Tamron 25-200mm F2.8-5.6 VXD G2 Review

The Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 RXD was one of the lenses from the past five years that really surprised me. I initially reviewed in back in June of 2020, and I was unexpectedly surprised by how good it was optically for a full frame superzoom lens. I tend to have reduced expectations of this type of lens, but the 28-200mm surprised me in two main areas: it was optically superior to what I expected and also kept a brighter maximum aperture throughout the zoom range than what is typical. I bought one and it has been my go-to travel lens for the past five years. Sigma released an impressive 20-200mm F3.5-6.3 lens a few months ago, and, while I love the enhanced zoom range, it unfortunately came at the cost of a lot of brightness. It reached its slowest maximum aperture fairly quickly, leaving me with the impression that in many ways the Tamron 28-200mm might still be the better option. But I also knew that Tamron was going to release an updated version of their own travel zoom, though this time with a bigger 8x zoom range and a few other highlights. Is the Tamron 25-200mm F2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 the upgraded travel lens that we’ve been looking for, or does it fall into some of the same traps as the Sigma? Find out by reading this review or watching the video review linked below.

Thanks to Sigma Canada (Gentec) for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses. You can visit the product page for the Sigma 20-200mm here.

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AI SUMMARY: The Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 RXD has been a standout superzoom lens over the past five years due to its optical quality and brighter maximum aperture across the zoom range compared to typical lenses of this class. Although Sigma released a competing 20-200mm F3.5-6.3 lens with a wider zoom, it sacrifices brightness, making the Tamron a more favorable option for many users. Recently, Tamron updated their lineup with the 25-200mm F2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2, which offers an extended 8x zoom range and enhanced features without comprising heavily on light-gathering capabilities. This review examines whether the new Tamron G2 version provides the desired balance between versatility and optical performance in comparison to the older model and the Sigma lens.

Strengths:

Maintains bright maximum aperture throughout most of the zoom.
Excellent sharpness and performance across the zoom range.
Introduces customization options with a new Fn button and connection for firmware updates.
Improved autofocus system with VXD motor for smooth and quiet operation.

Weaknesses:

Heavier vignette and some distortion at wider apertures that need correction.
Slightly less bright at telephoto compared to the older model.
Achieving maximum magnification is challenging in practical scenarios.
Not featuring lens-based stabilization, requiring higher ISO settings for low light.

Tamron loves their long names for their lenses, so I’ll try to quickly decode what Tamron 25-200mm F2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 means.

25-200mm is the zoom range (8x zoom)
F2.8-5.6 is the aperture range, as the maximum aperture will change as the lens is zoomed towards telephoto
Di III is Tamron’s way of designating a full frame mirrorless design
VXD refers to the focus motor, which is Voice-coil eXtreme-torque Drive
G2 means that this is a second generation lens

This is the second time that Tamron has elected to change the focal length of a G2 zoom, having done the same with the 16-30mm F2.8 G2 (previous the 17-28mm F2.8). The move to 25mm is going to be very welcome, as it means that the lens is far more flexible in terms of what you can get into the frame. It’s not as dramatic as Sigma’s move to 20mm on the wide, which is dramatically wider wider at 20mm (94.5°) than the older Tamron at 28mm (75° 23′).

But the Tamron lens does go to 81° 44″ on the wide, end, which is a fair bit wider. Here’s what that looks like:

You can see that this still makes a considerable difference when trying to frame interior spaces (cathedrals or other famous architecture), cities, or even landscapes.

That’s great, but what is the cost?

Like the Sigma (though to a far lesser degree), the Tamron 25-200 G2 isn’t nearly as bright at the 28-200mm. Here’s a look at a chart I put together while testing all three lenses.

A member of my audience put the information together in a more visual way, which I’ll share here.

The older 28-200mm is brighter across most of the range, not hitting its smallest maximum aperture of F5.6 until 147mm. By contrast, the 25-200 G2 hits that same smallest aperture at just 96mm. The Sigma hits F5.6 at just 51mm, and hits an even smaller maximum aperture of F6.3 at just 85mm. Across most of the zoom range you are going to need a bit more exposure with the new 25-200mm, though thankfully it fair much better than the Sigma (which utterly fails in this test). None of these zooms come with lens-based stabilization, so that means you’ll probably encounter motion blur more often unless you crank up that ISO to keep the shutter speed up.

