Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro VC USD Lens Review

Handling and features
Performance
Verdict
Specification

Tamron's 90mm Macro lenses have earned an enviable reputation for optical quality and value for money over the years. With this new 90mm Macro optic, Tamron have brought their 90mm up to date with the latest technology by incorporating Vibration Compensation, silent internal focusing with full time manual override, moisture sealed construction and newly developed lens coatings to help suppress ghosting and flare. It sports a completely new optical design which uses two ELD (Extra Low Dispersion) elements and one LD (Low Dispersion) element.

The lens is available in Canon, Nikon and Sony mounts. The Sony compatible model will lack Vibration compensation, as this functionality is already built into Sony DSLR and SLT bodies. As this lens is a 'Di' optic, it is compatible with both full frame and crop sensor camera bodies. Does the performance of this lens hold up to the reputation earned by its predecessors? We'll investigate in this review.

Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro VC USD Handling and features

Even with the inclusion of Vibration Compensation, this lens isn't much heavier than it's predecessor, striking a good balance between the use of high quality materials and construction and light weight. Weighing about 550g and being just short of 123mm long, it balances well on the Canon EOS 5D MkII used for testing. The lens sports a moisture resistant design and a thin rubber gasket has been placed around the metal lens mount to help prevent the ingress of dust and moisture into the camera body.

As this lens incorporates Tamron's USD silent focusing motor, autofocus is quick, especially for a Macro lens and very accurate. A three-stage focus limiter switch is provided for those times when the camera struggles to achieve focus first time, preventing the lens from hunting through the whole focus range.

Manual focusing is a pleasure as the wide rubberised focus ring is well damped and very smooth to operate, which makes it easy to apply fine adjustments. Manual adjustments can be made at any time, whether in Auto or Manual focus mode. A minimum focus distance of 30cm provides life size magnification, without being overly close to your subject. Focusing is performed internally, so the 58mm filter ring does not rotate and the lens doesn't extend.

With care, sharp images are possible hand-held at shutter speeds as low as 1/6sec at normal focusing distances, approximately half the time. This is roughly four stops slower than the usual rule of thumb for sharp hand held images would permit. At close focusing distances, higher shutter speeds will need to be used, but the VC system still helps to make a difference in the amount of sharp hand-held shots that can be taken. The VC system also provides a very steady viewfinder image, which can help with accurate composition and focusing.

Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro VC USD Performance

Right away at maximum aperture, sharpness in the centre of the frame is very good, with good clarity being produced towards the edges of the frame. Stopping down the aperture improves perforamnce further with outstanding sharpness across the frame being achieved with the aperture set to f/8.

Chromatic aberrations very well controlled, thanks to Tamron's use of XLD and LD glass in the optical design. Fringing just exceeds 0.25 pixel widths towards the edges of the frame at f/2.8, which is an extremely low leveland shouldn't pose any issues, even in large prints or harsh crops from the edges of the frame.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is typical for a lens with an f/2.8 maximum aperture at this focal length. At f/2.8 the corners are 1.74 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination is achieved with the aperture closed down to f/5.6 or beyond.

As you might expect from a fixed focal length macro optic, distortion is virtually non-existent. Imatest did manage to detect 0.13% pincushion distortion, but you'll be hard pressed to spot this low level of distortion yourself.

A deep circular hood is provided to help shield the front element from extraneous light that may cause issues with flare and loss of contrast. Although it is good practice to keep a lens hood in place, Tamron's new eBAND (Extended Bandwidth & Angular-Dependency) lens coatings do an excellent job of suppressing flare and contrast remains good, even when shooting into the light, so the hood may not always be necessary.

Value for Money

The suggested retail price at launch for this lens is £929.99. Whether the lens will actually sell for that much will remain to be seen, as this puts this lens much much more expensive than lenses from rival manufacturers, offering similarly specified optics. The price may drop, as is often the case with newly released lenses, but it would need to drop by quite a bit to represent good value.

By comparison, the most expensive image stabilised macro from any of the camera marques, is Canon's 100mm f/2.8 IS USM, but even this lens only costs £670. The cheapest stabilised macro is the Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM, which costs around £540.
 

Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro VC USD Verdict

As you might expect from a 90mm macro lens from Tamron, the optical performance of this lens is excellent. The lens delivers superb sharpness and contrast plus distortion, chromatic aberrations and falloff are kept in check also. The Vibration Compensation system is a useful addition for hand-held photography also.

The suggested retail price is the only dampener on this lens. Hopefully as the lens becomes more available, the price will drop from that at launch.

Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro VC USD Lens Review: The Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro VC USD lens has excellent optical performance.