My most popular video of 2024 was a showdown between the (then) primary standard zoom options available on the Fuji X-mount platform – the Fuji XF 18-55mm F2.8-4 R LM OIS, XF 16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR, and the Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DN. My surprising conclusion was that the Sigma actually held up the best on the modern Fuji 40MP resolution standard, and that the two Fuji zooms were in need of an update. Fuji obviously agreed, as both lenses received an update in the latter part of 2024. I reviewed the XF 16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR II and the XF 16-50mm F2.8-4.8 R LM WR in early 2025, and decided to follow those reviews up with another showdown using the fresh Fuji options along with last year’s Sigma winner. The results? Find out in the video review here…or you can see my review notes in the article below.
The Fuji lenses are loaners from Fujifilm Canada, while the Sigma is my personal lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *I’m doing this comparison on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.
16-55 II – Sharpest, best corners, best contrast, most consistently good
16-50 (TIE) Slightly better corners on wide end than Sigma
Sigma (TIE) – Aperture advantage vs 16-50, better corners at telephoto than 16-55 II
COLOR
Fuji lenses perhaps slightly better color, but hard to see side by side.
BOKEH
16-55 II – Bokeh richer, no bokeh fringing, most potential (55mm)
Sigma – Decent geometry but fringing
16-50 – Slow aperture means least defocus
Reasons to Choose Sigma
Cheapest MSRP
Constant F2.8
Fairly competitive AF and IQ (balanced)
Highest magnification (0.36x vs 0.21x)
Very compact
Reasons to Choose 16-50mm
Can be had as kit lens at cheaper price
Only internally zooming lens
Weather sealed
Most lightweight
Mostly good AF
Reasons to Choose 16-55mm II
Most professional grade build
Best zoom range
Best feature set
Lowest fringing
Best overall image quality (most special)
Best autofocus
Best standard APS-C zoom out there
Conclusion
A sense of order has been restored. The first party lenses from Fuji are now mostly better than the Sigma, though the Sigma will continue to be intriguing because it is small, cheap(ish), lightweight, and constant F2.8. If you can handle a little more size (and cost) the XF 16-55mm F2.8 II is the best standard APS-C zoom you can buy right now.
Keywords: Fujinon XF 16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR II, Fujinon XF 16-50mm F2.8-4.8 R LM WR, Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DN, 18-50mm, DN, DC, Fuji, Fujinon, 16-55mm II, R LM WR, 16-50mm, F2.8, F2.8-4.8, OIS, LM, WR, R, X-Mount, X, Fuji, Fujifilm, X-H2, weather sealing, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Astrophotography, #letthelightin, #DA, #weather sealing, #VS, #headtohead, #headtoheadbattles
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 vs Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 on Fuji X-Mount
Dustin Abbott
February 15th, 2024
A fast aperture, standard zoom can often be the most important lens in any person’s kit. These are the types of lenses that cover 80-90% of most photographer’s needs, but do so in a more compelling way than most kit lenses. The constant maximum aperture of F2.8 helps in low light and creates a more shallow depth of field, and the focal length covers from moderately wide to short telephoto. The two main third party competitors on the Fuji X-mount platform come from Sigma (the Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DN) and Tamron (the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 VC RXD). I’ve spent extensive time with both lenses (I currently own both of them) and have been comparing them for months. My findings are summarized in this video review.
Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.
Both of these lenses are critical and commercial successes. The Sigma has a 5 out of 5 star rating at B&H Photo with 112 reviews, while the Tamron has a 4.5 star rating with 54 reviews. Both companies took radically different approaches to this formula, however, as the Sigma is the smallest, lightest, and cheapest option (including the Fuji 18-55m F2.8-4 OIS and 16-55mm F2.8 LM WR options) while the Tamron is the largest lens in class but also has the largest zoom ratio and has both a constant F2.8 aperture along with an optical stabilizer.
You can find my full reviews of all of these lenses by clicking the appropriate link below:
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 Di II VC VXD X-mount Review
Dustin Abbott
August 8th, 2023
I’ve been spending time with Tamron’s new Fuji X-mount versions of some of their popular lenses. That includes the 11-20mm F2.8 RXD (my review here) and 17-70mm F2.8 VC RXD lenses (my review here). Those lenses make a lot of sense, as they are lenses that Tamron original designed for Sony APS-C mirrorless cameras. Sony and Fuji share a common APS-C crop factor (1.5x), so the focal length and general behavior of the lenses are largely the same. The lens we are reviewing today is a little different however, as while it is also a lens that Tamron developed for Sony, it is a full frame lens. I reviewed the Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 Di II VC VXD in June 2021. I was generally impressed with the lens there, but porting the lens over to Fuji X (I’ll refer to the lens as the 150-500X in this review for brevity) results in a very different kind of experience.
First of all, there is that focal range. When Fuji’s crop factor is applied the focal range becomes a 225-750mm full frame equivalent. That’s a very useful zoom range, going from this at 150mm:
To this at 500mm:
There are obviously a wide variety of subjects that you can capture with this focal range, with obvious subjects being birds and wildlife. There’s a definite shortage of quality telephoto options on Fuji, with the two primary options being the Fujinon XF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 LM OIS (my review here) and the Fujinon XF 150-600mm F5.6-8 LM OIS WR (my review here). Those lenses each have certain advantages, though the Tamron 150-500X has some advantages of its own. The first and most obvious is price – it currently retails for $1299 USD while the 100-400 comes in at $1899 and the 150-600 at $1999. That’s $600-700 difference in price, which can make a huge difference. The Tamron also boasts higher magnification figure (0.32x vs 0.19x and 0.24x respectively), a longer maximum reach than the 100-400mm, and a much faster maximum aperture throughout the zoom range relative to the 150-600mm (which becomes especially significant on high resolution bodies). I’ll add some quick bullet points of relative strengths of each lens at the end of the review.
In some ways, a full frame lens benefits from moving to APS-C. Typically vignette and distortion are most pronounced on the edges of the frame, so cropping that part of the image off helps in that regard. But APS-C sensors are often very pixel dense, which sometimes make a full frame lens appear softer than it did on APS-C. And there are no sensors quite as pixel dense as Fuji’s high resolution 40MP sensors found on models like the X-T5 and the X-H2 that I’m using for this review. I’m not quite as impressed with the 150-500X optically on Fuji as I was on Sony, but it is also competitive with the other available options and can create beautiful images.
So does this full frame lens make sense on Fuji? That was my question as well, and I’ll explore that throughout this review. You can watch my conclusions in my video review, or just read on to find out…
Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me an loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I have used both my personal Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) and a loaner of the X-S20 (my review here) for this review.
Tamron 150-500X Build, Handling, and Features
Long telephoto lenses like this are typically big, heavy, and expensive. Tamron’s 150-500mm stood out in the full frame crowd on Sony as being smaller and lighter than the competition, but that competitive edge is reduced on Fuji for the simple reason that the lens is overengineered for APS-C. You can design a smaller lens when you design for a smaller sensor, but this lens is just being ported to Fuji X-mount; not designed for it. It’s fortunate the lens started off relatively (it’s still a big lens!) small, as it doesn’t seem ridiculous in size here on Fuji. While heavier than either of the Fuji zooms (1710 grams vs 1375 and 1605, respectively), that’s only 105g heavier than the Fuji 150-600mm. Because of the compact retraction of the Tamron, it is actually the shortest and most narrow lens of the bunch by a fraction. It is almost identical in size to the Fuji 100-400mm, in fact. Here’s a look at how the overall specifications compare.
The Tamron presents a substantial yet compact form when not zoomed out.
The lens extends nearly 8cm when zoomed to 500mm (about three inches), so that does cause the gap between the sizes of the lenses to close somewhat. The Tamron falls in between the two Fuji options when zoomed out in overall length.
The zoom action is smooth with about 75° of rotation to achieve full zoom. There were no hitches or uneven spots in the zoom action. One can also grab the hood and do a push/pull zoom action if you prefer that.
A lot of photographers have strong reservations about the sealing of any externally zooming lens. I personally haven’t had issues with professional grade, well sealed externally zooming lenses, but neither do I live in an extremely dusty or moist climate. Tamron has done a thorough job of weather sealing the lens, however, with seal points that begin at the lens mount and extend throughout the lens to a fluorine coating on the front element. I see roughly 11 seal points as a part of the design.
Thus far I have heard no complaints from my audience about issues with dust and moisture in the Sony version of this lens which has now been on the market for multiple years.
Fuji lenses tend to follow a certain formula when it comes to the feature set on XF lenses, but Tamron has yet to design specifically for that platform, which means that the a common Fuji feature like an aperture ring is missing here. The newer Fuji 150-600mm also has some function buttons which are missing from the Tamron. That being said, however, the Tamron has a few unique features of its own that, in particular, advantage it relative to the 100-400. The copy of the 100-400mm that I reviewed had seen some use, and it was very susceptible to zoom creep. That meant that I was pretty much locking it between every shooting sequence, which slowed down the process to take new photos when the opportunity presented itself.
