Cameras-n- Stuff

If it is time for you to up grade your camera bag to include an amazing close up lens, the Tamron SP AF 60mm F/2 Di II LD[IF] Macro 1:1 lens is now available to buy. What’s in a name, anyway? What do all those letters mean, anyway?

The letters are quite meaningful:

• SP = High performance specifications (I know, pretty vague)
• AF = auto focus
• F/2 = the widest aperture is F/2.0
• Di II = digital images only, not film images
• LD = Low Dispersion glass
• IF = Internal focusing

Those letters deal with a wide range of technical information. Are they important to this discussion? Oh, Yeah!

The features available in the Tamron 60mm Macro lens are what make it a fantastic lens.

If VC and USD were in the list, this lens would be even better. VC stands for Vibration Compensation, and USD stands for Ultrasonic Silent Drive. This would add something similar to Image Stabilization and Fast Focus. Even though they would add great value to this lens, they would also add a lot to the price. Unfortunately, they would push the price of the lens beyond a reasonable limit and make it unavailable for its intended users. Leaving them out made the Tamron 60mm Macro Lens more available to the average digital SLR consumer.

Who are the intended users? It is only good for use on APC-C cameras… I know, more letters. APS-C cameras are digital SLR cameras with a smaller than “full frame” image sensor. Cameras in the APS-C category are the Digital Rebels in the Canon line and the D5000 in the Nikon line.

The fabulous part about being for APS-C cameras is that those cameras now have a really GREAT macro lens available to them.

Here are two of the most outstanding features of the Tamron 60mm Macro Lens.

1. Image quality is superior. All reviewers agreed that the image quality was beyond their expectations. Just a short aside here – prime lenses, that is those lenses with only one focal length, tend to produce the very best image quality, typically much better than zoom lenses.
2. Depth of Field. Bokeh is a term bandied about by photographers referring to the blurring of the background of a photograph. It happens when the depth of the focal plane is not very deep. This is true of this macro lens. It has a very shallow focal plane allowing for a nice blurring effect that helps the main part of the photo stand out even more.

This declaration by the manufacturer is significant: “The Tamron 60mm Macro lens is the only lens in the World that can boast an F/2.0 aperture at that focal length (60mm).” The closest rival has as its largest aperture F/2.8.

Still another advantage is that this lens is not merely for close up photography, although it is very good in that category. Portraits are also produced with excellent results using the Tamron 60mm Macro lens. Many photographers use a 50mm lens for portraits, but this one performed admirably for taking sharp portraits.

What about the cons?

Most of the reviews have agreed that there is one negative factor that they discovered in their use of the lens. The lens has auto focus with a manual override. That means that you can use the camera to get the focus automatically, but if you feel that you can tweak the focus manually to get it sharper, you can do that. The complaint is that the reviewing photographers had trouble with this feature, because the lens tended to try to revert back to auto focus.

This is not an uncommon problem with macro photo lenses. The problem is due to the closeness of the camera lens to the actual subject of the photo and the very narrow depth of field. The lens tries to “search” for the right focus. With the Tamron 60mm Macro lens, the testers agreed that they were able to master this problem, but it was somewhat of a negative in their evaluation.

All in all this is a really great lens for entry level to mid level digital slr cameras. This lens offers photographers a affordable macro lens that provides great image quality.

The Tamron 60mm macro lens has gotten this comment from every reviewer, “This lens produces great images.”

Find out more at http://digital-photographic-resources.com.