Tamron AF18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di-II LD Zoom Lens

A few weeks ago my brother Glen and I were discussing camera equipment when he happened to mention that he would love to have a zoom lens that was versatile enough to take close-up images, long-distance images, and everything in between without having to continually swap lenses.As luck would have it I had recently written about Tamron’s new 18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di-II LD Zoom Lens on TodaysPhoto.org, so I suggested that he check it out. I emailed him a few links to some basic info about the lens, then more or less forgot about it. Well, he called me up this morning and informed me that he had purchased it and asked if I would like to come over and check it out. I did, and all I could say is “Wow, this is one fantastic lens!”

He had already attached the lens to his Nikon D70s DSLR, so he handed it to me and told me to “take it for a spin”. First off, I zoomed in on some birds that were dining at a birdfeeder outside in the yard and snapped off a few handheld shots at various focal lengths. Every one of the resulting images turned out super-sharp and brighter than expected, and that was shooting through a glass door on an overcast day with a circular polarizer attached! It was quite clear that the “Image Stabilization” feature was working perfectly.

Next, I took the camera outside and zoomed in on a lawn tractor approximately 200 feet away, and the lettering on the side of the mower came out crystal clear and sharp. Again, this photo was shot hand-held. Eager to give it one last try, I zoomed in on a hanging bird feeder that was swaying in the wind, twisted the circular polarizer until the glare on the glass front was eliminated, then snapped off a couple of shots. Again, the resulting images were sharp and bright.

Based upon the results I got shooting hand-held, I can only imagine the kind of tac-sharp images Glen will be able to capture using a tripod. Suffice it to say that the Tamron AF18-250 is now on my wish list.