The Tamron has a much better approach in the form of a clutch mechanism on the zoom ring that allows you to move the zoom ring forward and look the zoom position. A white ring will show when the zoom position is locked. This works really well in the field, allowing you to pretty much instantly either lock or unlock the zoom ring.
What’s interesting is that the 150-500X also comes with a more traditional zoom lock as well, and, like usual, it only works at the 150mm position. I see this more as something to use during transport or storage and the clutch mechanism as the preferred method to use in the field.
There are four switches in a raised bank on the side of the lens, and the quality of the ergonomics of the switches is top notch – more definite and precise than either of the Fuji options. The first switch is a three position focus limiter that gives you the option to have the full range of focus available or to restrict either the distant focus (greater than the 3m) or close focus (15m and beyond). Using a focus limiter can be even more important when using a lens with close focus abilities like this one, though autofocus is fast enough that I rarely resorted to the focus limiter.
The second switch is an AF/MF switch, followed by an ON/OFF for the VC. The third switch gives you an option of three different modes for the Vibration Compensation system. The first is the standard mode for general purpose, mode 2 is for panning, and mode three is called “Framing Priority” which seems to engage the stabilizer a little more actively in the viewfinder and would probably be the preferred mode for video. As is common when you have both lens-based stabilization and in camera stabilization (my X-H2 has IBIS), it is pretty much impossible to separate the performance of the lens stabilization from the camera stabilization. The VC system in the 150-500mm doesn’t appear to be as good as the one found in the Fuji 150-600mm, for example, but the X-H2 also has better IBIS than the Sony body I tested the 150-500 VC on, so in general I found stabilization better. Don’t expect to get perfectly stable video footage at 500mm, however. It’s a far cry better than having no stabilization, obviously, but there is still a fair bit of jitteriness.
I was able to get usable handheld video footage, however, and for stills I had no complaints. The viewfinder held steady, and I was able to get stable shots in my normal use. I got this nice, steady handheld shot at 1/13th second, 500mm (which is, remember, 750mm equivalent), which is a solid 6 stops of stabilization. That’s better than what I saw on Sony, for sure.
I also like the tripod collar design. The actual function is pretty typical, with a locking knob that will allow you to rotate the collar 360° to your preferred position, and, if you continue to loosen it, the collar will come off altogether. I like the fact that you can remove or attach the tripod collar with the lens attached to the camera and also that the lens has a finished area underneath where the tripod collar would sit when it is removed. Some lenses have exposed screws or look unfinished with the collar removed. But what I really like here is that the tripod foot is Arca-swiss compatible, meaning that it can easily be mounted onto a tripod without the need for quick release plate. The Fuji 150-600 has an Arca-compatible foot as well, but not the older 100-400mm.
The lens hood is, as mentioned, fairly shallow for such a long focal length, but it seems to do the job and I’m certainly not complaining! It does not have a locking mechanism, but does bayonet precisely and tightly into place. It also has rubberized, reinforced front lip in recognition that often big lenses mounted on cameras will be set down facing downwards and also that things that stick further out in front of a photographer (like a long lens!) are more likely to get bumped on something! The quality of the lens hood is definitely nicer that what is found on either Fuji options.
One distinct advantage for the 150-500X over Fuji zooms is versatility at minimum focus distance and maximum magnification. Like many recent Tamron lenses, the 150-500X has a variable MFD with the ability to get closer on the wide end (just 0.6m [23.6 in] at 150mm) than on the telephoto end (1.8m [70.9 in] at 500mm). This gives you an exceptional over 0.32x on the wide end and an also very useful 0.27x on the telephoto end (though oddly enough on Fuji, my results were backwards, with a higher magnification at 500mm!) You also get a lot more flexibility with your working distance from your subject, and the ability to do near-macro work. Here’s what the Tamron’s magnification looks like at 500mm and then at 150mm.
Because this contradicted the traditional narrative, I tested it again. I worked this time by manually focusing the lens to the minimum focus distance at both 500mm and 150mm and then moved the subject to where it was in focus. I found the same, however: I had clearly higher magnification at 500mm than at 150mm:
Perhaps this is a quirk of manual vs auto focus; you can manually focus closer than what the lens will autofocus…particularly at 500mm. Either way, however, this was a different result than what I saw on Sony.
In many ways this is one of the most useful variable-MFD lenses, as the working distance even at 150mm is still plenty and so you don’t feel you are right on top of your subject. At 500mm you have a LOT of working distance and thus can shoot subjects like insects with less chance of disturbing them. At 500mm you obviously also have the ability to really blur out a background. I shot this marigold blossom right in the middle of the plant (with buds and blossoms before and after just inches away), and you can see that the subject is still very isolated.
This is a definite strength for the lens and adds to its versatility.
One area of disadvantage for Tamron vs the Fuji options is that the Tamron is not designed for use with teleconverters. The lens is not physically designed for use with teleconverters.
You’ll probably want to to use it on a larger body for balance, but I will say that the lens is more natural fit on my X-H2 than it is on a Sony A7R-type body. Kudos to Tamron for making a functional and relatively compact design that can still compete with the dedicated APS-C options from Fuji in size…and which undercuts them in price so much!
Tamron 150-500mm VC Autofocus
Tamron has utilized their high speed, high torque VXD (Voice-coil eXtreme-torque Drive) linear motor focus system in the 150-500X. This allows it to directly compete with the native Fuji lenses utilizing linear motors. Tamron’s VXD largely works very well here, delivering very fast, quiet, and accurate autofocus…in most lighting situations.
Currently Fuji’s autofocus system is is an older hybrid phase detect/contrast system that has a fresh coat of paint in the form of quite good AI Deep learning. Thus the AF system works best when it has a trackable subject in the frame, and struggles a bit more when there isn’t one. That’s definitely the case here, as I had good focus results when shooting many subjects, but saw a few situations where autofocus was either sluggish or even balking to focus. My low light test was definitely one, but even when shooting my well lit test chart I had a few moments where autofocus didn’t want to get moving.
But where I was more impressed was when tracking action. I had good success tracking birds in flight, with good stickiness even the birds moved in, around, and even behind trees.
I also took photos at a softball game, and had no problem stacked locked onto the players, though as with any long lens, the biggest challenge with any subject is the initial acquisition of the subject in the frame…particularly at the longer focal lengths. Getting the subject in the frame can be challenging when the subject is moving and they aren’t in focus yet. It’s not really specific to this lens, however, but rather a technique for longer telephoto lenses that you just have to learn. It will help to utilize the focus limiter in these kinds of situations, as if your subject is a little further away (like a bird or animal), it will eliminate some of the close focus possibilities and speed up subject acquisition.
I had a squirrel show up on one of my hikes who was less intimidated than usual, and he foraged closer and closer to me. This allowed me to test the lens shooting through foliage and other distractions to keep focus on the eye, and the lens/camera largely did very well.
Another time it was a snake, and I consistently had good focus on its eye even though depth of field was very shallow.
Another subject I tested was a soccer player on a beach who was doing flip kicks. I had good success tracking him through the fast motion…so long as I started with focus on him before he began the maneuver. The flip action was too fast to pick up reliably on the fly otherwise.
I spent less time on the video front, as shooting good footage long range is better done with planning and off a tripod, which is not a typical use scenario for me. I did spend some time filming bees at my hive, and insect focus worked pretty well there.
Autofocus pulls in video were largely a study in frustration. There was a delay after I touched a new area on screen for focus to pull to, and even when focus moved, it was in obvious steps rather than a smooth pull. This is an area of performance that was better on Sony, which has been the case with all of the Tamron lenses that I’ve reviewed on Fuji thus far. Part of that is Fuji’s own focus process, as it just isn’t quite as refined as either Canon or Sony (the other two platforms I test on), and very possibly part of the blame also lies with Tamron porting these lenses over to Fuji and perhaps being less familiar with Fuji’s focus process.
If you are a video shooter, you might want to prefer one of the native Fuji options at the moment.
Sony has elected to artificially limit the burst rate of its cameras when third party lenses are used, which provides a distinct advantage for a Sony lens over a Tamron lens if high speed bursts are a desired application. I could shoot 30FPS on my Sony Alpha 1 with the Sony 200-600mm but only 15FPS with the Tamron 150-500mm on the same camera. There doesn’t seem to be any such limitation here, as I could shoot the full 15FPS with the mechanical shutter and 20FPS with the electronic shutter on my X-H2. Tamron has the opportunity to compete with Fuji on equal footing when it comes to burst rate.
