Tamron’s early relationship with Nikon in the mirrorless age was very unique. Nikon, like Canon, was technically closed to third party autofocus lenses, but Tamron’s popular trilogy of fast zoom lenses (the 17-28mm F2.8, 28-75mm F2.8, and 70-180mm F2.8) made it onto Z-mount…as Nikkor lenses. While the details of that partnership were not fully disclosed, at the least these were the Tamron optical designs and the lenses arrived with the same limited feature set but in a Nikkor housing. One key advantage for the Nikkor branded 70-180mm was the fact that it was compatible with Nikon’s teleconverters. You can still buy the Nikkor 17-28mm F2.8, 28-75mm F2.8, and 70-180mm F2.8 lenses now, though one-by-one Tamron’s G2 (2nd Gen) zoom lenses have made their way to Z-mount as Nikon has eased their restrictions on full frame Z-mount third party lenses (though Sigma hasn’t found a way in, yet!) I previously reviewed the Tamron 16-30mm F2.8 G2, Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 G2, and Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 G2 on Sony E-mount, so my coverage of most of these lenses will be a series update on how they perform on Nikon, but I did want to take the time to more thorough review the most recent addition to the fold – the 70-180mm F2.8 G2 Z. You can find out my full thoughts by watching the video review below…or reading on.
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Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me loaners of these zooms. 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 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here. You can find the product listing for the Tamron 70-180mm F2 here.
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Tamron Trinity Zooms Reviews
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Nikon Z-mount has essentially three fast telephoto options: the original Nikkor Z 70-180mm F2.8, the high end Nikkor Z 70-200mm F2.8 VR S, and this new 70-180mm G2. The new G2 lens is actually the cheapest of the three, with an MSRP of $1149 USD, while the Nikkor 70-180mm F2.8 retails has an MSRP of right under $1400 (but is current discounted to roughly $1200), while the premium 70-200mm S-Line lens comes with a whopping $2900 price tag. The strength of Tamron’s 70-180mm formula has always been surprisingly strong image quality in a smaller, more compact package than competing lenses. The G2 formula expanded that with better autofocus, better features, and nicer build. And the updated optical design is even more impressive.
The first generation lens relied on a “stepping” style focus motor, but the G2 has moved to Tamron’s VXD (Voice-coil eXtreme-torque Drive) linear style focus motor that is faster, smoother, and quieter. I had no problems tracking birds in flight with the 70-180 Z G2 mounted on my Nikon Z8.
We’ve also got more features, including a custom button along with a 3-way custom switch that allows you to use that button in a variety of ways, from using it as an AF | MF switch to programming things like A-B focus.
Combine that with a high level of magnification, and you’ve got a relatively lightweight, versatile zoom lens capable of a wide variety of photographic pursuits.
So should this be your new telephoto lens of choice? Let’s dive in and find out…
Build and Handling
As per usual, the biggest difference between the Sony and Nikon version of the lenses comes down to larger diameter of the lens near the mount. Nikon’s Z-mount is 55mm in diameter while Sony’s E-mount is just 46.1mm in diameter, making for a 9mm difference between the two. That means that Z-mount versions of lenses released on both platforms might flare out in that area of the lens, or, sometimes the Sony version will flare in. You can see that both the 16-30mm and 70-180mm have a small flare wider near the lens mount.
The Tamron 70-180mm G2 has a reduced zoom range relative to the 70-200mm F2.8 S, but the trade-off is a much smaller, lighter, and cheaper lens. The S-line is 220mm long and weighs 1360g, while the Tamron is 158.7mm (6.2″) and weighs just 865g (30.5oz). The Tamron is even slimmer at just 83mm in diameter as compared to the 89mm of the Nikkor. Tamron has continued to work very hard to maintain a 67mm filter thread across as many of their E-mount lenses as possible, and that remains the case here. That means that you can share filters across most of their lenses. You can use 67mm filters on all three of their fast F2.8 zooms in this series:
To be fair, however, the Nikkor is an internally zooming lens while the Tamron does extend slightly (about 27mm) when zoomed to 180mm.
The first generation lens had nothing other than the focus and zoom rings on the barrel, but the new 70-180mm Z G2 has three additional features. The first is a Fn/Custom button, and beneath that there is a 3 position custom switch.
The function of that switch can be set by connecting the lens via the (fully weathersealed) USB-C port and using Tamron’s free Lens Utility software to assign a function to each of the three positions.
Tamron’s Lens Utility software gives you a variety of options for customizing the lens. You can assign different functions in each of the three custom positions, each of which will be accessed through the custom button. You can also tweak the behavior of the ring, which here on Nikon will be behave like a customizable control ring.
