Tamron 80-200mm f2.8 + Nikon D2H

stingOM · Expire: 2012-12-27

I joined the local Clare birdwatch group day! Smile

http://www.clarebirdwatching.com/

#1 Before I went out, I took a test shot of a garden bird.

#2 and #3 some floating reeds at the jetty - @80/2.8 and @200mm/2.8

#4 and #5 the group of birdwatchers I was with...

#6 the weather is dry, but typical winter's day, with low sunlight.

#7 I should have brought my 300 or 400mm lens with me. The birds are just too far!! Mad

#8 and #9 some sea gulls in the lake

#10 and #11 A domestic rooster

Not bad for a 4MP camera right? Wink

Jesito · Expire: 2015-01-07

Not bad at all!.
Nice to see the good cams alive Wink

The last and the first one are my favourites.
Regards.

Jes.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Great pictures! Very capable performer!

stingOM · Expire: 2012-12-27

Thanks folks. I think the lens is quiet good, but does have some CA and very heavy in weight!! Very usable wide open. The body itself, I have found to be excellent up to ISO 400, and good up to ISO 1250. Usable even at ISO 3200-6400 for small prints. The RAW files a very noisy but handled very well by LR3 and the grain are really film like in rendering which I really like.

The biggest advantage is its very small RAW files! Very Happy

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Very nice shots, Sting! I also own a copy of this lens. Haven't owned it for too long and I haven't given mine a good workout yet. It's
good to see some nice pics taken with one.

I've mentioned this here before but it might be worth mentioning again. I had been wanting to get a fast (like f/2.8 ) ~200mm lens for a
while. The 180mm f/2.8 ED Nikkor was at the top of my list. I owned one of these lenses years ago, and really liked it. Then I made an
interesting discovery. Over at the adaptall-2.org site, they have listed the Modern Photography tests for this lens -- comparing it to the
Tokina 80-200/2.8, plus they have the MP tests for the SP 180mm f/2.5 LDIF, comparing it with the Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 ED. What I
found was that the Tamron SP 80-200/2.8's numbers at 200mm are almost identical to those for the ED Nikkor. IOW, it's a cracking
good lens at 200mm, even wide open.

Your photos bear this out.

stingOM · Expire: 2012-12-27

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the feedback. IMO, it is definitely usable wide open, however, it is not razor sharp as one would like it to be at 200mm. You really need to stop it down a little, then it improves a lot. I have not posted my test shots yet. But it seems to be worst on the Panny G1 sensor. But I am sure on a FF camera, the lens would perform way better.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

He Sting,

With respect to sensor size, you may be right. So far, I've used mine only with my APS-C EOS, and a couple of film cameras. With the
APS-C sensor, sharpness is good. Although I haven't put it through any critical tests yet, I do have one example showing its
performance wide open. ISO 100, f/2.8

A common grackle, drinking from my dog's water bucket on a hot July afternoon:

A 100% crop of the above image:

I didn't apply any sharpening to the cropped image. I have another 100% crop where I did, but imo I oversharpened it, although it did
bring out quite a bit more detail. Anyway, on my APS-C EOS, I would rate its wide-open sharpness as very good.

There is some CA evident in the 100% crop, but this is easily gotten rid of with PSP's CA tool.

stingOM · Expire: 2012-12-27

Hi Michael,

I think I am being too harsh on this lens. Based on what I see then, my results matches yours. In my mind I was comparing this against my prime like for example Topcor RE 100mm f2.8 which is super sharp even at wide open aperture. I think I am not exactly comparing like with like.