I’ll end with a general observation: variable aperture lenses like this are not designed for low light work. That maximum aperture of F6.7 means that in very low light conditions the focus system isn’t left with a lot to work with, as the physical aperture can only open so wide to let in light. This lens (or any similar lens) will work best in decent lighting conditions, be they natural light or good stadium/arena lights. You need to be aware of that if you are purchasing to shoot sports. It also means that if you want to keep the shutter speed up high enough to stop action, you’ll probably be shooting at higher ISO values in an arena, for example. Unfortunately there aren’t really any “fast” options on Fuji, and the Tamron 150-500X actually represents the “fastest” option beyond 400mm at the moment. If your primary purpose for a long telephoto is shooting photos (not video), I think the Tamron competes very well with the Fuji options.
Tamron 150-500X Image Quality
Engineering a high performing telephoto zoom that reaches out to 500mm is no small task. The Tamron 150-500mm has the additional challenge of being designed for full frame and is now being ported to an APS-C platform that (if shooting on the 40MP sensor) is incredibly pixel dense. Yes, the Sony a7RV has more pixels (61MP), but the sensor is also much larger. You would need a full frame camera in the range of 90MP to have a similar pixel density, so at the moment this is the most demanding platform that I test lenses on.
Tamron has an optical design of 25 elements in 16 groups, with five of those elements being LD (Low Dispersion), another XLD (eXtra Low Disperation), and two of them being Hybrid Aspherical elements. You can see the optical diagram along with the MTF charts here.
The MTF chart looks very strong, but I didn’t find real world sharpness results quite as compelling on Fuji as I did on Sony. There’s also no question that the 150-500X is still capable of giving really beautiful results, and it has some serious strengths optically.
I will give you one practical caveat about telephoto lenses in general. Long range shots can sometimes be less than satisfying at a pixel level in some conditions for the simple reason that telephoto images are more likely to be affected by atmospheric conditions like pockets of rising warm air. This “heat haze” or “heat shimmer” bends and distorts light waves. You’ve seen extreme examples perhaps in a movie where you can see heat waves rising off hot asphalt on a desert road, for example, but even milder conditions can sometimes reduce contrast or apparent detail through smaller amounts of “atmospheric distortion”. This has nothing to do with the quality of your lens and everything to do with the environmental conditions.
I share this to help those who might buy a relatively expensive lens and then get “freaked out” when sharpness in certain situations is less than expected. You can’t compete with physics!
As we start to take a look at vignette and distortion, we find the advantage of a full frame lens on an APS-C platform. The general trend I had been observing is that the X-mount version of the Tamron lenses are displaying more vignette on Fuji than Sony. But those were APS-C designs. This 150-500X is a full frame lens, which means that a significant portion of the outside frame is cut off. That eliminates the worst of the vignette and distortion, though this was a lens that didn’t really struggle with this anyway. Here’s a look at the before and after at 150mm.
There’s just not a lot to correct the. There’s an extremely mild amount of pincushion distortion and a tiny amount of vignette. The distortion I corrected with a -w and the vignette with a +21 and moving the midpoint to zero, though frankly you could get by without correcting it at all.
At 500mm the general pattern remains.
Distortion is now only a -1 to correct, while vignette was a +24 to correct. Once again, there just isn’t much of anything to correct, though Tamron lenses do enjoy full correction support in Fuji cameras.
I also didn’t see any issues with chromatic aberrations. Even shooting a very high contrast subject like these summer daisies shows no evidence of fringing even in the transition to defocus.
I also saw no issues with lateral chromatic aberrations near the edge of my test chart.
My sharpness results are done on the 40MP Fujifilm X-H2, and crops are shown at nearly 200%. This is (as mentioned) an extreme torture test, but I treat all lenses the same way in order to have clearly defined results. Here’s a look at the test chart that the crops will come from.
Here are the crops from the center, mid-frame, and extreme corner.
Sharpness results are good but not “wow” good. The Tamron has an aperture advantage over the Fuji 150-600mm through the zoom range, including at the start, where it has a maximum aperture of F5 vs F5.6. Even stopping down the Tamron to F5.6 shows that the Fuji lens is the sharper of the two across the frame. Here’s a 200% comparison:
I found stopping the 150-500X down to F8 at 150mm made some improvement across the frame, with the most obvious advantage being in the corners.
Anywhere past F8, however, and any potential gains from stopping the lens down are lost to diffraction. By minimum aperture (f22 on the wide end, F32 on the narrow end), the image is much softer due to diffraction.
The 150-500X is strongest in the middle of the zoom range, with more contrast and detail across the frame when compared to 150mm. The difference is most evident in the corners (note that the maximum aperture is now F5.6):
In real world results, in fact, I don’t see much difference between the center and edge performances. Take a look a these crops:
Here’s a landscape style image that I like:
It’s here in the middle of the range that the Tamron is the most competitive with the Fuji 150-600mm. First of all, it has an aperture advantage (F5.6 vs F6.4), but also has just a little more sharpness and contrast. Here’s a look at the mid-frame.
By 400mm the maximum aperture is F6.3 and with similar performance. The maximum aperture drops to F6.7 by the 500mm mark, though it is worth noting that the lens actually holds F6.3 until 475mm and only closes down further in that last little bit of the range. That means that throughout most of the 400mm range you have the largest aperture advantage over the Fuji 150-600mm, as it is at F7.1 at this equivalent range (2/3rds rather than 1/3rd stop slower). Here’s a 475mm shot that is still at F6.3:
I was impressed by how the 150-500mm held up at 500mm on Sony, but I’m a little less impressed on Fuji where the higher resolution punishes things a bit more. Here’s a 500mm crop from the center of the frame that looks good but with slightly less contrast than what is ideal.
You can see what I mean in this cute shot of Nala. At a pixel levels the fine details aren’t incredibly well resolved, though, to be fair, depth of field is incredibly small at this focus distance and 500mm.
I shot a controlled sequence (tripod, 10 second delay) of a block wall, and this 200% magnification of the grout line between the stones shows that contrast does improve from F6.7 to F8, so stopping down a bit does give images a boost.
I do think the Fuji 150-600mm is slightly sharper at the end of its telephoto range, but it isn’t by much.
There’s more to image quality than just sharpness, though. What about the bokeh quality and the overall look of the images? One serious advantage long telephotos have is that the nature of the focal lengths allow for very compressed backgrounds along with very shallow depths of field. This often results in beautifully soft and creamy bokeh in a lot of situations, like this.
I love this one:
It’s hard for shorter focal lengths to imitate that degree of defocus irrespective of aperture. In many, many situations the 150-500X gave me images that I really, really liked, with great color and lovely defocus.
Some shots had a less favorable ratio of subject to background, but I still thought those shots that landed in the transition zone looked pretty good.
That’s about as much negative as I’m capable of coming up with, as by and large I think that images looked pretty great.
Flare resistance also proved to be quite good. This lens has G2 (2nd Generation) B-BAR coatings, which are generally excellent. It’s somewhat rare to end up with the sun in the frame when the angle of view is so small (particularly on the telephoto end!), but when I intentionally put it that, I saw very minimal impact from the sun either wide open or stopped down to F11 and zoomed in (BTW, the last image is the first time that I’ve used the 1/180,000 electronic shutter speed limit on the X-H2!
Outside of not being as sharp on Fuji as it was on full frame Sony bodies, there really isn’t too much to complain about here. Low distortion and vignette, low chromatic aberrations, nice bokeh, and even good flare resistance. The Fuji options are slightly sharper, but not better in these other metrics. You can check out the image gallery to get a greater sense of lens performance.
Conclusion
The Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 VC VXD makes for an interesting alternative to either the Fujinon XF 100-400mm or 150-600mm lenses. It has similar dimensions to the former but reaches that critical extra 100mm, and is more compact than the latter while having a faster maximum aperture throughout. Probably most important, however, is that the Tamron 150-500X is significantly cheaper than either of the Fuji options while providing a similar degree of build, weather sealing, and even autofocus performance (save perhaps on the video front).
This is a very unique lens release, as it is very rare for a full frame lens to be released on what is an exclusively APS-C mount. Tamron clearly saw an opportunity to maximize their development investment in the 150-500mm along with correctly perceiving that another option (particularly at a lower price point) would be welcome. The Tamron adds some useful close focus abilities not matched by the alternatives.
The Tamron 150-500mm VC isn’t quite as impressively sharp here on the demands of Fuji’s high resolution APS-C, but most user reviews that I have read indicate that real world users are happy with the sharpness of the lens. And sharpness alone isn’t everything; I would argue that this lens has nicer bokeh than either of the Fuji options, which often makes for nicer looking images at the end of the day. $1300 still isn’t cheap, but it is definitely more affordable than the Fuji options which will put you closer to $2000. That alone makes it an interesting option; the fact that it is also a very competent lens certainly helps!