One minor difference is that setting the ring to function as an aperture ring isn’t a menu option in the Lens Utility Software (it was on Sony), but that’s only because the ring can already function like a customizable control ring. My favorite approach is to have it set to aperture function in camera, and then assign AF | MF to one of the custom positions. That way the ring can serve as both an aperture ring or manual focus ring with just a tap of the button.
In video mode, you can set the customizable control ring to “power aperture” and do fairly smooth aperture racks. It definitely adds to the usefulness of the ring. All three of the Tamron G2 lenses will have this function, though the 70-180mm is the only one that gives you three different custom functions.
The aperture iris itself has nine rounded blades, and as I do those aperture racks I see a fairly consistently round performance from F2.8-5.6.
If you invest time in this process, you can set up the lens to do a lot of different things. At the same time, however, I personally would prefer a more typical control setup with an AF | MF switch, focus limiter, and an actual aperture ring. Thus far that hasn’t really been Tamron’s process on these zooms, so at least we have a much more functional control scheme than the zero controls we had with the first generation lens (and Nikkor 70-180mm).
The build quality feels improved over the first generation lens, with a more sculpted, interesting shape, and deeper ribbing on the rings, which stand out from the body a bit more. It obviously looks very different from the Nikkor 70-180mm, and Nikon standardized the look of that lens to be consistent with their other zooms.
The only shared feature from the first generation lens is a zoom lock on the right side which will lock the zoom at the 70mm position.
This can be useful while hiking or transporting the lens, but most of the time it won’t prove necessary. The zoom action is nicely calibrated, with enough tension to make zoom creep pretty rare. The zoom action was smooth enough that I could do successful zooms during video capture.
The zoom ring is located furthest away from the lens mount and is wide and ribbed with a rubberized finish. The zoom action is almost as smooth as an internally zooming lens, with no sticking points or roughness to the zoom action. There is no wobble in the barrel extension, either. The zoom action is light and quick.
Not everyone is a fan of externally zooming lens, though Tamron has helped to compensate for this by giving the 70-180 Z G2 a thorough weather sealing. This starts with a gasket at the lens mount, has a variety of seal points (11) throughout the barrel, and terminates in a fluorine coating on the front element.
The manual focus ring is located near the lens mount and is narrower. The focus action is okay but nothing exceptional.
The 70-180mm G2 has two different minimum focus distances for the wide and telephoto ends of the zoom range. You can focus as closely as 30cm on the wide end and can get a very high 0.38x magnification there (this autofocus result is improved over the G1 lens).
On the telephoto end the minimum focus distances of 85cm and we have magnification of right over 0.21x.
You can get even higher magnification on the 70mm end by manually focusing.
Up close performance is good but not exceptionally so at F2.8. Stopping down a bit will increase the up close contrast.
Tamron’s design does not include a tripod collar, as they are clearly anticipating the weight of the lens doesn’t require one. I prefer having the option of using a tripod collar, but I will note that I didn’t have a hard time aligning my test chart without one; the weight was light enough and the balance point even enough that it was not pulling down the front of the lens. The heavy counterweight on my Z8 on the other end didn’t hurt.
Everything feels sturdy and well made here. No real complaints.
Tamron has included the lens hood (which is fine but unexceptional). There is no included case.
It appears like one thing was lost in translation – teleconverter support. The Nikkor 70-180mm was designed to include compatibility with Nikon’s TCs, but I don’t think that is the case with the Tamron 70-180mm G2. I don’t see any mention of support in Tamron’s literature, and there doesn’t seem to physically be room for one to mount at the rear of the lens. Unfortunate.
Tamron has included their VC (Vibration Compensation) on this G2 lens. While many of Nikon’s more recent cameras do have camera-based VR (Vibration Reduction), the addition of lens-based stabilization does add some additional stability. I’m not quite sure how the in camera VR and the lens’ VC interact, but I did notice nice stabilization results in general between the two. While there is no CIPA rating given for the VC system (which tells me that it isn’t good enough to brag about), Tamron does say this, “Moreover, at focal lengths up to 100mm, artificial intelligence (AI) technology provides vibration compensation with videography in mind.” I generally like Nikon’s VR better than Sony’s OSS for telephoto lenses, and that proved true here. Everything feels nice and stable. I didn’t have any issue with photos affected by camera shake.
All in all the Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 VC G2 is nicely upgraded in features and build, though the loss of the teleconverter support from the Nikkor version is a big loss. While I would prefer a more conventional control scheme, I do appreciate the added features and the ability to customize the lens. Potential buyers will certainly appreciate the attractive price, too, which gives you a lot of lens for a whopping $1750 less than the Nikkon 70-200 S!
