Tamron SP 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD review - Autofocus

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Tamron SP 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD

16 May 2014

Arkadiusz Olech

10. Autofocus

The Tamron 150–600 mm is equipped with an ultrasonic autofocus motor USD (Ultrasonic Silent Drive); small wonder its work is very silent. When it comes to the speed, its performance on all three bodies, used in our test, (the 50D, the 5D MkIII and the 1Ds MkIII) was similar and depending on the focal length, applied. Near 150 mm the autofocus is very fast so running through the scale takes just 0.3-0.4 of a second. When you pass to 600 mm the situation changes drastically and the autofocus slows down. Running through the whole scale and setting the focus can take as long as over one second.

Of course you can employ a focus limiter, narrowing the range to a distance from 15 meters to infinity – after that even at 600 mm the focusing time is shortened to an excellent result of about 0.3 of a second.

We are pleased with the accuracy of the focusing mechanism as its cooperation with all the bodies, used in our test was very good. The number of misses we got in studio conditions didn’t exceed 3% and those misfocused frames happened only in a range from 450 to 600 mm. At the shorter focal end the lens was flawless.

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There were also no problems whatsoever with any front or back focus tendencies. The lens didn’t need any calibrating and hit the targets very accurately.