turn a piezoceramic element that adjusts the focus of the lens and is both fast and quiet.
The lens is supplied with front and end caps plus a petal-shaped lens hood. It accepts 67 mm diameter filters.
Who’s it for?
This lens will suit any user of an APS-C sensor DSLR camera who doesn’t like changing lenses or wants to use their camera in conditions that might become a little dusty or damp. It’s also a good all-in-one lens for travellers, thanks to its relatively compact size and light weight and the ability of the expanded zoom range to cover everything from wide-angle to telephoto and capture close-ups with reasonably high magnification (although not true macro).
Convenience-orientated photographers who can accommodate some inevitable compromises in overall image quality will find it an attractive option as a walk-around lens. And, if you shop around, the price tag shouldn’t put too big a dent in your bank balance.
Build and Ergonomics
Build quality is up to Tamron’s usual high standards and well above average for the price of this lens. High quality plastics have been used for much of the construction of the lens barrel and the metal bayonet mount is robust and fitted snugly onto the camera bodies we used for this review.
The matte finish on the outer barrel looks smart and feels nice in the hands. The rubber gasket surrounding the lens mount accounts for the ‘moisture-resistant’ claim and should help to prevent dust and moisture getting into the camera body.
Without the lens cap, the lens extends just over 100 mm from the camera body in the 16mm position, with a pair of inner barrels extending by roughly 80 mm when the lens is zoomed to 300mm. Attaching the lens hood adds a further 35 mm to the overall length.
Unlike the 18-270mm lens, the zoom ring is located nearest to the front of the lens, beginning just 10 mm back, at the front edge of the outermost barrel. It’s approximately 40 mm wide with the leading 28 mm section clad with a deeply-ridged rubber grip band.
Stamped on the trailing edge of the zoom ring are seven focal length settings: 16, 35, 50, 70, 100, 200 and 300mm. Roughly a quarter of a turn spans the entire zoom range.
A zoom lock is set into the outer barrel in the same section as the focal length settings a little to the right of the 16mm mark. We found no instances of zoom creep while using the lens but the lock could be handy for preventing the lens from extending accidentally when it’s removed from a camera bag.
Immediately aft of the zoom ring is a distance scale, which is inset into the outer barrel behind a transparent window. It’s calibrated in metres and feet and ranges from the closest focusing distance of 39 cm to infinity.
The focusing ring lies behind the distance scale, separated from it by a narrow cosmetic band of ‘tungsten silver’ that carries the name of the manufacturer and the lens. The focusing ring is just over 10 mm wide and fully clad with a ridged rubber grip band. It can be turned through 360 degrees.
Focusing is fully internal and the front of the lens doesn’t rotate during focusing or zooming, enabling users to fit angle-critical filters like polarisers and graduates. Both rings turn smoothly and are well damped, which makes fine adjustments easy. Manual focusing is disabled when the lens is set to AF mode.
Behind the focusing ring the lens angles gently inward towards the mounting plate. Around the left hand side of this section are two slider switches, the upper one with AF and MF positions and the lower one for switching the VC stabilisation on and off.
The lens hood was a tight fit and difficult to attach and remove on cold winter mornings. But it appeared to work well and maintained image contrast and colour vibrancy in shots taken with extreme backlighting.
The lens was a comfortable fit on the two cameras we used for our tests: the entry-level EOS 1200D and the older but more sophisticated EOS 7D. Its relatively light weight and compact size make it usable on smaller, more compact DSLR camera bodies but it was also nicely balanced on the larger camera.
Performance
Imatest showed the review lens to be a good performer for its extreme zoom range, particularly with the 35mm and 50mm focal lengths with both cameras we tested. Although both test cameras had 18-megapixel sensors, the EOS 7D provided higher resolution overall so we have used its results for our assessments.
Although it didn’t quite meet expectations for the camera’s sensor resolution with JPEG files, the centre resolution came close between f/5.6 and f/8 with the 35mm and 50mm focal lengths. Resolution was lower at 16mm and for the longer focal lengths we were able to test (the limit of our testing range is 200mm).
Edge softening was noticeable throughout all focal lengths at all aperture settings, but particularly with the widest aperture settings. The graph below plots the Imatest results obtained from the EOS 7D.
Lateral chromatic aberration was mainly negligible, ranging into the low level with the shortest and longest focal lengths. Best performance in this area was with the 50mm and 70mm focal lengths. The graph below shows the results of our tests.
Autofocusing was noticeably faster with the EOS 7D because it has a more sophisticated AF system and more sensor points than the relatively basic AF system in the EOS 1200D. Using the 7D we were able to photograph birds in flight with the AI Servo tracking set to normal sensitivity and obtain a high percentage of sharp shots at 300mm.
The closest focus for the lens is 39 cm, which provided scope for shooting close-ups of flowers, insects and other small objects when longer focal lengths were used. The maximum aperture at 300mm is f/6.3, which limits the potential to isolate subjects from backgrounds although not as much as we expected. Full-time manual focus over-ride provided scope for tweaking focus without having to switch out of AF mode.
The review lens produced some nice close-ups of flowers, particularly with the EOS 7D. On the EOS 1200D it was also great for shooting candid portraits and the camera+lens combination was small and light enough to be portable and not overly conspicuous.