Lenses like this are always a series of tradeoffs and compromises, so very often adding some new variable (like a wider focal length) will come with tradeoffs elsewhere. Fortunately many people would consider that ability to capture wider scenes to be worth it. You can now go from this at 25mm:

…all the way up to 200mm.

An 8x zoom range like this is incredibly useful, which is why lenses like the 25-200 VXD are very popular.

We’ll explore other areas of both gains and losses in today’s review. Let’s dive in…

Build and Handling

Tamron has been steadily working through its zoom lineup and updating them in their G2 versions. This link will give you a look at how the specs of the two Tamron variations and the new Sigma compare. This includes nicer build, more style, more features, and typically an updated focus motor. The updates here really boil down to two key areas. The first is the inclusion of a new custom/Fn button, which on Tamron comes with additional functionality through their Lens Utility software.

The second new feature is related to that, as there is a weather sealed USB-C port near the base of the lens that you can connect to and make several tweaks to the behavior of the lens.

These include programming a direct custom function to the custom button that will override whatever value is typically assigned in the camera body to all lenses. I like that in this case because the lens lacks an AF | MF switch, and that is one of options you can assign. You can even tweak it to perform the action by a quick press or a long press instead. Other options include A/B Focus, a Focus Limiter, Changing the ring function between aperture and focus, etc…

That’s very handy, as you have a layer of customization that other lenses in this class lack.

Other functions include tweaking the behavior of the focus ring (linear, non-linear, focus throw distance, ring direction) and the ability to quickly do firmware updates should they come available.

The 28-200 lens lacked these functions, and while the Sigma has an included AF | MF switch, it doesn’t have the level of customization that the Tamron has.

Tamron has also included a good degree of weather sealing here, with 12 seal points plus a fluorine coating on the front element to help with moisture and fingerprint resistance.

That’s great, as it brings a lot of reassurance that you won’t damage your lens if you are shooting in dusty or moist environments on your travels. For those cross-shopping, the Sigma has fewer seal points (around seven).

The new G2 looks a bit more sculpted and sleek than the older 28-200mm, which has a rather boring silhouette. The finish is a bit glossier on the new lens, and the rubber focus and zoom rings feel more premium.

The 25-200 G2 is 76.2 (3″) in diameter and 121.5 mm (4.8″) in retracted length. That makes it slightly slimmer and a bit longer than the Sigma, which is 77.2mm in diameter (3″) and 115.5mm (4.5″) in length. The Tamron grows roughly an additional 60mm in length when zoomed to 200mm, making it a bit shorter than the Sigma at that focal length.

I found the Sigma’s zoom action fairly tight, but the Tamron moves fairly easily during its zoom action.

The lens does have a zoom lock on the right side of the lens to prevent lens creep. It can only be locked at the 25mm position.

Tamron has made it a priority to retain 67mm filter threads as much as possible across their lineup on mirrorless, and that’s true here. You can share filters across a LOT of Tamron lenses at this point.

Tamron has managed to retain the 575g (1.3lb) weight of the previous generation lens despite the bigger zoom range. We’ve already seen how they kept the weight down, unfortunately, and that was through compromising on the aperture. The 25-200 G2 is 25g heavier than the Sigma 20-200mm.

The weight of the lens is 550g, or 1.2 lbs. That makes it very slightly lighter than the 575g weight of the Tamron.

The manual focus ring is fairly slim and moves smoothly, but with very light resistance. This is not what I would call an excellent manual focus simulation, though I do appreciate that, like the Sigma, full time manual focus override is available.

The aperture iris has nine rounded blades, allowing for a reasonably circular shape even with the lens stopped down.

The included lens hood is pretty similar to the one on the 28-200mm, with a scalloped shape. It is about 2mm shorter than the older hood. It doesn’t employ a lock but rather relies on a nice, tight click when bayoneted into place.

