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Home >> Digital Camera Accessories >> Lenses
Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 Di SP A/M 1:1 Macro Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras | List Price: $850.95
Discount Price: Too low to display
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Brand: Tamron
Binding: Electronics
Features: - Lens Construction (Groups/Elements) - 9/10
- Angle of View - 27 Degrees
- Diaphragm Blade Number - 9
- Minimum Aperture - F/32
- Minimum Focus - 11.4
Excellent choice for macro & closeups [Posted on 2006-01-26]
This is an excellent choice if you're interested in close-up and macrophotography -- it's sharp corner-to-corner, and you get life-size photos down to the size of a large bug. Usually you end up focusing macro shots manually, and the Tamron manual focus ring travels about 270 degrees, giving lots of smooth fine-tuning capability.
For portraits and medium telephoto shots, the autofocus capability works well but it's audible. You can set a limiting switch so that it won't hunt through the entire range, from 8" to infinity. It's easy to switch from autofocus to manual by feel -- you can do it without moving your eye from the viewfinder.
There are probably better choices if you want to do portraits first and macrophotography second -- Canon's 100mm and Sigma's 105mm macros, in particular, but the Tamron is an excellent choice for macro work.
The lens body is plastic, so it's lighter than OEM lenses from Canon & Nikon. The light weight makes one wonder about how rugged it is, but it feels well put together, and anyway you shouldn't be using a lens to drive nails.
Note that the 90mm designation applies only to full frame SLRs. On digital SLRs like the Canon 300D & 350D or the Nikon D50 & D70, the lens gives you an effecive focal length of about 130mm. So you get a bit more working distance for macro subjects, but you may have to stand back too far from the subject for portraiture.
A gem of a lens at a reasonable price [Posted on 2007-03-25]
I am professional photographer specializing in botanical and nature photography. The 90mm has proven to be excellent optically as well as ergonomically well designed. The light weight, for its size, coupled with the very intuitive af-mf push-pull design are great in the field. I work at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden in Miami. For images taken with the above lens, please visit [...].
This lens has a couple little advertised qualities which make it double as a superb portrait lens:
First, it is not bittingly sharp wide open at f2.8, just about perfect for softening skin flaws, Stopped down to f5.6 and beyond, this lens is simply too sharp and contrasty for the average face. Second, wide open and at f4, this lens produces very attractive out of focus backgrounds, perfect for outdoor portraiture, where backgrounds can easily be distracting and intrusive.
Regards
Excellent Lens for the Job [Posted on 2008-04-29]
This is my second Tamron DI series lens. I purchased this for my Canon 10D DSLR camera and I have had a lot of fun using it. I like to take photos of strange looking bugs and flowers and this lens is dead-on accurate both in image quality and ease of use. I do wish that the housing was made of a more substantial material (weight wise) but otherwise this is a great lens at a pretty reasonable price.
Tamron AF 90mm Macro [Posted on 2008-09-28]
VERY sharp focus and a reasonably fast focusing motor. I see no downside to this lens at all.
Great hand-held macro/portrait lens [Posted on 2008-12-04]
Pro:
- great color, IQ, contrast.
- light weight
- accurate AF when needed
- great MF
- well made
Neutral:
- AF is slow but ok for a true macro lens. (My Tamron 180mm's AF stopped working in the first week even though I only tested a couple for times and never really used its AF for real at all. Being a tripod macro lens, MF (plus live view zoom in, which is far better than my 1.5/2.5 vertical finder) is a must for me. I hope AF on this one last longer because AF is indeed useful for hand-held quick shots)
- price (not cheap for a 3rd party). But with $90 rebate, it's not bad at all.
Minor incovenience:
- Once the lens is extended, the only way to get it back is to pull back the focus ring and switch to MF and turn the focus to infinite. A quick release mecahnism would be nice. This is a common problem not unique to this Tamron though.
- There's only one position the hood and back cap can be attached to the lens, a Tamron design. This design makes the attachment much stronger but much more hassle to attach in the first place. I much prefer Canon or Sigma's in this regard. I've never had accident with Canon or Sigma lenses when the hood or back cap accidentally fell off.
- switching AF/MF produces a loud click sound. The switch can only happen at certain positions. My Sigma 20mm/f1.8 got a better design - I can switch any time, the switch is much more smoother.
Bottom line:
I have the Tamron 180mm macro, great when mounted on a solid platform, not great hand held - too big and heavy. This one fills the gap. The small size and light weight is perfect to be carried around with other lenses on routine outings. Like other Tamrons, this one is plastic all the way (hence the light weight), but well made, MF ring is well damped with plenty rotation for fine tuning. I was a bit unsure about the closest focus distance on this one, turns out it's plenty for real wold use. The protruding front element is not a problem in real world use at all (as oppose to Internal Focus of the Canon 100mm Macro, or the Tamron 180mm ). In short, this is a perfect hand-held macro/portrait lens.
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