Bokeh was better at longer focal lengths than shorter ones, despite having access to wider aperture settings. The smoothest bokeh occurred at 300mm. It wasn’t as smooth as you would obtain with a faster prime lens but it was remarkably good for an extended-range convenience zoom lens.
The review lens exhibited quite a lot of distortion at shorter focal lengths. Obvious barrel distortion at 16mm segued into slight pincushioning at 35mm, which increased gradually to 100mm, after which little distortion was apparent.
Vignetting was barely noticeable at the widest apertures across the zoom range. Fortunately, neither fault would be a cause for concern in modern cameras that provide in-camera peripheral illumination and distortion corrections. And it’s easy to correct raw files with current ‘development’ software.
Backlit subjects were generally handled well, although the review lens wasn’t totally flare-free when a bright light source was within the frame. In such situations, contrast and colour were maintained to an acceptable level in all of our test shots and we found no signs of veiling flare.
Conclusion
The performance of the review lens was much better than we expected, given its 18.8x zoom range. Although not a match for prime lenses or significantly shorter zooms with respect to resolution, it is still an outstanding performer for a zoom with such a long focal length range.
Provided you’re not fixated on having edge-to-edge sharpness at wide apertures, the usable aperture range is actually quite broad. Even at maximum aperture with the 300mm focal length, image sharpness in the centre of the frame should be good enough to suit most potential users’ requirements.
Most aberrations were handled remarkably well and distortion, though moderate, is easily corrected in modern cameras. The small amount of vignetting we found should have little or no impact on most shots.
Mechanically, the lens performs exactly as it should, providing smooth and controllable zooming, negligible zoom creep and the ability to fine tune focusing manually. Autofocusing is virtually silent and the in-built stabilisation provided a reliable couple of f-stops of shutter speed compensation.
Combine these advantages with weather protection and a physical size that is both compact and light and Tamron’s 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro lens has a lot in its favour. It’s arguably the best extended-range zoom lens we’ve reviewed so far, and is well qualified for our Editor’s Choice award.
SPECS
Picture angle: 82 degrees 12 minutes to 5 degrees 20 minutes
Minimum aperture: f/22-f/40
Lens construction: 16 elements in 12 groups (including 4 aspherical, 2 LD, one XR and one UXR lens elements)
Lens mounts: Nikon, Canon, Sony
Diaphragm Blades: 7 (circular aperture)
Focus drive: Standing wave ultrasonic motor PZD (Piezo Drive)
Stabilisation: Low-friction VC (Vibration Compensation) for Canon and Nikon mounts (Sony DSLR bodies include built-in image stabilisation)
Minimum focus: 39 cm
Maximum magnification: 1:2.9 (at f=300mm and MFD 0.39m)
Filter size: 67 mm
Dimensions (Diameter x L): 75 x 99.5 mm
Weight: 540 grams
TESTS
(based on JPEG files from the Canon EOS 7D)
SAMPLES
The images below were captured as raw files with the Canon EOS 7D.
Vignetting at 16mm f/3.5.
Vignetting at 50mm f/3.5.
Vignetting at 100mm f/3.5.
Vignetting at 300mm f/6.3.
Rectilinear distortion at 16mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 50mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 100mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 300mm.
16mm focal length; ISO 200,1/400 second at f/9.
35mm focal length; ISO 200,1/400 second at f/9.
50mm focal length; ISO 200,1/400 second at f/9.
70mm focal length; ISO 200,1/400 second at f/9.
100mm focal length; ISO 200,1/400 second at f/9.
200mm focal length; ISO 200,1/400 second at f/9.
300mm focal length; ISO 200,1/400 second at f/9.
Close-up at 16mm focal length; ISO 200,1/1000 second at f/9.
Close-up at 300mm focal length; ISO 200,1/1000 second at f/8.
Bokeh in close-up at f/6.3; ISO 200,1/1000 second at 300mm focal length.
Bird in flight photographed with EOS 7D; ISO 200, 1/500 second at f/9 at 300mm focal length.
Detailed subject photographed with EOS 7D at 300mm; ISO 200, 1/640 second at f/10.
The images below were captured as JPEGs with the lens on an EOS 1200D body.
16mm focal length in strong backlighting; ISO 100, 1/125 second at f/7.1.
16mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/50 second at f/4.
77mm focal length, ISO 400, 1/100 second at f/5.6.
185mm focal length, ISO 1000, 1/250 second at f/6.3.
200mm focal length, ISO 2000, 1/320 second at f/6.3.
300mm focal length, ISO 5000, 1/400 second at f/8.
141mm focal length, ISO 400, 1/250 second at f/7.1.
77mm focal length, ISO 1000, 1/125 second at f/9.
150mm focal length, ISO 800, 1/250 second at f/6.3.
300mm focal length, ISO 2500, 1/400 second at f/8.
300mm focal length, ISO 2500, 1/500 second at f/10.
100mm focal length, ISO 1000, 1/100 second at f/8.
Rating
RRP: AU$849; ASP AU$750; US$629
- Build: 9.0
- Handling: 8.5
- Image quality: 8.5
- Versatility: 9.0