Like many modern zooms, the Tamron 25-200 VXD has a variable minimum focus distance depending on focal length. Ultimately both the Tamron and the Sigma boast a maximum magnification of 0.50x, but I vastly prefer the Sigma’s way of accomplishing that. The Sigma achieves maximum magnification anywhere between 28-85mm (with varying minimum focus distances). That gives you options for how close you need to be to your subject. The Tamron’s highest magnification comes at 25mm, and does so by allowing you to get SUPER close to your subject. Just 16cm, in fact.

There’s only one problem. Minimum focus distance is not measured from the tip of the lens, but rather from the sensor (you’ll see this marked on the top of your camera as a circle with a line through it. If I measure from the sensor to the end of the lens (without the hood attached), I measure 14cm. That leaves 2cm from the front of the lens to the subject, which looks like this.

…and that’s with the hood removed. It is almost impossible to get enough light on your subject to achieve that magnification figure. Here’s what the image taken in the scenario above looks like:

That’s just nearly as useful as the Sigma, which offers more practical ways to actually achieve that magnification. I found a more useful path at 47mm, where I got lower magnification (probably more in the 0.30x range) but with a much flatter plane of focus, more working distance, and a better end result.

The upside to that nearly endless minimum focus distance at 25mm is that when doing video work you will basically never run into a situation where you’ve passed beyond where the lens will stop focusing. There’s no question that you can get very useful amounts of magnification out of this lens, but achieving that 0.50x magnification is nearly impossible in real world use. I consider Tamron’s approach to mostly be marketing, while Sigma’s approach is actually useful.

All of this adds up to a nice package. It’s got a great zoom range, a few more features and a nicer build, and even has some degree of customization. And, while 2025 has been an expensive year for many lensmakers due to tariff policies, Tamron has maintained a good value for the 25-200 VXD at $899 USD. This undercuts the Sigma by $100, and it is currently priced at $100 more than the older 28-200mm. I assume that the G1 lens will eventually be phased out, as has been the case with the other G1 lenses.

Autofocus

One of the other key upgrades from the 28-200mm is to Tamron’s newer VXD (Voice-coil eXtreme-torque Drive) focus motor. The older RXD was a nice stepping motor, but the newer voice coil motor is smoother, faster, and quieter in operation. You’ll mostly notice the difference on the telephoto end, where the additional thrust from the VXD motor allows the lens to maintain fast focus even at longer focal lengths.

Sometimes people are deceived by lenses like this that go up to telephoto focal length, thinking that they are sports lenses just because a lens reaches 200mm or more. This is a general purpose lens, not a dedicated telephoto, so don’t buy this for sports use over something like the 70-180mm F2.8 VXD. That being said, the VXD focus motor is fast enough to keep up with a reasonable amount of action, and Tamron’s focus motors generally work really well on Sony due to their partnership (Sony owns a 15% stake in Tamron). I had no problem, for example, in acquiring and tracking birds in flight.

Here’s some selections from a burst of over 100 frames, all of which seem to be focused fine.

Focus acquisition was good enough that even the first frames of a burst were well focused when catching focus on a subject.

In my controlled focus tests, moving back and forth from a near to distant subject, I found the focus speed to excellent. The telephoto end was a bit slower indoors than the wide end, but out-of-doors, in better lighting, focus was nearly instant even on the telephoto end.

Focus precision was also excellent, allowing me to focus on very narrow subjects effortlessly.

I will also note that Tamron’s full time manual override is great for the moments when the autofocus wants to grab a background rather than foreground subject (something I find common with all modern cameras and lenses), allowing you to get focus in the proper “zone” where AF can take over and make sure that focus is accurate.

I would say that the Tamron 25-200mm is equally good as Sigma’s excellent 20-200mm for autofocus.

Video AF

I also saw good results for video work. Autofocus pulls were fast and confident, and focus breathing is extremely low, allowing for smooth looking pulls back and forth.

My hand test (where I alternately block the camera’s view of my face with my hand and then remove it to allow focus to move to my face) went extremely well, with confident transitions back and forth.

I had good success when approaching the camera, with good tracking of this movement, and quick recovery if I ducked or stepped out of frame and then back.

While the lens isn’t parfocal (I can see a minor focus change), it reacts quickly and smoothly enough that I didn’t really see focus loss and readjustment along the way.

The biggest advantage over the Sigma for video work is that the zoom action on the Tamron is much smoother than the Sigma, allowing for smoother zooms. Autofocus also seems to keep up a bit better during zooms.

