Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7

So this is the TAMRON 150-500 F5-6.7 lens, and one of the things that I love about TAMRON is the build quality. Yes, they're small, yes, they're lightweight, but also the durability of these lenses is phenomenal. I know they may not be touted as like completely weather sealed, but I've shot with these in all types of weather, and I've actually never had any issues getting a lot of weather into the camera body or the lens body. Now fingers crossed and knock on wood for that, but TAMRON just has amazing build quality. Now, this is a lens for my camera, I'm using a Sony E-mount camera.

And what I love about the Sony E-mounts is that with a mirrorless system, you do get a lot smaller lenses like this, which is a plus for you, because not only are you saving a lot of room in your bag, but you're also saving a lot of weight in your bag too, and when it comes to telephoto lenses like this, if you're to compare it to a Sony 70-200 F4, it's about the same size, but I'm getting 150 to 500 in this lens. And that's a huge range to have in a lens this size, plus it is actually $300 to $400 cheaper than the name brand lenses like Sony, like that you're gonna get with your body. So having a high quality lens like this from TAMRON is not only gonna save you hundreds of dollars on just the initial buy, but it's also gonna save you a lot of size and a lot of weight in your bag. Now you may be saying, "okay, well with a 70-200, that's like your classic telephoto landscape lens. What are you gonna get that's different out of this?" Well, you're gonna get more capabilities using a lens like this, because you're going to be able to photograph a lot of different kinds of scenes.

While I do use a lot of 70-200 lenses to shoot compressed distances and long range photos for landscapes, one that I often miss is like wildlife photography, and having just a 70-200, I don't have a ton of reach in my camera bag to be able to get to those longer length lenses that I need for wildlife. And if I were to compare this to a wildlife lens, like a 600 lens, what you're getting with a 600 millimeter is it would go like off the screen. It is a massive, massive lens. I flew with one to Kenya, and I can't tell you the burden that it was carrying that thing around on an airplane. So look, 150-500 in this size is an incredible feat for their team.

It is an in-body zoom, meaning it's not a fixed zoom, having it just in body, so it does extend out of the camera body, but with a range like this, a 150-500 that's just something that you're going to get, because that in-body zoom carries a lot within that small package right here. So when you do zoom, it does extend. Now one of my favorite features on this is that a lot of times when I'm going out into the field, bumping my bag against a lot of things, sometimes this zoom will start to extend a little bit, or if I'm shooting, I might touch this accidentally and bump it. It actually has a lock feature on the outside where you can have it all the way down, you can lock it in place, and then you can't zoom this anymore. I would use this every single time that I put it in my bag, and I would have no issue when I got it out or picked it up or was trying to use different focal lengths.

Locking it in place is the ideal thing for me so that I know number one, it's not extending or going a little bit further or a little bit shorter than what I was actually shooting, and this is especially important for wildlife when you're holding your lens handheld and shooting like this, sometimes you can bump that, and it'll zoom your composition in and out. You don't really want that. But it also protects this lens against any damage getting into it, so I think that's a really cool feature that I haven't seen on a lot of other lenses. Now, other things with this lens is the footing on it. And I know this might seem like a small detail, but the footing on it is actually designed to fit a lot of your ball heads.

So if you look at some of the other telephoto companies, they are creating something that is just a footer that has just a flat angled edge on it. The problem with that is it doesn't fit all of your tripod ball heads. And that can be an issue. I know this first hand. I was actually shooting some time lapses of some storm cells and high impact winds, lightning, rain, thunder, tornadoes in the area, and I was photographing with a 70-200, and it didn't have this kind of footer that locks into your ball head, fell over off the top of the car, I was actually standing on top of the car, the lens completely fell off the car, smashed into two pieces, I could take it apart and hold it in two different hands.

That's not something you want to happen. You want this to stay on your tripod. And this, just this little ridge right here on the footer, is gonna keep that in. And a lot of times with these lenses, they're very comparable in image quality, and TAMRON is right up there with the others. But a lot of times with these lens qualities, it's these small little details that not only make your shooting more enjoyable, that make it a lot more safe for you as a photographer so that you're not have to spend money on those repairs or anything like that.

What you're able to do with a lens like this is have it secure, have it safe, have it protected from the elements, and know a hundred percent that you are going to be okay in those environments. Now, do I recommend you going out and shooting in lightning and tornados? Absolutely not. That's an extreme condition, but what I want you to know is that this lens can handle things like that. And you don't really have to worry too much about damage coming into your lens when you're doing that.

now, in terms of the lens itself, it has a lot of extra features on the sides in terms of focal length, has a lot of gears and gadgets in terms of how much focal length you want, auto focus, manual focus, and then a couple different elements that you can program yourself. And coming into this lens, you know, I was a little bit skeptical about the size and weight of this. How do you pack all of this into just one small little lens? But after using it a few times and after actually shooting with it, I was not only surprised that I could shoot off of a tripod with a lens this big with this amount of range on it, but I was surprised at how much I was able to fit extra into my camera bag. I'm all about simplifying the gear that is in my bag, but with this lens, I can also carry, let's say, like a 35 millimeter lens, I can carry a wide angle lens, I'm using the TAMRON 70 F2.8 for my wides, and all of that going into one bag is phenomenal.