Stills Autofocus
Tamron has equipped all of the G2 lenses with their VXD (Voice-coil eXtreme-torque Drive), a high-powered voice-coil style focus motor that is fast, quiet, and accurate. This motor delivers the kind of thrust needed for rapid action, and most of the time focus is near instant.
I suspect you would find that the most expensive Nikkor 70-200mm S-Line delivers superior sports performance, but short of that, the Tamron is impressively good. I was reviewing a few other third party lenses on Z-mount during this same period, and I definitely found that the Tamron zooms felt much closer to native levels of performance. Focus speed and (more importantly) focus confidence felt like I had a Nikkor lens attached to my Z8. I used the lens for some church events, and found focus to be quick and accurate even a foreground subject was between myself and the subject.
You can see that focus accuracy for birds in flight was excellent, with sharp focus on the eye here.
My formal focus tests showed near instant focus changes from close to far subjects even on the telephoto end, and focus confidence in those settings was high. There is no pulsing or settling, and none of the “double-clutch” action I sometimes see in these tests where the lens goes most of the way, then pauses before achieving final lock. Eliminating that hesitation is critical if you want to use a lens like this in a professional setting.
Precision was good with narrow subjects as well.
My only caveat is that I did see a few random focus misses. Not complete misses, but rather shots where there was a bit of front or back focus. In general, however, I felt that autofocus was excellent.
Video AF
Video autofocus was also solid. The fast, quiet autofocus motor is very useful for video work, and the focus confidence led to good stability in real world shots. That being said, touch-to-focus pulls on Nikon aren’t as sophisticated as on Sony or Canon, so my touch-to-focus pulls included some quick pulses during the pull, which is less than ideal.
There is some focus breathing, but not a bad amount for a longer focal length. Objects only change size by a minimal amount depending on how in focus they are.
My hand test where I block the camera’s view of my face with my hand and then remove, challenging the camera/lens to change focus from my hand to my face and vice-versa went very well. Nikon cameras currently handle touch-to-focus and typical focus separately, so any tweaks you make to sensitivity or speed only apply to ordinary focus and not to touch-to-focus. That means that the focus in this segment follows the settings I’ve applied, whereas they didn’t in the first test. Transitions from my eye to my hand and back were smooth and confident. At this focus distance focus breathing is so minimal as to be unnoticeable, making for nicely cinematic changes.
My test when approaching the camera was somewhat interesting. The native reactiveness was slow to pick me up in that setting, and I would take several steps towards the camera before focus adjusted to me. Once there, it was solid, but when I ducked or stepped out frame and back in, focus would not have adjusted the background during that time. It was like it was still waiting for me to come back. That’s not the end of the world, but I was a little surprised after the lens had proved nicely reactive during my hand test.
In clips where the subject was not moving quickly towards or away from the camera focus remained stable. I don’t find Nikon’s video AF quite as sophisticated as what I find on either Sony or Canon, so this result wasn’t quite as good as what I saw when testing the Sony E-mount version of the lens.
Image Quality Breakdown
Tamron’s previous 70-180mm lens was sharp, but this new lens is operating at an even higher level. The updated optical design adds an additional element and group, bring us up to 20 elements in 15 groups (including 7 exotic elements) and the MTF chart shows that an already sharp lens has been improved to extremely high levels all across the frame. I’ve included the old MTF chart here (image 3) for comparison. This is the same optical design as the Sony E-mount version released back in 2023.
The MTF suggests that this a very sharp lens that is improved out on the edges in particular. The center of the frame performance is nearly perfect. This add up to some very sharp real world results even at F2.8:
Longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) typically show up as purple/magenta fringing before the plane of focus and blue/green fringing beyond the plane of focus due to colors not being perfectly focused together. They typically diminish as the lens is stopped down to smaller apertures. I didn’t see really see any kind of fringing at all here, whether on my test chart:
I also don’t see any fringing on the shiny bits of my Dad’s old SLR.
I also didn’t see any lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) that typically show up near the edges of the frame:
All good so far. I typically find that Z-mount versions of lenses suffer from more vignette than their E-mount counterparts, and that is true here once again.
AT 70mm I find that same mild amount of pincushion distortion (-4), that corrects easily even with a manual adjustment, but vignette is fairly heavy at a +74 to correct. That’s about a stop more than I dealt with on Sony (a +50 to correct there).
At 180mm both the distortion and vignette mildly increase.
The correction for distortion now takes a -7, though it still corrects cleanly, whereas the vignette increases to a +85. That final figure is only +10 relative to Sony, however, so better than usual.
Unlike some third party lenses, however, Tamron zooms do receive full profile support in-camera, which means that neither the vignette nor distortion should provide any real world issues.