Pros:
Good quality of construction including robust weather sealing
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I’ve been spending time with Tamron’s new Fuji X-mount versions of some of their popular lenses. That includes the 11-20mm F2.8 RXD (my review here) and 17-70mm F2.8 VC RXD lenses (my review here). Those lenses make a lot of sense, as they are lenses that Tamron original designed for Sony APS-C mirrorless cameras. Sony and Fuji share a common APS-C crop factor (1.5x), so the focal length and general behavior of the lenses are largely the same. The lens we are reviewing today is a little different however, as while it is also a lens that Tamron developed for Sony, it is a full frame lens. I reviewed the Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 Di II VC VXD in June 2021. I was generally impressed with the lens there, but porting the lens over to Fuji X (I’ll refer to the lens as the 150-500X in this review for brevity) results in a very different kind of experience.
First of all, there is that focal range. When Fuji’s crop factor is applied the focal range becomes a 225-750mm full frame equivalent. That’s a very useful zoom range, going from this at 150mm:
To this at 500mm:
There are obviously a wide variety of subjects that you can capture with this focal range, with obvious subjects being birds and wildlife. There’s a definite shortage of quality telephoto options on Fuji, with the two primary options being the Fujinon XF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 LM OIS (my review here) and the Fujinon XF 150-600mm F5.6-8 LM OIS WR (my review here). Those lenses each have certain advantages, though the Tamron 150-500X has some advantages of its own. The first and most obvious is price – it currently retails for $1299 USD while the 100-400 comes in at $1899 and the 150-600 at $1999. That’s $600-700 difference in price, which can make a huge difference. The Tamron also boasts higher magnification figure (0.32x vs 0.19x and 0.24x respectively), a longer maximum reach than the 100-400mm, and a much faster maximum aperture throughout the zoom range relative to the 150-600mm (which becomes especially significant on high resolution bodies). I’ll add some quick bullet points of relative strengths of each lens at the end of the review.
In some ways, a full frame lens benefits from moving to APS-C. Typically vignette and distortion are most pronounced on the edges of the frame, so cropping that part of the image off helps in that regard. But APS-C sensors are often very pixel dense, which sometimes make a full frame lens appear softer than it did on APS-C. And there are no sensors quite as pixel dense as Fuji’s high resolution 40MP sensors found on models like the X-T5 and the X-H2 that I’m using for this review. I’m not quite as impressed with the 150-500X optically on Fuji as I was on Sony, but it is also competitive with the other available options and can create beautiful images.
So does this full frame lens make sense on Fuji? That was my question as well, and I’ll explore that throughout this review. You can watch my conclusions in my video review, read my text review, or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me an loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I have used both my personal Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) and a loaner of the X-S20 (my review here) for this review.
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
In January 2021 I released my review of this lens for Sony E-mount cameras. At the time, no Tamron lenses were available on Fuji X-mount, and I spoke in my conclusion about how a lens like the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 Di III-a VC RXD actually gave Sony an advantage – it’s the kind of lens I call a “system seller”. On paper it has pretty much everything: a great focal range (25.5-105mm full frame equivalent), a large maximum aperture through the zoom range (F2.8), optical stabilization (Vibration Compensation, or VC), and a fast focus system (RXD). But that advantage is no longer on Sony alone, as this was one of the first lenses to come to Fuji X-mount from Tamron once Fuji began opening up their platform to third party lenses. That’s an amazing focal range to have a constant aperture of F2.8 over, covering from this at 17mm:
…to this at 70mm:
It also is a great value. The current price at B&H Photo is $699 USD, which is a full $500 cheaper than the Fujinon XF 16-55mm F2.8 LM WR (my review here) or $200 less than the Fujinon XF 18-120mm F4 PZD (my review coming soon). The Tamron doesn’t perfectly align with either of those lenses, but they are the closest competitors I can point to on the platform. Sigma has also made their 18-50mm F2.8 DC available on Fuji X-mount (my review here), but the main reasons to consider the Sigma would be price ($549 USD) and compact size as the Tamron 17-70mm VC has the advantage in focal range, weather sealing, and also includes an optical stabilizer. I’ve been interested in revisiting some of these third party lenses on X-mount for two primary reasons: 1) to see how autofocus performs on a new platform and 2) to see how the lens’ optics survive the very pixel dense 40MP Fuji X-Trans sensor on some of their new cameras.
I found the 17-70mm VC a little big for the Sony a6400 body that I reviewed it on previously, but my Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) is more like a full frame camera is size and the lens is a perfect fit on the X-H2.
Tamron loves its initials in their lens names, so let’s sort out that alphabet soup. Di III is their designation for a mirrorless lens design, and, in this case, the addition of -A at the (Di III-A) refers to their development for APS-C mirrorless. VC is Vibration Compensation, which is Tamron’s name for their proprietary OIS (image stabilization) system. It’s worth noting that neither of the Fuji alternatives (both of which cost more) come with built in stabilization. RXD refers to the focus motor, which is similar to the linear motors employed on many of Fuji’s better lenses. In short, this lens is pretty loaded with quality features under its skin even if there aren’t a lot of external features on the barrel.
So does the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 VC RXD impress me as much on Fuji as it did on Sony? You can watch my conclusions in my video review, or just read on to find out…
Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me an loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I have used both my personal Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) and a loaner of the X-S20 (my review here) for this review.
Tamron 17-70mm VC Build, Handling, and Features
As noted, the Tamron 17-70mm VC is more like a full frame sized lens. You can’t make this large of a zoom range (4.11x zoom ratio) with this large of a constant maximum aperture (F2.8) without making a larger lens even when designing for the smaller APS-C sensor. The lens is 74.6mm (2.9″) in diameter (about average), but is fairly long at 119.3mm (4.7″). Like most of Tamron’s mirrorless lenses the 17-70mm VC has a 67mm front filter thread. That makes the Tamron longer than the XF 16-55mm F2.8 (106mm), though that lens is considerably wider (83.3mm) and weighs more at 655mm. The 17-70mm F2.8 is 525 grams (1.2 lb). Here’s a look at how the specs break down:
The lens extends an additional 27mm when zoomed to 70mm, so when zoomed out and and the hood attached, this is not a small lens:
So not small, but it’s worth noting that the weight is light enough that the lens balances fine on most Fuji bodies, though it will obviously be a better match for the larger X-T or X-H bodies.
That bright maximum aperture of F2.8 helps the versatility of this lens, as it makes it more useful in lower light conditions or as an event/wedding zoom. While the depth of field is more equivalent to a full frame F4 lens, the F2.8 aperture will always have the light gathering capability of an F2.8 lens (regardless of whether attached to APS-C or Full Frame), meaning that the shutter speed of an F2.8 lens on APS-C would be the same as the shutter speed under identical conditions of an F2.8 lens on a full frame camera.
As has been Tamron’s design philosophy thus far, the design language is clean, modern, and without distractions. That’s the nice way of putting it. The glass half empty approach is to note that there are no features on the outside of the lens. No AF/MF switch, no aperture ring – just the zoom and focus rings. Aperture rings were rare on Sony in the past, but the aperture ring has been a very common design element on Fuji. It is also rare, in my experience, for a lens equipped with an optical stabilizer to not have an ON/OFF switch for it mounted on the barrel.
All we have on the barrel is the two rings. The position of the two rings on the 17-70mm is reversed relative to the 11-20mm, which is unfortunate for those who will buy both lenses to use as a kit. The closer (and narrower) of the two is the manual focus ring. You will have to select manual focus from within the camera, though this is common on Fuji cameras and is fairly simple if you have a body that has the Focus Mode lever or button on the front. This (like all mirrorless lenses) is focus-by-wire, meaning that focus input on the focus ring is routed through the focus motor to move the elements. Manual focus feel is fairly light and without a lot of tactile feedback. Typical manual focus aids are all available, as Tamron lenses on Fuji function largely like native lenses.
The zoom ring is close to the front of the camera. It is fairly wide and has a rubberized, ribbed texture. It moves smoothly through the zoom range without any sticking points. The inner barrel will extend about 27cm at the 70mm position, and is fully retracted at the 17mm position. The inner barrel extends smoothly and without any wobble.
Tamron has included a shallow, petal-shaped lens hood with deep ribs inside that disrupt stray light bouncing around. It’s plastic and lightweight, but the quality of the plastics is apparent by feel. It doesn’t feel as cheap as some hoods that I see. It feels like it could take a few bumps without cracking (in fact my test copy and X-H2 came off my tripod while shooting some tests. It fell a couple of feet to the carpeted floor, landing on the lens hood. No harm, no foul, though to be safe I’ll be having Tamron check out the lens to make sure that it remained properly centered). All of the product shots were taken post-fall, so you can see that the lens weathered that bump well.