If you were to tell me I could go out and shoot wildlife with all of my lens line up and have the focal range up to a 500 millimeter, I would tell you you're completely lying. But that was until I started packing this into my bag. Not only that, the image quality stands up there with any lens company that you want to put it with. This is a powerhouse lens whether you shoot small details, landscapes, wildlife, whether this can do the job that you need it to. And with that, I want to pause with Julia, and I wanna see if anybody has any questions on this lens or if they have any interest in it as well.

Well, let's first let some questions come in. There's a comment that has just come in from Tom. He says, "hi. That is definitely a feature that I wish Sony and other manufacturers included with our lens callers." Now, this comment came in when you were talking about having that feature that allows it to go on any tripod. So that seems to be what Thomas is appreciating.

It might also be about that locking mechanism, but I think it came in when you were talking about the tripod feature. So that looks to be popular. We've got a couple hellos coming in from Roger and Anya. Mary's watching from Oregon. And then we do have our first question that just came in here from Steven.

So this might be a little more general, but we'll talk about it in terms of this lens you just featured. Is there an all-around lens that you always bring with you in the field? So I guess, would this kind of fall into that category, David? I think this would definitely fall into that, especially if I were going to a location that did have wildlife along with it, and that can be any national park or even state park. Like if you were to carry this lens a 150 to a 500, plus a wide angle lens, let's say a 24 to 70, you're gonna be pretty much within your range on anything you want to shoot with that.

And that goes from really big wide angle scenes which will actually get to a wide angle scene that I'm talking about when we talk about Bay Photo here in just a second, but you're getting anything from wide angle range to mid-ground range with the 70 millimeters as well, and then 150 to 500 is just compressed distances for landscapes all the way into wildlife. So this lens is definitely in that category. There are some that can go from 18 to 300, but you're not getting the extensive- Let's, we lost just the tail end of what you finished up with, David. So if you wanna repeat what you just said. Yeah, I was just saying that you have lenses from 18 to 300, but you wouldn't get that close up option that you would have with the 150 to 500, like this lens has.

I got a follow up question coming in from John. John wants to know how does the 150 to 500 compare with the 150 to 600? You know, I think it compares very well. Honestly, when I was even shooting wildlife in Kenya with a 600, what happened was I often felt like too close and the 600 is a prime lens, so you do have a wider aperture option within that prime, because you have less going on in the camera body, but I often felt that I was way too close for what I needed to do, and then I would switch to a wide angle, and then I wouldn't get as close as I wanted to get. So I think like having a zoom option like this and giving up that extra 100 millimeters at the end of it from 500 to 600, I think that's definitely something that you have to decide for yourself, but I think that's a great trade off, because you're getting that zoom feature of not being too close to something and being able to zoom back out and not being within the whiskers of a lion, you know.

You want to be able to zoom out a little bit and get the whole lion in there. All right, let's go back to Steven. Another question from Steven. So Steven does wildlife and sports photography, so he's wondering if this lens would be a good fit for sports as well. A hundred percent and definitely paired with the, like this is the Sony E-mount, and paired with a Sony E-mount body, those are really, really fast.

And this is a fast lens too of the 500 range. You're gonna be really happy with this lens for sports, because like I said, with this zoom capability, you can get, let's say you're shooting a football game. You can get way up in there on the quarterback going in to take the snap, and then zoom straight out and get a little bit of a wider shot of the whole play unfolding, especially if the action is on the other side of the field. I've shot on the sidelines of college football games too, and it can be really difficult when you don't have that amount of zoom, but this one has so much zoom that you're gonna be able to get all that in there. All right.

Well, best of luck, Steven. Hopefully this is something that can suit you for both of those. We've got a question coming in from Rochelle next. So it looks like Rochelle is assuming that this would not fit for an Olympus Mirrorless. Is that the case?

This specific one wouldn't. I haven't looked at all of the mounts that TAMRON has for this lens, but they probably have something comparable that would fit an . Like I said, this is a a Sony E-mount that has a lot of lens options for mirrorless systems like this lens is, but there's probably something comparable out there. All right, and then one final comment here from Rick. Rick has the TAMRON 150 to 600 millimeter, and it is also a fantastic lens, he says.

He uses it for wildlife and also for solar photography. Something we haven't talked about yet, would solar photography be good for this lens you just featured as well? Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. And anytime you're using like a 150 to 600, 150 to 500, you can shoot the exact same things with that.

The only thing you're giving up is that 100 millimeter range that you have at the end, but I think having, it probably costs a little bit less, it's smaller, it's lighter. So for me, you know, I'm getting a little bit older as I continue to shoot, and my back hurts after long hikes, especially backpacking, so I wanna keep a little bit smaller and lighter gear in my bag. User 125DStewart from Maryland, hello and welcome, is wanting to know the price on the TAMRON lens that you were featuring. Yeah, so this price on this one is $1,199, which may seem really steep, but the other 70-200 F4 lens that I use is 1,499. So there's a lot more in this lens than a 70-200 at a much smaller price.

So you basically save $300, and you're able to get a lot more range with this lens. And it's literally, like I'm looking at my other lens on my shelf right now. It's the exact same size as my 70-200, a little bit heavier, but does basically anything I would need that lens to do too, and it would save you $300.