Lens review

Tamron AF 18-270 mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Asph. (IF) MACRO

10. Autofocus

The Tamron’s autofocus is hardly noiseless but it doesn’t present any serious problems either. During focusing we hear a slight but not annoying buzz. Speed is another matter. Running through the whole scale can take the lens as much time as over two seconds, which is not a good result. The lens has also a tendency to moving back and forth before it finds the right focus position.

We knew about the fact that the accuracy of the mechanism wouldn’t be good without even analyzing the results on the charts. During our test session it was visible to the naked eye that the focus scale stopped in different place each time, although the distance to the chart didn’t change at all. These remarks were confirmed fully by the measurements. The autofocus is one of the weakest points of the tested Tamron because the number of misses reached as much as 16%.

Fortunately we didn’t observe any front or back focus tendencies.