The lens’ housing is a nice grade of engineered plastics with a satin finish. There’s a platinum-colored accept ring right near the lens mount. Nothing fancy on the outside, but the lens “look” is clean and it looks nice mounted on the camera.
As noted, however, the good stuff is inside. There’s a rubber gasket at the lens mount that is the outer evidence of the weather sealing inside, and this is diagram from Tamron shows that there are a total of seven seal points in the lens. This is capped off by a nice fluorine coating on the front element, which not only helps protect it from scratches but also makes it water and fingerprint resistant and thus easier to clean.
Tamron’s recent trends regarding MFD (minimum focus distance) hold true here, as the lens sports two different MFDs for wide (0.19m/7.5″) and telephoto (0.39m/15.5″). You can get to nearly 0.21x magnification on the wide end and right over 0.19x on the telephoto end. I find the figure on the wide end less useful, however, as you have to get to within only 6-7cm of your subject to achieve that magnification, meaning that there is a STRONG chance of shading your subject with the lens. Distortion and field curvature is also exaggerated that close, leaving only a small “sweet spot” where focus is achieved. Here’s a look at the MFD at 17mm, then 70mm, and then the result at 17mm:
You can see that the field curvature is exaggerated up close. The magnification is a little lower at 70mm, but it’s a little easier to get:
Unfortunately image quality isn’t quite as strong up close at 70mm, but I still found close up images looked quite nice:
We’ve got a nine bladed aperture that prioritizes keeping things circular. Here’s a look at the bokeh geometry from F2.8 – F5.6:
The geometry looks pretty good, with fairly consistently circular shapes across the frame. Despite the rounded aperture iris the lens manages to produce a nice sunstar effect at 17mm when stopped down:
The inclusion of IBIS (In-Body-Image-Stabilization) has become much more common in Fuji cameras in the past three years, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are still a lot of Fuji cameras without IBIS. That makes the inclusion of Tamron’s VC (Vibration Compensation) important for stills, yes, but even more so for getting stable handheld video footage. Because I tested the lens on two cameras with IBIS (X-H2 and X-S20), I can’t turn either of the stabilization systems off independently, so I can’t really tell what the VC is doing and what IBIS is doing. I was able to handhold 70mm at shutter speeds of 1/4th of a second and get stable results:
I also had a nicely stable platform for video. Walking with the camera still doesn’t have anything like the smoothness of a gimbal, but it was better than what I’ve seen in many other such situations. If you don’t have a camera with IBIS, however, the stabilization of the 17-70mm VC could be a game changer for you.
The Tamron 17-70mm RXD lacks an aperture ring, and the exterior finish doesn’t come across as premium as Fuji’s own nicer lenses, but there are a lot of positives here as well. Stabilization, weather sealing, close focus performance – these are all very important in real world situations.
Autofocus and Video Performance
The Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 has Tamron’s excellent Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive (RXD).
In design, it looks like the linear motors designed by Fuji or Sony. I’ve been interested to see how the RXD works on Fuji (I’ve previously tested on Sony). Like the 11-20mm F2.8 that I tested first, I found that the RXD motor is pretty much flawless for stills, with fast, quiet focus on either the X-H2 or X-S20 bodies that I used for the review.
This is a far cry from some of the older Fuji lenses I’ve used, with noisy focus motors that were slow and rough. Quality of focus is more akin to the newest Linear Motor equipped lenses. I never really heard the focus motor, and focus accuracy was excellent even in less than ideal light (this is a 1/35th of a second shot, ISO 1600, F2.8):
Eye AF detection for people shots were generally excellent. I attended the wedding of a friend (not in a official capacity), but supplemented their photos with my own. I used the X-H2 and 17-70mm F2.8 for the “people photos”, and I got well focused results across the many images I took:
This certainly would work as a great lens to have mounted on at least one body for shooting weddings, giving you the ability to cover from wide to telephoto with an F2.8 aperture and accurate autofocus.
I also got accurately focused results of Nala as she stalked through the tall grasses.
I also used the “Insect Detection” mode and tracked some bee action at my hive.
I also had zero problems with smaller apertures and shooting landscapes. I got a lot of beautiful landscape shots with the lens and didn’t have any issue with pulsing or hunting at smaller apertures.
Here’s another:
I have no complaints for stills. Focus was fast, quiet, and accurate.
Video focus pulls were less stellar, however, which follows a trend that I’ve seen with Tamron lenses on Fuji thus far. There is some visible stepping in the actual pulls; the initial focus move, a split second pause, and then the final adjustment. I didn’t see any of this on the Sony version of the lens, so it is probably more of a Fuji problem in general, as I do tend to see more stepping on Fuji than other platforms.
There is a moderate amount of focus breathing. The results from my “hand test” were a little better, as the focus changes are smaller, but I still saw a bit of stepping. More subtle focus transitions during video capture were relatively smooth, but did show some steps. I’m hoping this is something that can improved either through firmware updates to the camera or lens in the future.
So, for stills I can give an unreserved “thumbs up”, but would encourage a little caution if your video style includes big autofocus pulls.
Tamron 17-70mm VC Image Quality
The 17-70mm F2.8 VC sports an optical formula of 16 elements in 12 groups, with 5 of those being exotic elements (molded glass aspherical, hybrid aspherical, and Low Dispersion). Here’s a look at the optical design and MTFs:
If you understand MTF diagrams, you will note that these are very good looking MTFs for a standard zoom…particularly one with an extra-large zoom range. 17mm shows a very consistent performance across the frame, with 70mm presenting as sharper in the center but a little weaker in the corner. The transition to the 40MP sensor of Fujifilm X-H2 is a brutal one, however, as that is more pixels packed onto a sensor this size than ever before. All of the flaws will be apparent here.
Here’s a look at the vignette and distortion at 17mm:
When I reviewed the Tamron 11-20mm, I was surprised to see considerably more vignetting on the Fuji version than I had on the Sony version. I thought it was some kind of testing fluke at the time, but I’m seeing the same here, so this is an obvious trend. The optical design is the same as the Sony version, so I must surmise that the additional vignette has to do with Fuji. X-mount is several millimeters smaller in diameter than the Sony E-mount, so it is possible that there is some additional vignetting for the simple reason that the original design is for a larger mount and the transition to a smaller mount is introducing more vignette.
Or I’m completely wrong.
What I do know is that I saw about two stops of vignette at 17mm on the Sony version, and I see closer to 4 stops here (I had to max out the correction slider and you can still see a little darkness in the extreme corners). I had a similar jump on the Tamron 11-20mm. There is also some barrel distortion that isn’t quite linear in correcting (a slight wave pattern). The amount of distortion isn’t huge, however, and I used a +6 to correct it. Tamron seems to enjoy full in-camera correction support on Fuji, so use the standard profile in camera for JPEGs and Video for a cleaner still result. As always, RAW images will require using the correction profile, which does in fact do a cleaner job in correcting the distortion than my manual correction.
As is typical for a lens like this, the distortion pattern flips to a pincushion style distortion on the telephoto, though this distortion is even more linear and easier still to correct for. Vignette was also lower.
I used a -9 to correct the distortion and a +70 to correct the vignette. There’s nothing that is a dealbreaker here due to good corrections.
The 17-70mm VC does suffer from some longitudinal chromatic aberrations that show up as fringing before and after the plane of focus. This will rob the lens of some contrast. Fringing is more obvious on very high resolution bodies because the fringing occupies more pixels thus becomes more obvious when viewed at 100%. If you aren’t zooming into the image it won’t be more obvious, however.
You can see it in the out of focus region, though its not obvious or ruining the image.
I could see trace amounts of lateral chromatic aberrations on my chart (fringing in dark to light transitions near the edge of the frame) if I magnified to 200%, they were too insignificant to see in real world use, and a one click correction either in camera in (for RAWs) in software will clean those up nicely:
Let’s move on to resolution and contrast. I do my examinations at 200% magnification, as this clearly shows lens strengths and flaws for you to see. This is an extreme torture test, exaggerating strengths and weaknesses. The good news is that real world results always look a little better (mostly because you don’t view them at 200%!)
A note on sharpening: Adobe Lightroom (my home base for cataloging, testing, and displaying images) doesn’t always play well with Fuji X-Trans sensors. They are fairly notorious for looking “wormy” when applying sharpness, and thus require a deft touch to produce good results. Using Adobe’s “Enhance” option helps, though at the cost of tripling the stored file size (files are typically north of 150MB). I have worked hard to develop a sharpness preset for my X-H2 images that sharpens using a different technique than I typically use for my other cameras. By utilizing both techniques I can produce a demonstrably better result, though at the cost of additional work and storage size. I don’t do this for all images, but I will for the main test subjects below.
