I received my copy last week and I am not disappointed in its performance at all. Genuinely surprised with the pleasant bokeh and color rendering. The 150-500 compliments my two other Tamron lenses: 17-35 and 35-150. This trio is a wonderful travel kit.
I use this lens for wildlife photography on Sony. This lens is epic. For the money this thing is a beast. It’s also very comfortable to handle and I have no issues carrying it for up to 8 hours straight. I’m not a very strong guy by any means
For my use case I would prefer this compact telephoto zoom then the Nikon 180 - 600mm. The Nikon one is a beast to carry around. This Tamron is more compact to travel with. As for optical quality it's a sharp lens too!
Forgot about this one, it's yet another nice option in the native Z lineup. Would I choose this over the 180-600? Not a chance. But again, the more options for everyone's use case, the better. Another congrats to Nikon & Tamron here!
Taking mine out some time this weekend. Thanks for the preview and keeping my excitement. It's a chunker for sure but has some specific use cases I hope to test out this weekend.
Already have the 180-600. Had that lens not come out, I would have given this one serious consideration. I'm surprised how compact it looks compared to the 180-600 but the weight is not that much less. Great to have all these native options in the Z system from both Nikon and the 3rd parties.
How would that be vs the F Mount 150-600 G2? I mean the F mount has 100mm more range. And is f/6.3 but well that should not be a real factor at that focal length. But well, 100mm more.....
How is it compared to the 180-600? Price, weight, focus-speed, image stabilisation, image quality, close focal distance, focus breathing, effective focal lenght on close distance, .. 🙂
Hey Matt, is it possible to give the figures based on the Z6/6ii sensors too? Not all of us have fancy 45mp cameras 😅 Also, tests on the Z6ii would be useful as obviously the AF is not as fast as Z8/Z9, etc so it would be nice to know how it performs. Definitely an interesting lens and one of the more "affordable" Z options for a superzoom - Sigma 150-600 C is still tempting though.....
Thank you for your video Matt! I borrowed a Tamron Z 150-500 from our local camera shop. Then, I decided to purchase the Nikkor Z 180-600. Now, I am having a devil of a time getting decent results out of camera. I tried shooting in Manual and Shutter Priority Mode. When I look at my Histogram in camera, all looks great; however, the colors are desaturated and there is a lot of noise (in LRC and PS). When I put the NEF files in NX Studio, I have to go to Curves and move the slider to the right to get images equal to what I saw in my EVF. I have had the new lens for five days. I spent the last two days on the phone with Nikon and Adobe. Nikon recommended that I "power cycle" our Z9. I tried the power cycle, shot with our Z7ii and Z9, in Manual and Shutter priority, on tripods for each camera, using my MC30 with the Z9, and I double / triple checked my camera settings, but the results remained poor. The Histogram looks good as does the image at the time shot, but the curves slider must be moved a good distance to the right in NX Studio. I plan to shoot without the hood tomorrow. Nikon also recommended that I clean the contacts beforehand, then they want me to send them files. Nikon gave me the impression that I had blasphemed them by even infuring that the lens might be a dud. All our other Nikon lenses work extremely well. Out of curiosity, did your colleague ever resolve the noise and color issues he had with his Nikkor Z 180-600? Like him, we use the Adobe apps for our workflow. I let our Capture One Pro license expire in December. If we must replace the Z 180-600, would you recommend the Z 100-400 or the Tamron Z 150-500? Thanks in advance for reading my rant. JP
Got this lens for 2 weeks. I have a roughly 1 degree of rotation movement when mounted on my Z8. Anyone else has this experience m? I’m wondering if it’s just my copy that has the rotation movement or if it’s normal. Other than that the performance has been great!
I don't do birds and only needed this long a lens may be once a year.. The 180-600 is too heavy and big for the once-a-year thing.. this looks pretty perfect at 2/3 the cost.
I currently own a Sony A7Rii and I formerly owned an Z6 and was a great camera, it was stolen, so I got the Z5 this time... I had the 150-500 for e mount and through the megadap ETZ21 got it mounted on the Z camera, incredible performance even for a non native Z mount lens! also the Z5 has many features for stills that my only need for the future would be a high res Z model... great to see it is now for Z mount, for now I'm happy with this version and the flexibility I have for mounting it on to two different systems...
I have the 500 PF, had (briefly) the Z 180-600 that I used for elk in Colorado, and now I have the Tamron 150-500 for Z. I haven't had the chance to do thorough testing of the 150-500 vs the 500 PF. The 500 PF better be better, and I certainly had some issues with focus on the shaded side of already very dark bison last weekend. However, I love the size of the 150-500. I still have a replacement 180-600 on order so I need to figure out what I want to do.
How are people finding the image stabilisation? I had my first day out with the lens and found the stabilisation pretty ineffectual. I was hoping for a stabilised viewfinder at 500mm, but it felt like it was jumping around a lot.