In general, however, this is going to be a nice travel zoom for video. The great zoom range combined with stable autofocus is a winning combination.

Image Quality Breakdown

The Tamron 25-200mm VXD features an optical design of 18 elements in 14 groups. While I haven’t see a specific element breakdown, I do know that includes GM (Glass Molded Aspherical), LD (Low Dispersion), and XLD (eXtra Low Dispersion) elements. As with the 28-200mm, the MTF shows a surprisingly strong performance on both ends of the zoom range.

At 25mm, we see a very sharp center and midframe with mild astigmatism, and even the corners still look relatively strong, though the game between the sagittal axis (very strong) and the meridional axis (weaker) grows, indicating stronger astigmatism in the corners. It isn’t difficult to get strong landscape style images at 25mm even when shooting at F2.8.

At 200mm the center is absolutely amazingly sharp, though astigmatism grows across the frame. If the meridional axis was as sharp as the sagittal axis, this lens would be epically sharp.

As it stands, however, the lens is still very impressively sharp even wide open at F5.6 at 200mm everywhere but the corners.

In terms of pure MTF performance, the Sigma isn’t quite as sharp as the Tamron at either end of the zoom range.

The Tamron is sharper in the center, midframe, and corners. That’s part of the payoff for constraining the zoom range a bit. In my own comparisons, I found the differences to be more subtle. The Tamron was consistently a bit better, but by differences mostly so subtle as to be unnoticeable without the two side by side. Here’s a center and corner comparison at the wide and then telephoto ends.

I was also interesting in comparing to the original 28-200mm, which was a lens that always impressed me in terms of sharpness. I found that the newer 25-200mm took the win on the wide end but the two lenses were pretty indistinguishable on the telephoto end.

The Sigma lens cut some serious corners when it came to distortion and vignette on the wide, with an extremely heavy and complex distortion pattern that still looked liked a mess after manual correction.

The Tamron has some barrel distortion, too, but to a far less degree. I had to use a +39 to correct the Sigma at 20mm, but the Tamron at 25mm needed a much lower +19, and, what’s more, you can see below that it actually corrects in a nice, linear fashion. Vignette was another story, however, requiring a +96 (nearly maxing out the slider) to correct. The Sigma was even worse, however, requiring me to max out the slider…and still leaving some vignette behind.

I don’t love the heavy vignette, but the manageable distortion here is a huge improvement over the Sigma.

As you begin to move through the zoom you’ll find the distortion pattern flip to a pincushion style distortion. At 100mm there is a moderate amount of pincushion distortion, though it remains very linear and easily correctable.

I needed a -7 to correct the distortion, and vignette has reduced to a much more moderate +42.

By 200mm the distortion pattern is the same (-7 to correct), as is the vignette. I needed a +45 to correct.

In all cases I could get a clean manual correction, which helps immensely. Distortion and vignette are far less of an issue on the Tamron than the Sigma. That’s due to Tamron taking the more conservative route. The 20mm end of the Sigma is very attractive on paper, but it required a LOT of compromises to make that happen.

Testing for longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) showed no issues at the various focal lengths I tested at. Here’s a look at 125mm on my test chart.

Even in extremely high contrast backlighting I didn’t see apparent fringing.

I also saw minimal issues with LaCA (lateral chromatic aberrations), which shows up along the edges of the frame. All of the transitions here are fairly neutral.

So how about resolution and contrast? My formal tests are done on the 61MP Sony a7RV.

Here’s a look at the test chart from which the crops will come.

Here are crops from across the 25mm frame at F2.8 and shown at a 200% magnification.

We have already seen from the comparisons that (for this class of lens) this performance is top of the heap. Performance is generally excellent across the frame.

Stopping down to F4 brings contrast and detail up to intensely good levels in the center and mid-frame, and the corners are looking both brighter and more contrasty as vignette lifts.

You can expect very crisp landscape results.

This helps in an area of weakness for the Sigma. I found that corners didn’t really sharpen up to good levels when stopping it down on the wide end. You can see a pretty obvious difference between the Tamron and Sigma at F8:

The Tamron is the better choice if corner sharpness matters to you.