First, here’s my test chart:
We will start with F2.8 crops (near 200%) at 17mm from the center, mid-frame, and extreme lower right corner. Stopping down to F5.6 further improves contrast a bit as aberrations clear up.
We can see a fairly consistent performance across the frame (as suggested by the MTF), with good sharpness in the center of the frame, mid-frame, and only a mild drop in the corners. Contrast isn’t off the charts, and that is in part because of the challenge of performing on a much higher resolution sensor than the last time I tested the lens. That’s the challenge of such a high resolution sensor on APS-C, though it’s not quite so dire in the real world. I compare results at 200% here. Out in the real world at a more typical 100% magnification things look better…even when shooting a landscape at F2.8:
Stopping down to F4 produces little difference in the center or mid-frame, but I did see some improvement in the outer third of the image frame. Stopping on down to F5.6 increases contrast a bit more, and image quality is quite strong across the frame even on this high resolution beast:
Real world results at F5.6 are very nice with nice contrast and detail across the frame.
At 24mm I found resolution and contrast just a little bit higher all across the frame. Contrast in particular is noticeably better.
Contrast and detail edge up very slightly at 35mm, and real world results look nice:
I really love this image of an unscripted moment with the bride and groom.
There is a tiny regression at 50mm with contrast dropping a bit, though the difference would be hard to spot without having the images side by side. Contrast improves again by F4 and F5.6. Here’s an F2.8 shot:
That trend continues at 70mm, where the results are noticeably softer on the copy I tested. That leaves more room for improved image quality when stopping the lens down, and there’s a much bigger difference between F2.8 and F5.6 than at other focal lengths.
That slightly reduced contrast look can have a flattering effect for portraits, however.
Stopped down to smaller apertures and the lens produces detailed images at 70mm:
In my Sony review I was very impressed by the sharpness of the lens and less impressed by the bokeh, but on this high resolution body my opinion is slightly different. I’m less blown away by the sharpness but find the bokeh quality better than I remembered. This image shows a very soft profile on the bokeh.
I shot this high ISO image on the lower resolution X-S20 at 24mm, and while the background isn’t strongly blurred out, the transition to defocus looks fairly good.
Here’s one more that looks fairly nice.
The one negative that remains true is that if there are bright specular highlights in the image (like Christmas lights), you will see some concentric circles in the “bokeh balls”. That’s obviously not a desirable trait.
Flare resistance is quite good. Tamron utilized their premium BBAR lens coatings here, which tend to be extremely effective in resisting flare artifacts. In this sequence of photos you can see flare resistance at 17mm (at F11), then at 70mm F11 (the worst result I could find), followed by a real world shot with the sun right at the edge of the frame.
Even doing video pans across the sun produced very little negative effects.
While I didn’t have a chance to test coma on Fuji due to forest fires negatively impacting our air this summer, I did test it on Sony. “Coma performance is quite good, with night sky images looking clean other than a bit of “star-stretching” in the corners.”
For the money you certainly aren’t going to beat this image quality in a standard zoom on Fuji. It’s a full $500 cheaper than the closest competitor – the Fuji XF 16-55mm F2.8. I think the Fuji delivers slightly richer colors, but outside of that, the Tamron is very competitive, and I would definitely take it over a lens like the XF 16-80mm F4 in terms of sharpness. At the least, the Tamron brings intriguing new option to the Fuji X platform with a bigger zoom range than some and a larger aperture than others. There’s a lot of good optically, and little major issues. You can check out more photos by visiting the image gallery page here.
Conclusion
The Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD is a welcome addition to the Fuji X-mount standard zoom options. In most other cases you have to choose between maximum aperture (16-80mm F4 or 18-120mm F4) or lack of stabilization (16-55mm F2.8), but with the Tamron you get both the larger maximum aperture along with the optical stabilization. It has a very compelling zoom range that covers a lot of subjects, and the close focus abilities and good magnification are also useful.
This is the kind of lens that you can pretty much glue onto your camera and use it for everyday photography, travel, and more. It can handle most subjects, and that constant maximum aperture of F2.8 is obviously going to be useful when going into lower light situations.
The price point in the US is $699 USD, currently, and it is a lot of lens for the money. The Tamron 17-70mm VC should definitely be on your list if you’re looking for a fast standard zoom and can’t afford the premium 16-55mm F2.8. Fuji opening up its platform to lenses like this is a huge plus for consumers like us…and expect Fuji’s next standard zoom to be all the better for the competition!
Pros:
Great zoom range
Maintains F2.8 aperture
Good build with weather sealing
Fast, quiet, and accurate autofocus
Good image stabilization (VC)
Consistently good optics
Good flare resistance
Excellent price
Cons:
Concentric rings in bokeh highlights (onion bokeh)
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD X-Mount Gallery
Dustin Abbott
July 11th, 2023
In January 2021 I released my review of this lens for Sony E-mount cameras. At the time, no Tamron lenses were available on Fuji X-mount, and I spoke in my conclusion about how a lens like the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 Di III-a VC RXD actually gave Sony an advantage – it’s the kind of lens I call a “system seller”. On paper it has pretty much everything: a great focal range (25.5-105mm full frame equivalent), a large maximum aperture through the zoom range (F2.8), optical stabilization (Vibration Compensation, or VC), and a fast focus system (RXD). But that advantage is no longer on Sony alone, as this was one of the first lenses to come to Fuji X-mount from Tamron once Fuji began opening up their platform to third party lenses. That’s an amazing focal range to have a constant aperture of F2.8 over, covering from this at 17mm:
…to this at 70mm:
It also is a great value. The current price at B&H Photo is $699 USD, which is a full $500 cheaper than the Fujinon XF 16-55mm F2.8 LM WR (my review here) or $200 less than the Fujinon XF 18-120mm F4 PZD (my review coming soon). The Tamron doesn’t perfectly align with either of those lenses, but they are the closest competitors I can point to on the platform. Sigma has also made their 18-50mm F2.8 DC available on Fuji X-mount (my review here), but the main reasons to consider the Sigma would be price ($549 USD) and compact size as the Tamron 17-70mm VC has the advantage in focal range, weather sealing, and also includes an optical stabilizer. I’ve been interested in revisiting some of these third party lenses on X-mount for two primary reasons: 1) to see how autofocus performs on a new platform and 2) to see how the lens’ optics survive the very pixel dense 40MP Fuji X-Trans sensor on some of their new cameras.
I found the 17-70mm VC a little big for the Sony a6400 body that I reviewed it on previously, but my Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) is more like a full frame camera is size and the lens is a perfect fit on the X-H2.
Tamron loves its initials in their lens names, so let’s sort out that alphabet soup. Di III is their designation for a mirrorless lens design, and, in this case, the addition of -A at the (Di III-A) refers to their development for APS-C mirrorless. VC is Vibration Compensation, which is Tamron’s name for their proprietary OIS (image stabilization) system. It’s worth noting that neither of the Fuji alternatives (both of which cost more) come with built in stabilization. RXD refers to the focus motor, which is similar to the linear motors employed on many of Fuji’s better lenses. In short, this lens is pretty loaded with quality features under its skin even if there aren’t a lot of external features on the barrel.
So does the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 VC RXD impress me as much on Fuji as it did on Sony? You can watch my conclusions in my video review below, read my text review here, or just enjoy the photos.
Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me an loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I have used both my personal Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) and a loaner of the X-S20 (my review here) for this review.
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
In 2022 Fuji began to really open up their platform to third party development, and that has opened a floodgate of both new and “ported” lenses from Tamron, Sigma, Samyang, Viltrox, and more. It was that move along with the excellent camera design of the Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) that triggered my first Fujifilm camera purchase (I had always borrowed Fuji cameras for previous reviews). I had previously reviewed the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD on Sony E-mount in 2021 but I’ve been interested in revisiting the lenses on X-mount for two primary reasons: 1) to see how autofocus performs on a new platform and 2) to see how the lens’ optics survive the very pixel dense 40MP Fuji X-Trans sensor on some of their new cameras. This really pushes the envelope of lens performance, as that high resolution exposes any optical shortcomings in a big way! I won’t be doing an entirely new review, so there will be some redundant parts in this article, but I am going through and updating the content in key areas that are specific to the performance on Fuji X-mount. The Fuji platform is different from the Sony E-mount “lens” that I viewed the Tamron 11-20mm RXD from before, as there are more premium options on Fuji and a higher standard for what features are expected there. Can the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD compete in the Fuji X-mount arena?
Tamron loves its initials in their lens names, so let’s sort out that alphabet soup. Di III is their designation for a mirrorless lens design, and, in this case, the addition of -A at the (Di III-A) refers to their development for APS-C mirrorless. RXD refers to the focus motor, which is similar to the linear motors employed on many of Fuji’s better lenses.
