The tested lens starts with a metal mount with contacts and a 36 x 23 mm frame. Inside the frame you find a rear element of the lens, 30 mm in diameter. The element moves and is situated 0.5 cm deep inside that frame at the focal length set at 28 mm; after passing to 75 mm it hides about 2.5 cm deep, revealing a black, well-matted inner tube and some electronic parts. Of course it means you can't speak here about a fully sealed barrel or perfect blackening of the inside.
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The proper body of the lens is covered by black plastic. It starts with a smooth ring that doesn't move, with a silver ring, a marker to make the alignment with a camera easier, the serial number of the lens and imformation that it was produced in Japan. It's a change compared to the predecessor, as the older version was made in China.
The ring increases its diameter very quickly and already on its enlargened part you find an USB port that allows you to connect the lens to a computer, allot different functions to its buttons, correct the autofocus, or just upgrade the newest version of software with the help of the Tamron Lens Utility program.
A manual focus ring is the next part – it is 17 mm wide, completely covered by ribbing, but without any distance or/and DOF scale. The ring, a focus-by-wire construction, moves smoothly and is properly damped. Even if you turn it fast, running through the whole distance range needs an angle of about 180 degrees. When you turn it slowly you can even reach about 550 deg. Both these values allow you very precise settings.
Further on you see an immobile part of the barrel with the logo of the company, parameters of the lens, the filter diameter, amounting to 67 mm, the name of the model (A063), and information that the instrument was designed in Japan. On the left side there is a round, programmable button.
A zoom ring, 37 mm wide, most of its surface covered by rubber ribs, is the next part of the lens. It comes with focal length markings at 28, 35, 50, and 75 mm.
After moving this ring from the 28 to the 75 mm focal length the lens gets longer by18 mm as a uniform plastic tube, ending with the front element system, is pulled out.
The front element, 56 mm in diameter, is surrounded by a non-rotating flter thread, 67 mm in diameter, and a hood mount.
When it comes to the optical construction you deal here with 17 elements positioned in 15 groups. The producers weren't skimpy when it comes to special glass elements. Inside you can find two LD (low dispersion) elements, and two aspherical ones. Inside the construction there is also a round aperture with nine blades that can be closed down to the value of f/22 at the maximum. It's worth adding that the construction of the Tamron is moisture-resistant and the lens features a hydrophobic fluorine coating that is supposed to protect the outer part of its front element from oil residue of fingerprints.
Buyers get in the box with the lens: both caps, and a petal-type hood.
