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Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 60-300mm 23A
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:11 pm    Post subject: Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 60-300mm 23A Reply with quote

I picked this up a year ago, very cheaply as part of a lot.
I have actually had a broken one for several years, that will not be released from macro mode, and I have played around with fixing it so far with no success.
This "new" one however is in perfect working order.



I have grown to appreciate this a great deal and I now use it regularly. I find it extremely handy and versatile. The Pentax Forums entry of this says it "has been referred to as a "swiss army knife" of a lens due to it's versatility" and thats my opinion as well.

Its a very common, very popular, much reviewed lens, and doesn't really need another writeup, so I will just cite a number of good reviews, some by members -

http://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/tamron-adaptall-2-sp-60-300mm-f-3-8-5-4-23a.html

Note in particular the review there by member cootouch who has used these things a very great deal, and the macro test he posted linked to his review -

http://michaelmcbroom.com/blogistan/?p=56

and his post on mflenses -
http://forum.mflenses.com/tamron-60-300-3-8-5-4-lens-test-t15756.html

and of course on the mflenses pages -
http://www.mflenses.com/tamron-sp-60-300-review.html

Adaptall-2 said it was a "somewhat above average performer", which I think is faint praise for such a useful thing.

http://www.adaptall-2.com/lenses/23A.html

Like the Swiss Army knife (see above), this is a reasonably effective lens that replaces, possibly, several specialized lenses, at the cost of some extra weight and size. Its generally a good tradeoff. Its a decent if fairly clumsy macro lens, especially for 3d subjects, a very capable 300mm that is competitive with many primes in that class, and down to very credible "portrait" territory on APS-C. There are many decent "macro" 70-200 lenses of course, but, personally, I am addicted to "just a bit longer" and will always go for as long a lens as I can get. 300mm is very much worth the extra weight and size vs 200mm.

As a walk around tele its very hard to beat, which will handle any desire short of wide angle or f/1.4-1.2 jobs, the proverbial beautiful women in dark cafes. If you are wandering about in daylight this should suffice for whatever comes along.

Its not perfect of course, with some CA and color fringing under the usual conditions especially in the longer settings. There seems to be some tendency for it to get stuck in macro mode or for it to refuse to be set to macro mode. Best to check that.

Samples of the versatility of this thing -







































PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One has just turned up on Ebay UK.


PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 11:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Looks good! Like 1 small

That is a pretty useful and large range for sure!


PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 11:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

More good pics Luis. Yep, one of my favourite adaptalls. Easily picked up on ebay (UK) for around £30+/-, which puts it in the "everyone should have one" category IMO.
Still holds its own against modern lenses see 70mm comparison here.

Note that one of those cheap 65/66mm ID alloy tripod mount rings from China fits nicely around the end of the zoom/focus ring for tripod mounting for macro work (in macro the zoom/focus ring doesn't rotate). However for normal use the TM ring needs to be modded, or use packing, to fit around the barrel in front of the aperture ring (reduces zoom range to ~ 100-300mm).


PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 1:20 am    Post subject: Re: Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 60-300mm 23A Reply with quote

luisalegria wrote:
As a walk around tele its very hard to beat, ... If you are wandering about in daylight this should suffice for whatever comes along.

As long as you are shooting film/full frame I concur: wandering around a city buildings fit the normal end from a distance, then you can zoom in for the crafted details. I'd venture that it's excessive on a crop sensor.

The issue for me is that the viewfinders of APS-C dSLRs I've owned haven't allowed accurate focussing (given its weight, Live View is unwieldy hand-held). Using a monopod to support the camera body offers little improvement - I've not tried an adapted tripod mount on the lens itself. It's trying to use the lens at the limits of its capability (60mm macro and 300mm) that makes this particularly frustrating.

Lastly, since it's a push-pull zoom and in macro mode focussing is accomplished by pushing/pulling, you can have the equivalent of 'zoom creep' at high angles, causing focus on macro subjects to slip away.


PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 1:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use this on a Pentax K30 actually, I'm a huge fan of the Pentax APS-C DSLRs.
And of Pentax everything of course, going back to the 1970's.
Been doing MF on them since the K100D and the K-x
And with both macro and long tele, me being a tele fan, as I'm narrow minded.
So this 300mm is really a 450mm equivalent in angle of view, and I like it that way.

I got used to accurate (enough) focus with the stock screens (I don't know, I got the knack after an hour or two, maybe its some powers of extra-sensory perception) , but life has been even better since I got a plain groundglass focus screen.
Much better.

Yes, some of us Pentax guys are a little odd.


PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like 1 Like 1 Like 1 well done!!


PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 8:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hope you do not mind me hi-jacking this topic with some of my samples, i thought it'd be a overkill to open a new topic on this great Tamron SP lens. I bought it some time ago, complete with hood, manual and (french) bill! It's as good as a new one.
I've used it on several occasions now and i must say it really is an excellent zoomlens! Maybe it's the handling maybe it really is better but i prefer it over my Minolta MD 5.6/100-300, and that coming from a real Minolta addict......

It's easy to focus, in good light it's easy to shoot handheld and it is indeed very versatile! Take a look at no.6: unprocessed camera-jpg, wide open.

If you see one : grab it!

1.
nibble nibble ! by René Maly, on Flickr

2.
Cutting trees by René Maly, on Flickr

3.
(ab)used by René Maly, on Flickr

4.
Fast little stallion by René Maly, on Flickr

5.


6.
This last one is an unprocessed wide-open shot, straight out of Sony A7 JPG picture


PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 11:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, some very nice photos Luis and René! It's really nice seeing that others are able to wring such great photos out of this lens. Kinda gratifying.

It was kinda fun going back and reading that thread I started years ago. Yeah, I continue to be a big fan of this lens. Pair this 60-300 with the Tamron SP 24-48 if you're shooting film or full frame, and you've got a pair of walking-around lenses that'll handle most any photo situation you're likely to come across. And on a crop-sensor camera, you're at about 85-400 or so, relatively speaking.

Luis, I agree about the comments at adaptall-2.com. Rather faint praise, while he extolls the 70-210/3.5 to high heavens, but if you look t the MP test results, the 60-300 clearly outperforms the other.

I'm not gonna bother posting any photos here. You can click on the review link at the Pentax Forums that Luis has provided and you'll see some of my photos over there, so there's no point in duplicating them here.

Good deals still exist on eBay for this lens, so if you're tempted I'd say go for it.