There are few legitimate alternatives to this lens on the Fuji platform, as while there are a number of quality wide angle primes, there are only a couple of wide angle zooms. The first is the premium XF 8-16mm F2.8 (my review here). That lens is large (15mm wider and 35mm longer), heavy (2 1/2 times as heavy as the Tamron), and expensive ($670 more). The focal range does have some overlap, obviously, and the maximum aperture is the same, but there are few similarities outside of that. A more direct competitor is the Fujinon XF 10-24mm F4 OIS, though unfortunately I have not reviewed that lens. The XF 10-24mm is more similar in focal range, size, and price ($999 vs $829 for the Tamron), though it has a maximum aperture of F4 rather than F2.8. That lens does have OIS (optical stabilizer) and an aperture ring along with a larger zoom range, while the Tamron offers the larger maximum aperture, lower price, superior focus system, and (on paper) a superior optical performance, particularly on the telephoto end. Here’s a look at how the raw specs of these three lenses compare:
So is the Tamron 11-20mm RXD a worthy addition to the Fuji platform? You can watch my conclusions in my video review, or just read on to find out…
Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me an loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I have used both my personal Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) and a loaner of the X-S20 for this review.
Tamron 11-20mm RXD Build, Handling, and Features
The Tamron 11-20mm RXD certainly hits a sweet spot for size and weight for a wide angle zoom. It feels reasonably compact on my larger X-H2, but also fits just fine on the much smaller X-S20 without feeling front heavy. It is 2.9″ (D) x 3.4″ (L), or 73 x 86.2 mm. Like most of Tamron’s mirrorless lenses it has a 67mm front filter thread which allows filters to be shared across almost all of Tamron’s other options for the platform (excluding the much larger 150-500mm, obviously!) The weight is only 11.8 oz (335 g), making it the lightest of the wide angle zoom options despite having the large maximum aperture.
There’s no question this is an extremely useful focal range, giving you framing options from very wide (16.5mm full frame equivalent):
to somewhat tighter framing (30mm full frame equivalent):
This will enable you versatility in composing your wide angle scene and covers most of the classic wide angle options. While the depth of field is more equivalent to a full frame F4 lens, the F2.8 aperture will always have the light gathering capability of an F2.8 lens (regardless of whether attached to APS-C or Full Frame), meaning that the 11-20mm RXD has the advantage of being able to have more in focus at larger apertures but all the light gathering potential of an F2.8 lens – which can be a big help in low light conditions.
As has been Tamron’s design philosophy thus far, the design language is clean, modern, and without distractions. That’s the nice way of putting it. The glass half empty approach is to note that there are no features on the outside of the lens. No AF/MF switch, no aperture ring – just the zoom and focus rings. That wasn’t unusual on Sony in the past, but the aperture ring has been a very common design element on Fuji.
The position of the two rings on the 11-20mm is reversed relative to the 17-70mm, which is unfortunate for those who will buy both lenses to use as a kit. The closer (and wider) of the two is the zoom ring. The zoom ring has a rubberized, ribbed texture, is easy to find by touch, and moves smoothly through the zoom range without any sticking points. The inner barrel will extend about 2cm at the 11mm position, and is fully retracted at the 20mm position.
While many would prefer an internally zooming lens, thus far all of these Tamron zooms have been externally zooming, though they must be doing a fairly good job of sealing the lenses, and I’ve heard little anecdotal reports from buyers about getting dust inside of them. The inner barrel extends smoothly and without any wobble.
The second ring (nearer the front of the lens) is the manual focus ring. You will have to select manual focus from within the camera, though this is common on Fuji cameras and is fairly simple if you have a body that has the Focus Mode lever or button on the front. This (like all mirrorless lenses) is focus-by-wire, meaning that focus input on the focus ring is routed through the focus motor to move the elements. Manual focus feel is fairly light and without a lot of tactile feedback. Typical manual focus aids are all available, as Tamron lenses on Fuji function largely like native lenses.
Tamron has included a shallow, petal-shaped lens hood with deep ribs inside that disrupt stray light bouncing around. It’s plastic and lightweight, but the quality of the plastics is apparent by feel. It doesn’t feel as cheap as some hoods that I see. It feels like it could take a few bumps without cracking. Due to the wide-angle nature of the lens, the lens hood is fairly wide, so it doesn’t reverse completely flush along the sides of the lens for storage.
The lens’ housing is a nice grade of engineered plastics with a satin finish. There’s a platinum-colored accept ring right near the lens mount. Nothing fancy on the outside, but the lens “look” is clean and it looks nice mounted on the camera.
As noted, however, the good stuff is inside. There’s a rubber gasket at the lens mount that is the outer evidence of the weather sealing inside, and this is diagram from Tamron shows that there are a total of seven seal points in the lens. This is capped off by a nice fluorine coating on the front element, which not only helps protect it from scratches but also makes it water and fingerprint resistant and thus easier to clean.
Tamron’s recent trends regarding MFD (minimum focus distance) hold true here, as the lens sports two different MFDs for wide (0.15m/5.9″) and telephoto (0.24m/9.4″). Both are pretty close, frankly, with the 11mm position requiring you to be nearly on top of your subject (the length from the sensor to the end of the lens WITHOUT the hood is 12cm, leaving you only 3cm of working room to your subject. If you leave the hood on, that length grows to 14.5cmm, leaving you a few mm of working room. It will be almost impossible to avoid shading your subject with the lens attached, so remove the hood to give you a bit more working room. Even so, I found it almost impossible to properly light my test chart even moving my lights right in, as this is what MFD looks like:
Should you be able to get that close, you get as high as a 0.25x (1:4) magnification figure, which looks like this.
Being able to pull off shots that close in the real world are rarely going to happen, so I consider that 0.25x figure to mostly be marketing. You can still get a reasonable magnification by backing up a bit, though. My preference is just to use the 20mm position or somewhere in between. The telephoto end gives you a better working distance and better results in terms of sharpness, but unfortunately the magnification figure drops to a much more pedestrian 0.13x, though even that figure is better than the Fuji 8-16mm (0.10x) and only slightly lower than the Fuji 10-24mm (0.16x). The magnification at 20mm looks like this:
You’ll note that the 20mm position gives a nicely flat plane of focus, meaning that real world results are nice and crisp:
The telephoto magnification figure is a bit lower, but achieving the result will be much simpler in the field and probably much more satisfying in the process. I find a nice compromise is to shoot somewhere around 16mm, as you can get closer than 20mm, achieve a higher magnification level, but without being right on top of the subject like at 11mm. This shot shows that you can really fill the frame fairly well by using this technique:
As is common with wide angle lenses, Tamron has reduced the number of blades from nine to 7 rounded blades. A lens like this is less about bokeh and more about being able to produce nice sunstars, and the seven bladed aperture produces a cleaner looking sunstar.
Tamron touts the flare resistance of this lens, but I don’t necessarily find that a great strength for the lens, and the shot above shows why.
The Tamron 11-20mm RXD is a simple lens in terms of design and features, but at the same time I’ve had no long term issues with Tamron lenses just like this one. They’ve held up fine and get the job done, though I do miss some of missing features.
Autofocus and Video Performance
The Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 has Tamron’s excellent Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive (RXD), and this is the first time I’ve used it on Fuji rather than Tamron. For stills, it is pretty much flawless, with fast, quiet focus on either the X-H2 or X-S20 bodies that I used for the review.
This is a far cry from some of the older Fuji lenses I’ve used, with noisy focus motors that were slow and rough. Quality of focus is more akin to the newest Linear Motor equipped lenses. I had no reservations in focus when taking photos.
Eye Detect works fine (as it does almost universally now), though with a wide angle lens like this you have to be pretty close for the eye to occupy a large enough part of the frame to show active tracking. If you are close enough, however, the “stickiness” of the box on the eye is fairly good and will follow the subject around. I tested with both humans and also a sequence with Nala at a variety of focus distances and angles.
Video focus pulls were less stellar, however. While focus breathing was minimal, there is some visible stepping in the actual pulls; the initial focus move, a split second pause, and then the final adjustment. The results from my “hand test” were a little better, as the focus adjustment was more confident when moving back to the eye.
More subtle focus transitions during video capture were smooth, and I felt the lens did a nice job transitioning from subject to subject. I got a lot of nice clips with the lens.
What I did find was that sometimes shooting with a smaller aperture and a backlit scene resulting in some pulsing in and out of focus. In once sequence I was capturing flares through the leaves and focus went completely out several times due to a lot of light hitting the sensor. Another clip with some pulsing came when I was up on a cliff while hiking and shooting a big landscape scene over a river. Stills focus was fine, but my video clip pulsed in and out some (all points active) as if the camera/lens wasn’t quite sure what to focus on.