We will move on to looking at resolution. I’m running the tests on a 45MP Z8, which is currently the highest resolution standard available on Nikon. Crops are shown at 200% magnification, and here is the test chart they will be taken from.
Starting at 70mm, here are F2.8 crops from the center, midframe, and lower right corner.
You can see that the center is impressively sharp, the midframe is strong, and the corners, while a bit softer, are still resolving nicely.
Real world results are also excellent, with fairly good consistency across the frame even at F2.8.
There is more in the tank, however, and you can see a nice uptick in sharpness, brightness, and contrast on that same edge at F5.6 by comparison.
F5.6 and F8 are both impressively sharp, even in the corners.
While diffraction isn’t quite as intense on the 45MP resolution point of the Z8 as it is on the 61MP resolution of my Sony a7RV, you still will see some softening due to the effects of diffraction. F11 still looks good, but by the minimum aperture of F22 you’ll see a significant loss of contrast.
Performance is even higher at 100mm. Both the center:
…and the corners are a little crisper and more detailed.
You are going to love images at 100mm, which are nicely detailed.
At 135mm there is a mild regression, with not quite as much sharpness and contrast, though still plenty for real world use.
Here’s a shot in this range that is detailed and crisp even at F2.8:
Stopping down to F4 improves contrast and detail across the frame.
It turns out that 135mm is the weakest zone, however, as sharpness at 180mm improves to epic levels in the center of the frame and excellent levels elsewhere even at F2.8:
You can see just how sharp this real world result is even if I deeply crop it.
Here’s another that shows excellent sharpness and crisp edges without any blooming.
Sharpness is generally excellent, and should be enough to satisfy pretty much anyone.
Bokeh quality is generally good as well. Perhaps the worse result is if a lot of your subject is in the transition zone, as I don’t find many zooms to be quite as smooth as the better primes in these situations.
Of course with a zoom it is easier to get in closer and more strongly blur out the background.
Changing the focal length changes the degree of compression in the shot, allowing you to really change how much of the background is visible.
Colors are also excellent, with nice levels of saturation.
The 70-180 Z G2 is just generally a very competent zoom lens.
Flare resistance is also fairly good due to update and improved BBAR-G2 (Broad-Band Anti-Reflection Generation 2) coatings.
Put simply, this is as good of an optical performance as you’ll get short of going all out and spending the (very) big bucks on the Nikkor 70-200mm S-Line lens. The 70-180 Z G2 translates to Nikon very well.
Here’s a mini gallery of images to help you determine whether or not this lens is the one for you.
Conclusion
The Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 VXD G2 is a very welcome addition to Nikon Z-mount. It helps complete the trinity of fast G2 zooms from Tamron on Z-mount, giving one a less expensive way to get high performing zooms. There’s no reason why someone couldn’t use the 70-180 G2 for professional work, as the autofocus and optical performance is generally within a few percentage points of the much more expensive S-line zoom. The sad reality is that you could buy the 16-30mm, 28-75mm, and 70-180mm G2 zooms from Tamron for just $28 USD more than the 70-200mm S-Line lens alone!
That makes this lens (and this series) a tremendous value, and the improvements to autofocus, handling, and, more subtly, image quality, make this a more flexible tool than the first generation lens. Add in the fact that it also has optical stabilization in the lens, and you have a real winner.
I liked this lens on Sony, and I like it on Nikon. Autofocus isn’t quite as excellent on Nikon, but I find the stability a little better. At this stage the only reason to go with the Nikkor 70-180mm is to get teleconverter support (and if you prefer the Nikon “look” of lenses), because the G2 lens is pretty much more competent at everything. It is great that we are seeing these lenses finally all arrive on Z-mount, and having more affordable professional quality zooms is always very, very welcome.
Pros:
- Improved build and features
- Weather sealing
- The inclusion of VC
- USB-C port and Lens Utility software provides customization options
- Fast and accurate autofocus
- High levels of sharpness across zoom range
- Good color rendition
- Good chromatic aberration control
- Good bokeh
- Competitively priced
- Good close up performance
- Shares a 67mm filter thread with most Tamron E-mount lenses
- Great price to performance ratio
Cons:
- Loses teleconverter support vs Nikkor 70-180mm
- A few autofocus misses
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GEAR USED:
Purchase the Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 G2 Z @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon
Purchase the Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 G2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon
Purchase the Tamron 16-30mm F2.8 G2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon
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Keywords: Tamron, 70-180mm, G2, VC, Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 VC, VXD, 70-180 G2, Z-mount, Nikon Z, Full Frame, Review, Nikon Z8, Nikon Z6III, Nikon Z5II, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Portrait, Photography, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, Weather Sealing, #letthelightin, DA
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