Tamron SP 70-200 mm f/2.8 Di VC USD review - Distortion

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Tamron SP 70-200 mm f/2.8 Di VC USD

8 July 2013

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

The distortion is not a problem of 70-200 mm f/2.8 lenses on smaller APS-C/DX sensors because in practice it never exceeds 1%. For all types of those instruments its performance, along with the stopping down, looks the same. At 70 mm we get delicate “barrel”, which changes in the middle of the range into slight “pincushion” ; the pincushion increases slowly on passing to 200 mm. The results of the Tamron 70-200 mm VC, its rivals and its predecessor are presented in the chart below.

	Sigma 70–200 OS	Tamron 70–200 VC	Nikkor 70–200 VRII	Tamron 70–200	Canon 70–200 IS
70 mm	−0.66%	−0.34%	−0.26%	−0.46%	−0.39%
135 mm	0.31%	0.18%	0.49%	0.36%	0.31%
200 mm	0.66%	0.39%	0.70%	0.64%	0.54%

It’s worth noticing that at longer focal lengths it’s the new Tamron exactly which has the lowest pincushion distortion level. The barrel distortion at the shortest focal length is not the smallest but still low enough not to lag behind the results of the competition.

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The distortion on full frame is higher for obvious reasons. At 70 mm we got “barrel” of –0.95%; in the middle of the focal range there was “pincushion” of 0.32% which additionally increased to 0.85% on passing to 200 mm. As the absolute value of distortion didn’t exceed 1% in any place the lens deserves a lot of praise - none of its competitors managed such a trick! Anyway, let’s glance at the chart below which compares the results other 70-200 mm f/2.8 lenses got in this category.

	Sigma 70–200 OS	Tamron 70–200 VC	Nikkor 70–200 VRII	Canon 70–200 IS
70 mm	−1.36%	−0.95%	−0.78%	−0.62%
135 mm	0.75%	0.32%	0.85%	0.74%
200 mm	1.59%	0.85%	1.39%	1.36%