In general, however, I felt my focus experience was great (particularly for stills). And, to be fair, the video performance is better than just about everything I’ve seen until this most recent generation of Fujinon lenses, so Tamron’s RXD focus system and the transition to Fuji focus algorithms seems to have largely been successful here.
Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD Image Quality
The 11-20mm RXD sports an optical formula of 12 elements in 10 groups, with 5 of those being exotic elements (molded glass aspherical, hybrid aspherical, and Low Dispersion). Here’s a look at the optical design and MTFs:
If you understand MTF diagrams, you will note that these are very good looking MTFs for a wide angle zoom lens. Tamron does its MTFs wide open, and the surprising thing about the 11mm result is that there is actually a bit of dip in resolution near the mid-frame position with the corner resolving better than the mid-frame area (though contrast is must lower in the corner relative to the mid-frame). The 20mm result shows a more typical slide towards the edge of the frame. On a 24mm Sony sensor I found resolution to be fantastic, but Fuji’s 40MP sensor in my X-H2 is the most demanding sensor I’m currently testing on for any platform. It is is possible to get very nicely detailed images even on the X-H2’s sensor, however…even at F2.8:
Here’s a look at the vignette and distortion at 11mm:
We can see both moderate barrel distortion and vignette. The distortion is fairly linear, so I could get a reasonable result even with a manual correction of the distortion (I used a +9), and vignette was also manageable. I used a +79 and moved the midpoint over to zero for a nicely clean result. It did seem that I saw a bit more vignette on Fuji than I did on Sony, but that could be just a quirk of testing. Tamron seems to enjoy full in-camera correction support on Fuji, so use the standard profile in camera for JPEGs and Video for a cleaner still result. As always, RAW images will require using the correction profile in your editing software to get a nicely clean end result. Here’s a look at the in-camera corrected JPEG image.
As is typical for a lens like this, the distortion pattern flips to a pincushion style distortion at 20mm, though this distortion is even more linear and easier still to correct for. Vignette was also quite a bit lower. I’ve seen a lot of otherwise good lenses derailed by distortion or heavy vignette, but that’s not the case here; this is a very good result. Everything is easily correctable and none of the flaws extreme.
I watched for chromatic aberrations but saw little evidence of them. Longitudinal chromatic aberrations (fringing before or after the plane of focus) are minimal in this difficult shot of white blossoms transitioning out of focus, and the specular highlights (bokeh balls) are clean in the background.
I could see trace amounts of lateral chromatic aberrations on my chart (fringing in dark to light transitions near the edge of the frame) if I magnified to 200%, they were too insignificant to see in real world use, and a one click correction either in camera in (for RAWs) in software will clean those up nicely:
Let’s move on to resolution and contrast. I do my examinations at 200% magnification, as this clearly shows lens strengths and flaws for you to see. First, here’s my test chart:
We will start with F2.8 crops (near 200%) at 11mm from the center, mid-frame, and extreme lower right corner.
The center looks great, the mid-frame good, but the corners aren’t nearly as sharp. That’s the challenge of such a high resolution sensor on APS-C, though it’s not quite so dire in the real world. I compare results at 200% here. Out in the real world at a more typical 100% magnification things look much more reasonable (11mm, F2.8):
The corners improve a little when stopping down, but never to “wow” levels. This real world shot looks good, however, with good detail in the both the center of the frame and the bottom corner.
The lower resolution sensor point of the X-S20 is a little gentler. Here’s a shot that I felt really popped for color, contrast, and clarity at 11mm, F2.8:
I found that the 11-20mm RXD really hit its stride in the center of the zoom range, with more capacity for really crisp detail even in the corners when stopped down…even on the X-H2.
This is where I would shoot for optimal sharpness, which is truly excellent anywhere in the frame in a real world shot, whether in the foreground or background.
I’m also impressed with the performance at 20mm, which is nicely even across the frame by F4, though still very good across most of the frame even at F2.8. Midframe performance in particular stands out as excellent.
Close results at 20mm, F2.8 hold up well even on the X-H2:
At landscape apertures the lens delivers beautiful, highly detailed results.
While you don’t turn to wide angle lenses for bokeh, the quality of the blur is reasonably good here. This image at 20mm, F2.8 has a fairly nice transition to defocus.
I also think this image looks fairly good, as did others where the background was defocused.
Flare resistance is a bit of a mixed bag. The lens does well with the sun right out of frame, and sometimes directly in frame, but I found flare resistance better at large apertures than smaller apertures, where some ghosting artifacts can come into frame (see the vertical shot of the crimson maple leaves).
Coma performance is quite, with night sky images looking clean other than a bit of “star-stretching” in the corners.
Overall, however, we’ve got a very good lens optically. It’s a good wide angle zoom range, and can produce a lot of great looking images. If you compare the MTF charts to the older Tamron 10-24mm VC lens, the newer zoom is far superior optically
The Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD will definitely bring an intriguing new option to the Fuji X platform. There’s a lot of good optically, and little major issues. You can check out more photos by visiting the image gallery page here.
Conclusion
The Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD is a welcome addition to the Fuji X-mount stable of lenses. It gives shooters a wide aperture, wide angle zoom option without resorting to the much more extreme Fujinon XF 8-16mm F2.8 LM WR lens. The Tamron is a far more practical lens, however, weighing a little over a third as much and costing less than half as much.
The 11-20mm F2.8 RXD has a nice (if plain) build with thorough weather sealing, good autofocus, and strong enough image quality to survive the demanding 40MP sensor of the X-H2. It is compact, lightweight, and handles great. Not a lot to complain about, really.
If you are looking for a reasonably priced, relatively compact wide angle zoom for your Fuji camera, the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD is a very nice option. It’s not as feature rich as some Fuji lenses, but delivers very strong value relative to competing lenses. A lot of Sony shooters have loved the 11-20mm RXD, and now Fuji X-mount photographers can get in on the action. Great times for the Fuji platform!
Pros:
Great wide angle zoom range
Maintains F2.8 aperture
Relatively compact and lightweight
Good build with weather sealing
Fast, quiet, and accurate autofocus
Shares a 67mm filter thread with other Tamron lenses on Sony
Exceptional optical performance
Good coma control
Strong aberration control
Cons:
No aperture ring
Corners at 11mm never got incredibly sharp
Focus hunted a bit during certain video situations
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
In 2022 Fuji began to really open up their platform to third party development, and that has opened a floodgate of both new and “ported” lenses from Tamron, Sigma, Samyang, Viltrox, and more. It was that move along with the excellent camera design of the Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) that triggered my first Fujifilm camera purchase (I had always borrowed Fuji cameras for previous reviews). I had previously reviewed the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD on Sony E-mount in 2021 but I’ve been interested in revisiting the lenses on X-mount for two primary reasons: 1) to see how autofocus performs on a new platform and 2) to see how the lens’ optics survive the very pixel dense 40MP Fuji X-Trans sensor on some of their new cameras. This really pushes the envelope of lens performance, as that high resolution exposes any optical shortcomings in a big way! I won’t be doing an entirely new review, so there will be some redundant parts in this article, but I am going through and updating the content in key areas that are specific to the performance on Fuji X-mount. The Fuji platform is different from the Sony E-mount “lens” that I viewed the Tamron 11-20mm RXD from before, as there are more premium options on Fuji and a higher standard for what features are expected there. Can the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD compete in the Fuji X-mount arena?
Tamron loves its initials in their lens names, so let’s sort out that alphabet soup. Di III is their designation for a mirrorless lens design, and, in this case, the addition of -A at the (Di III-A) refers to their development for APS-C mirrorless. RXD refers to the focus motor, which is similar to the linear motors employed on many of Fuji’s better lenses.
There are few legitimate alternatives to this lens on the Fuji platform, as while there are a number of quality wide angle primes, there are only a couple of wide angle zooms. The first is the premium XF 8-16mm F2.8 (my review here). That lens is large (15mm wider and 35mm longer), heavy (2 1/2 times as heavy as the Tamron), and expensive ($670 more). The focal range does have some overlap, obviously, and the maximum aperture is the same, but there are few similarities outside of that. A more direct competitor is the Fujinon XF 10-24mm F4 OIS, though unfortunately I have not reviewed that lens. The XF 10-24mm is more similar in focal range, size, and price ($999 vs $829 for the Tamron), though it has a maximum aperture of F4 rather than F2.8. That lens does have OIS (optical stabilizer) and an aperture ring along with a larger zoom range, while the Tamron offers the larger maximum aperture, lower price, superior focus system, and (on paper) a superior optical performance, particularly on the telephoto end. Here’s a look at how the raw specs of these three lenses compare:
Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me an loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I have used both my personal Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) and a loaner of the X-S20 for this review.
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sony FE 50-150mm F2 GM Gallery 
Sony FE 50-150mm F2 G Master Review 
Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE Gallery 
Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE Review 
