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Early Tamron 400/7.5 T-mount - lots of zoo pictures
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PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 3:07 am    Post subject: Early Tamron 400/7.5 T-mount - lots of zoo pictures Reply with quote
This (Tamron model 490) is one of the first Tamron lenses, and one of the easier early Tamrons to find -





And of course one of the first T-mounts (1961), the leader of a long line of cheap long tele T-mounts that are still being made today. It must have been considered a marketing success, because of course it was imitated by every third-party lens maker, including Tamron itself, which made more elaborate versions.

As a lens this thing is an extremely simple item - though it is a four-element true telephoto lens, not a doublet, as part of the point was small size as well as low cost. The entire front barrel revolves, which is a bit awkward. It is not a preset but just manual, though it does stop down to f/32, which was later uncommon. Minimum focus was a very long 30 feet/10 meters, which indicates how small the helical is. Surprisingly for its time it has no tripod adapter - -well, there is no place for one, as nearly the whole barrel revolves. This thing was meant to be almost the minimum acceptable consumer tele.

Given that, its fit, finish, and apparent durability are excellent. This lens, though quite light, feels like a survivor. That is thick and sturdy aluminum.

It was obviously made to be small. Its only about 1 foot long and weighs about 1 pound. In many ways its specification and intended function is comparable to a modern mirror lens.

As a lens, it gives a very fine performance wide open (at f/7.5, thats not hard). It is perfectly sharp wide open, and I only used it so. It is however quite dim and difficult to focus in poor light, and this weekend was quite foggy. My Pentax focus confirm would also usually fail to operate; with such a small aperture it needs better light. Still, its a light and fairly compact long tele that is quite capable under the right conditions. I would however rather use its somewhat larger brother the Tamron model FO-69 400/6.9, or the collapsible Nestar 400/6.9.

All at f/7.5, many taken with an extension ring due to very long minimum focus -



























The bird -



crop -



PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 3:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
nice series Luis! I also like to shot wide open


PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 6:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Surprisingly good results for what it is - and yet, the principle of keeping it simple served Novoflex well, too.


PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
amazing photos!


PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 11:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Such a beautiful pictures!!! Thanks!


PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 3:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Shocked Shocked Shocked
Luis told : "this weekend was quite foggy. My Pentax focus confirm would also usually fail to operate; with such a small aperture it needs better light. Still, its a light and fairly compact long tele that is quite capable under the right conditions".

WOW !!!
I was just wondering what would have been those pics with the right conditions !

Luis, you kill me... Wink
It seems like any lens in your hands becomes a champion.

Congratulations, dear. Very Happy


PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 2:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Getting a sharp picture with a slow manual lens like this in bad light is difficult. The process requires bracketing focus - taking many pictures, checking the monitor, small adjustments to focus between each shot until accurate focus is achieved. Behind each reasonably focused picture there are 20-30 taken and discarded.

Of course this makes it harder also to find "the moment" - the best one can do is achieve reasonable focus is to go incremental until it is accurate, and then wait for an interesting expression. Of course then the whole thing has to begin all over again if the animal moves. Those playing otters are a huge missed opportunity for instance, being in constant motion I just could not do the focus-bracketing rigamarole. A better lens or even AF would have caught some fascinating pictures.


PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 2:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I use to bracket focus with my 400d, but my 40d now has "live view".
I wonder if you got "live view" luis?

I ask because that lens looks so the keeper!


PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 3:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Nope, I have a K100D, no live view.

I'm not sure about live view - it seems like it will not give a proper zoomed image close enough to check critical focus "live", and even if it did it would be difficult to handle that plus framing a moving creature.

Better I think would be a big groundglass viewfinder/split image like the old SLR's.


PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 3:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hmmmm, I'm getting the impression that Canon is excelling at the "Live View" and Pentax excels at the viewfinder for dslr.
My "Live View" with magnification, esp with the long lenses, is fast & excellent.

course this would be a tripod/monopod shoot for me... one draw back!
no IS!
but then again, this is a 400mm


PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Luis wrote:
I'm not sure about live view

I have a friend who put a big loupe on the lcd and use it as a viewfinder
it is mainly for video on the 5DII where liveview is the only option
I tried it and it work quite well
it cannot replace a optical viewfinder but for low light it is certainly better than focus bracketing


PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you very much Luis for explaining your process.

To do the same, I'll have to be alone without any family who would quickly be bored to have to wait for me... Very Happy

I'll try to make some focus bracketing, too, as I find that my chipped focus confim adapter ring is not always very precise, even when i choose the center "dot".


PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 3:18 pm    Post subject: Luis, you're famous! Reply with quote
Reviving this old thread because an eekbay seller published it to promote his sale of one of these lenses:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XTamron+Model+490.TRS0&_nkw=Tamron+Model+490&_sacat=0

So if anyone is willing to work as hard as Luis to use it to create images, you can have one for a paltry US$70.24 with free shipping in the U.S., a lot more internationally.[/url]


PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 6:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
There's been one on ebay uk for around twenty quid recently. Not for me I have a nestar and a f6.9 for sale myself....

Addendum: good detailed comparison of this lens with the f6.9, sigma 400mm mirror and vivitar 400mm f5.6 preset version here. In chinese but test crops and ratings are self explanatory - or use google translate.

Last edited by marcusBMG on Mon Jul 13, 2015 12:02 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Very Impressive results, especially for such a slow lens.


PostPosted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 5:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Interesting comparison.
I suspect though that the differences between these lenses is a matter of sample variation.
My Tamron 400/6.9 is not worse than the 400/7.5

I wish the seller luck. This is a fairly common lens that I would not have thought would go for that price.


PostPosted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 8:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I have had a look at getting on for a dozen 400mm 6.3's and there is certainly plenty of variability, but that's split between a wide range of marques and designs. Tamron f6.9's (3 x nestar, 1 x standard) however have been pretty consistently good.
Of that test I wonder if there was a problem with the 069's infinity focus result - that looks anomolously sub par.


PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 2:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I acquired a nice collectible one last year, with case.



Things have moved on since Luis did his original appraisal. We now have live view, focus peaking... I took these pics on a Pentax KS2

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5 f7.5 1:1 pixel peep crop.


#6 f11 1:1 pixel peep crop.


The lens is still a clunky one to handle, so I have built this:
#7


Big improvement, monopod is the way to go now.
I also noticed a screw on the aperture ring. Is that a preset mechanism? Underneath is another screw, it doesn't lock the ring so no preset.


PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 2:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
marcusBMG wrote:
I also noticed a screw on the aperture ring. Is that a preset mechanism? Underneath is another screw, it doesn't lock the ring so no preset.

I'd take a guess the second screw is a direct aperture control.
Since focusing is in the back, and there are a few spare kilometers of free space on the barrell, aperture ring is likely diretcly coupled to aperture and sits right on top of it.


PostPosted: Sun May 31, 2020 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
You can now check out my review on pentax forums.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/tamron-490-400mm-f75.html?#review7238

and a small album of pics on Pentax Forums.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/members/53487-marcusbmg/albums/13632-tamron-400-f7-5/
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