Tamron Z 150-500mm or used Nikon 200-500mm f-mount for Nikon Z 5? I have the FTZ adapter. I'm sure both work quickly on Z cameras but does Tamron Z have any advantage over f-mount in image quality?
That lens looks so small and Neat. I'd love to see arca swiss standard on all long lenses. I know it saves cost but i'm still not a fan of variable aperture lenses. We waited so long for the Nikon 180-600 - I wish this lens came out first... 🦘
Another good option for the Z mount cameras. Only issue I see with it is that open usb. Dirt water getting in and ruining the lens and possibly your camera. Good price though. Still waiting for the Sigma Art lenses for z mount. Going to end up buying one for Sony and using the megadapt adapter for z mount. I am looking at the 14mm. I just picked up the 24-120 mm f/4 S used. I really like it. Just need the 14-30 now. I could see Nikon possibly doing a global in the Z6III. Look the flagships don’t have pixelshift in them neither did other’s so Nikon is always owing something that keeps them ahead of the competition. Thanks for sharing Matt. Have a great weekend! 📷☕️
What’s even crazier is this lens existed on E mount first and so if you used it in crop mode on an A7R4 or A7R5 you’d get 26 megapixels out of that range.
Not really, sir. The TCs from Nikon aren't made to be compatible with the Tanron lenses. If I remember carefully, Tamron released its own 1.4 TC for the Nikon F mount back in 2016.
Interested to hear your thoughts on performance, Matt. I found it snappy on my Z8, but fairly soft. I sent it back, unfortunately…perhaps I got a bad copy. However, I have the Z mount Tamron 35-150, which is an absolute stunner!
I HOPE it was just a bad copy, but this gives one some fear that it is too soft! I shoot for wide depth of field generally and often with polarizing filter....BUT soft does NOT cut it! I have found NO soft lens with my Z 8 or Z 9.
I just bought this lens yesterday and looking forward to seeing it does this weekend with my Z6ii, I tried to use it with my Nikon z 2.0 teleconverter but it doesn’t fit.
Had this lens for fuji before switching to Nikon. Pretty good, but at least with Fuji cameras, the stabilization was very bad. The lens hood, though, is of much better quality as that of the Nikon 180-600.
I would put this on my Z6ii/Z7ii, but I already have the Tammy 150-600 G2 + FTZii. I wonder how those two would compare. I do like that it has a built in USB port for firmware updates and adjustments; it obviates the need for the USB console which costs $50-60 USD (have that too). Well we have lots of choices now in the affordable super tele zoom arena - I am sure there will be no end of tests and comparisons.
My thinking and hope for the z6 is 33meg, an EXPEED 7 processor, 2 slots like the z6ii or z8, a more moveable LCD, and most of the other specs will be similar to the current z6ii. Of course, better will also be acceptable. My biggest worry is that it will not be available for another year. Does anybody expect Nikon to release it before the Olympics?
The Olympics is coming this summer so I expect the Z6iii to drop before that. Will it be a speed camera for sports? But will they dare release a new camera without global shutter now? Even though it will keep the price point down? We'll see.
Love watching your show. Just for extra reach at the same IQ, would it be worth considering moving my Tamron 70-300 to this new 150-500? I'm sure there are some downfalls, but cannot put my fingers on all of them. Thanks again, Don
There’s reason to own both. The 150-500 is substantially bigger and heavier than the 70-300, so it’s a different shooting experience, and doesn’t travel as easy as the 70-300.
I would have liked to have seen some sample images. Also, Sony limits the max FPS on their high end cameras with this lens. Does Nikon limit the max FPS on the Z8/Z9 or can those cameras shoot at they max frame rate? I just switched back to Nikon (from Sony) and I am looking for a long lens. It would have been nice if more was discussed regarding the pros & cons of this vs the Nikkor Z180-600 lens. (Is the image quality on the Nikkor lens enough to justify the difference in price or are the images similar with both lenses?)
Not a Tamron fan, soft zooms that easily fallout of calibration. Send it back and it repeats, I had ordered/return 3 to get the 1 that was sent back twice. Quality??
A Z6iii with a 33 MP stacked sensor ? Since I just want an A7iv that can focus reliably on runners and Sony is busy selling super high priced super high tech, it's a deal !
Hello Matt, Well I think it is good to have altuerative lenses to the OEM lenses, I will not go back to them with two exceptions Ziess and Leica lenses. After all that one thing about this Tamron lens is the Arca Swiss foot on the lens foot. Well done Tamron. I do think you are right about wight of kit some time a bit of weight is OK I do like my Z9 over my Z8 bit if I hve to carry a camera all day I will choose the Z8. Thanks for your thoughts.
LOL - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wfyU4-ihAWA.html and ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5aO-3C3liuQ.html (this one has a little talk)
