Tamron adaptall 35-70

[BettyG]

Anyone use these Old Tamron legacy lenses? I've been using several of them, and really like them. I use them on my Oly. E-520 and the E-3. They are of course manual focus only, but I've found them to be tack sharp, and in addition have a really nice feel to them.

Here's one with the 35-70



and this one with the 80-210 (love this lens) and it produces killer bokeh

[cooltouch]

Many of the old manual focus Tamron lenses were as good as, if not better than, a lot of the OEM lenses produced at the time. And back in the day, Tamron optics -- at least the best quality ones -- weren't cheap either.

I own a few, and have owned others. Currently I use on a regular basis the Tamron SP 60-300mm f/3.8-5.4, the 90mm SP f/2.5 macro, and the 24mm f/2.5. The 60-300 is one of the best performing lenses of that focal range, the 90 macro is one of the best macro lenses I've ever seen, and the 24mm f/2.5 outperforms my 24mm f/2.8 AIs Nikkor. What's not to like? A number of years ago, I also owned a copy of the 300mm f/2.8 LD IF, and it was an outstanding optic. I sold it during a period of too much gear and not enough money, and have wished ever since I wouldn't have.

Canon F-1, Tamron SP 60-300 f/3.8-5.4, Kodachrome 64


Canon F-1, Tamron 24mm f/2.5, Kodak Elite Chrome 100


Canon EOS XS, Tamron SP 90mm macro



Nikon F3, Tamron 300mm f/2.8, Fujichrome 100

[BettyG]

WOW spectacular shots, especially the race car, wow! I'll have to look on ebay for some of those ;-)
So how do the new Tamron lenses compare to the old ones? Are they as good? I've been thinking about getting one...

Betty

[cooltouch]

Hey Betty,

Thanks for the kind words. I forgot to mention in my first post, there's a great site on the net that has lots of info on the manual-focus Tamrons:

adaptall-2.org

A bit of info on the race car: that pic was taken at IMSA's last race at Riverside International Raceway back in 1986. It was zooming past my position at over 200 mph when I took that shot. Impossible to focus on a moving object at those speeds, so I would prefocus on a spot on the track, dial in a sufficient amount of depth of field, and trip the shutter at just the right moment. Tricky.

The only AF Tamron I have direct experience with is a 24-70mm Aspherical, which I bought new back in 1994. It's always taken good pics, and shows decent sharpness with my DSLR. But I can't really comment on their more recent offerings.

As for picking up these old Tamrons, a few words of advice: be patient. Wait for the auctions and avoid the Buy-It-Now listings. My experience is the BINs are always over priced, and you can usually pick up a clean Tamron lens for much less than what they're asking in the BINs. Back in 1985 I paid over $300 for my first Tamron 60-300. Sold it several years later, but recently acquired two more. Picked up one without mount at a local camera shop for $40 and picked up the other one from an eBay auction for about $20. Only reason why I bid on the auction was because I wanted the mount it was attached to. So I got my 2nd 60-300 for the price of the mount.

The 24mm f/2.5 can be found for reasonablle too if you're patient, but the same can't always be said for the Tamron 90mm macro. It has an excellent reputation and is in pretty good demand, so you can expect to pay a pretty fair sum for one, but still it's an outstanding optic and well worth the price, in my view. I also have a Micro Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 and one of the legendary Vivitar Series 1 105mm f/2.5 lenses. My Tamron 90 outperforms both: it edges out the Vivitar, and is equivalent in center sharpness to the Nikkor, but blows the Nikkor away in corner sharpness. Oh and by the way, in a pinch the 60-300 does a decent job with its macro capabilities too. It is surprisingly sharp.

Back in August, I tested the macro capabilities of all four of the above lenses and wrote an article about the test for my blog. If you're interested, you can read about it at the following link. Scroll about halfway down.

Michael Sez