Variable aperture zooms like this can have pretty small minimum apertures. At 25mm the minimum aperture is an ordinary F16, but by the telephoto end that becomes F32. Diffraction is going to be a factor at any of those minimum apertures, but even more pronounced on the telephoto end where the minimum aperture is a couple of stops smaller. You can see that while F11 (in the corners, here) looks pretty decent, F32 is simply unusable due to diffraction.

Moving on to 50mm finds the maximum aperture at F4 (much better than the Sigma’s F5), and results look pretty great all across the frame.

Stopping down to F5.6 raises contrast levels up to fantastic levels in most spots.

I’ve got zero complaints about the look of real world landscape images at 50mm:

At 100mm we’ve reached the smallest maximum aperture of F5.6. The results aren’t as sharp as at 50mm anywhere in the frame.

I can see that edge performance isn’t as good in real world results, though the rule of thirds zone is still very strong.

200mm has a slight rebound, with a bit more clarity and contrast than 100mm. It doesn’t have a lot of room for improvement, however, with F8 mostly looking similar to F5.6.

I generally felt that 200mm real world results looked quite good, however, with very decent detail and contrast.

Bokeh is a complicated subject for superzoom lenses. At close focus distances you have the capacity to blur out backgrounds fairly well.

That obviously looks nice and creamy, and definitely sets the lens apart from anything one might get from a phone camera while traveling.

I was generally pretty happy with shots at medium distances, too, as while there’s a bit of outlining here, the image generally looks pretty good.

Here’s a shot with a busier background, and I still feel like it looks fairly good.

Specular highlights look better than what I saw from the Sigma, but not great. There’s a little less outlining, but also some general busyness inside the “Bokeh balls”.

This certainly isn’t going to replace a nice prime for bokeh rendering, but I would say the 25-200 VXD is better than most equivalent superzooms.

Tamron’s BBAR 2 coatings seem to be doing what they need to do, as the 25-200 VXD seems to be fairly flair resistant. I tried shooting with window light, through leaves, and against my set lights, and I never really saw any ghosting or veiling.

Colors were also good, leading to images with nice saturation.

In general, I remained more impressed with the optical performance of the Tamron 25-200mm F2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 than I did with the Sigma 20-200mm. I felt that the Sigma was more compromised than the Tamron. Here’s a mini gallery of extra images for you to enjoy.

Conclusion

The Tamron 25-200mm F2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 hits a nice balance between the safe, reliable performance of the older Tamron 28-200mm RXD and the new, more extreme Sigma 20-200mm Contemporary. The Sigma 20-200mm simply tries to do too much and, I believe, suffers for it. I appreciate the extra bit of width on the 25-200mm VXD, and, while it isn’t penalty free, I think that the compromises to get that extra 3mm on the wide end are more palatable.

I’m not sure I would recommend an upgrade from the older 28-200mm RXD from a purely optical standpoint, as the optical areas of improvement are fairly minimal, but the improved focal length, autofocus, and feature set might be a more compelling reason to upgrade. If you are just choosing a superzoom/travel type lens, however, the Tamron 25-200mm would get my vote.

People buy lenses like the Tamron 25-200mm VXD because they provide an all-in-one solution that allows you to travel or backpack with just one lens while still getting much better image quality than a camera phone can provide. The Tamron gives you a lot of versatility, with enough width to capture interior spaces (though not as much as the Sigma), still decent light gathering for this type of lens, good magnification, and a top-of-the-class optical performance. The new VXD focus motor allowed me to even track action effortlessly, leading me to the conclusion that the $899 USD Tamron 25-200mm VXD is now the lens to buy in this class. This is a solid evolution on a lens that I’ve found pretty invaluable over the past five years.

Pros:

Stretches the zoom range on the wide end
8x zoom range
Compact and lightweight
Thorough weather sealing
Improved features
Some customization options
VXD focus motor provides quick, quiet focus
Very high magnification level
Lower distortion and vignette than Sigma
Near perfect control of aberrations
Very sharp on the wide end, sharper in standard range
Reasonably consistent performance across zoom range
Beautiful colors
Good flare resistance

Cons:

Not quite as bright as the 28-200mm
Maximum magnification isn’t as easy to access as Sigma

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