Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro Review - II

Autofocus

I measured the time to shift focus from infinity to 37.4" (closest focus) to be almost exactly 1.0 seconds. Total time for focus from infinity to close focus and back to infinity (i.e. the cycle time if focus is not found) was 2.3 seconds, so there is a 0.3s lag time on turnaround. This isn't particularly fast. The 1 second is slightly slower than the 0.9s it took for the old Canon EF 75-300/4-5.6IS USM to go from infinity to close focus for example. The Canon EF 18-55/3.5-5.6 takes about 0.34 seconds to go from infinity to close focus and about 1.35 seconds for a full infinity - close - infinity cycle, but shorter focal length lenses don't have to move as far to shift focus, so you'd expect them to be a little faster.

Autofocus noise is average. There's an audible "whir" during focus but the noise isn't particularly obtrusive. It's of the same order as the focus noise of the EF 18-55/3.5-5.6, maybe just slightly louder.

Size

The Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro is pretty small and light, only 3.3" long and 10.4oz (290g). It's slightly larger than the Canon EF 18-55/3/5-5.6 but it's only about 1/2 the size and weight of the EF 70-300/4-5.6 IS USM.

Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro Review
Left: EF 70-300/4-5.6 IS Center: Tamron 55-200/4-5.6 Right: EF-S 18-55/3.5-4.5

Vignetting

The Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro shows some vignetting (darker corners) wide open, which generally pretty much disappears when the lens is stopped down by 1 stop. Here are some example shots of a uniformly illuminated target (the most severe test) shot using and EOS 20D body and aperture priority exposure. Vignetting would be much less obvious of "real world" shots.

Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro Review

It's noticeable that the wide open shots are a little darker than those taken stopped down by a stop. Vignetting wide open and slight underexposure is pretty common and a lot of lenses show it. For example below are similar shots from the Canon EF-S 18-55/3.5-5.6.

Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro Review

Finally here's a "real world" shot taken at 55mm and f4 with the Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro. As you can see, the vignetting which shows up in the uniform target test above isn't really obvious in this shot..

Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro Review

• NEXT - Part III - Optical Performance at 55mm, 100mm and 200mm