Tamron
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Amacro lens opens upmyriad photo opportunities – and there’s none better than Tamron’s SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 VC USD. With near-silent autofocusing, a powerful image stabiliser and outstanding optical skills, this is the ideal lens to explore the fascinating and challenging world of close-up photography, as Will Cheung discovers CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
T amron has had a 90mm macro lens in its range for over 40 years and it has always been renowned for being a great optical performer. The current model was introduced in 2016, when Tamron brought the lens’s legacy right up to date with an optical design and feature set guaranteed to deliver an outstanding performance throughout its focusing range with the latest high-megapixel DSLR cameras.
Of course, it is also worth remembering that while the Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 VC USD is designed to deliver an excellent optical performance with close-up subjects, its optical skills are equally impressive for general, scenic and people photography, too. Before we get to the lens’s optical performance, it’s worth just stopping and appreciating this lens’s physical attributes. Its great balance means
it sits well on a full-frame DSLR. In this instance, I used the Nikon D850 and found, when paired with the Tamron lens, it gives a stable shooting platform. This is further helped with the benefit of Tamron’s VC (Vibration Compensation) feature. Partly depress the shutter release and you can see the steadying effect of this powerful image stabiliser instantly in the viewfinder/monitor. The usefulness of an image stabiliser applies to any
subject when light levels and your shutter speed start to drop. When you start getting up close to a subject and the tiniest camera movement is greatly magnified, its benefit is correspondingly greater, too. Tamron’s USD (Ultrasonic Silent Drive) handles autofocusing, giving a fast, accurate and near-silent performance – and it’s responsive, too, dealing with small distance changes with great accuracy. With the wide focusing range of a macro lens, an AF lens can waste time and search for focus so Tamron has thought of that, with a three-position focus range limiter switch so you can select the distance range to suit your subject. So, for normal shooting, set it to Full to utilise the lens’s entire focusing range, and then there’s the option of infinity to 50cm and 50cm to 30cm. There’s also full-time manual focus override even when AF is set. Making tiny adjustments when the camera/lens hasn’t quite locked on is simple enough, while internal focusing means the lens’s physical size remains constant – an important consideration for macro shooting.
ABOVE Use the Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 VC USD at its minimum focusing distance of 30cm and you get 1:1 magnification
14 Photography News | Issue 77
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