The Tamron 16-300mm comes with a hood as well as front and rear caps. It is considerably lighter than other lenses with a similar aperture and zoom range. At 3.9 inches long, it feels compact, too. However, it extends to nearly double the length when zoomed out.

Bear in mind that I’m not a crop shooter (other than my EOS M). I used to shoot a 60D body, but after years of shooting FF bodies, I was surprised by how much noise was present even at lower ISO levels on a 60D and didn’t find the color rendering as complex as my usual bodies (In fact, right before publication I mounted the lens on my EOS M and found the images to be a little cleaner). This is one of those samples: A: Yes, it uses Tamron’s Visual Compensation stabilization system that enables it to take good shots at slower shutter speeds. In the photo above, the Tamron 16-300mm is the lens in the middle. You can clearly see that it is easily the smallest of the three. It is not as bulky as the Canon nor as long. It fits nice and snuggly in your hand and is incredibly compact for a lens that offers so much in terms of its focal range. The Canon lens only has a focal range of 24-105mm yet is much bigger and bulkier than the Tamron. And when you attach the Canon lens to the body of your camera, you can definitely feel the difference. So much so that I have left the Canon lens at home at times simply because I knew I could get what I wanted from the Tamron and I didn't want to bother with the bulk of the Canon. Smaller formats like APS-C are kind to vignetting, especially with the modest maximum apertures of a superzoom. Basically it's not a problem here, with the worst figure being 1.3 stops of darkening in the extreme corners at 16mm f/3.5, and even that is hardly serious. Distortion

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Designed to be an all-in-one lens and ideal for travel, this lens covers an impressive range, starting with a 24.8mm equivalent wide-angle view, this means you should not need to buy an additional wide-angle lens, as you would have with a 18-250/270/300mm lens. This also means you are less likely to get dust or dirt on the mirror, sensor and other parts of the inside of your DSLR. The lens also provides 1:29 macro reproduction and a close focusing distance of 39cm at all focal lengths. The Tamron 16-300mm is a wide-angle telephoto lens designed for DSLR cameras with the APS-C sensor. It offers premium features like a 35mm focal range of 24-450mm, Vibration Compensation for combating blur, 39cm minimum focus distance, Piezo Drive motor, and more. It comes in different fits for various camera types, including Nikon, Sony, and Canon. Pros The Tamron AF 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD is quite light considering the massive 18.8x zoom range on offer, weighing in at 540g. It certainly doesn't feel too weighty in the hand and proved to be well balanced on the Canon EOS 7D that we tested it with. The lens extends by about an extra 8cm when fully zoomed out to 300mm. The lens weighs 540g (lighter than the compact Nikon 18-300mm lens), and features a mostly plastic construction with a metal lens mount. There is a rubber ring on the lens mount to keep the lens weather sealed, and there are also rubber rings within the lens to stop water ingress. As is usual with these mega-zooms, we are faced with the long-end focal lengths that are not always practical to use, as the maximum working aperture when we set the lens to 300mm is f/6.3. Requiring a shutter speed of 1/300sec to keep away from the effects of camera shake, we often need to increase our ISO to levels uncomfortable for the subject matter. However, in this model the application of Vibration Compensation is of great assistance, and often during this test it made the difference between a sharp and clear image, and one that would have been neither. Tamron 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro review – Image quality

Unfortunately, the Tamron 16-300mm has its fair share of downsides, starting with a downturn in sharpness at the edges at 200-300mm. The sharpness at this range is wanting, and the many levels of chromatic aberrations don’t help matters. The lens features 16 elements in its optical path. The arrangement includes LD (Low Dispersion), XR (eXtra Refractive) and ASL (Hybrid Aspherical) elements, along with multi-coatings. Tamron’s VC (Vibration Compensation) system is also featured, which gives optical image stabilization to the tune of around 4 stops.

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Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the AF 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD lens, Tamron have employed an iris diaphragm with seven rounded blades, which has resulted in quite nice bokeh in our view. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we've included some 100% crops for your perusal. We compared the lens to the closest one that we had at the time – the Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED which has the same maximum focal length although it has a much smaller zoom (and a 5/.6 max aperture). We were most interested in the performance of the 16-300mm on the long telephoto side (but as you will see we also made some tests on the wide side). You can see the results below: A: It uses the patented Piezo Drive ultrasonic-drive autofocus motor, which is swift, accurate, and quiet. I will begin with the worst – chromatic aberration. Coloured fringing is one of the more difficult optical problems to correct after the event – and beforehand too, it seems – yet it is one of the more obvious to the eye and therefore one of the most objectionable. There are some aberrations I can live with, but I find purple and green glowing edges around high-contrast areas very difficult to accept.

Tamron’s Vibration Compensation System does not disappoint when it comes to image stabilization. It makes a massive difference in image quality, even at 300mm and below the standard hand-holding threshold. It sets a baseline that accounts for individual variables and establishes acceptable limits of sharpness. Autofocus Tamron has developed a sterling reputation for its highly effective image stabilization systems known as VC (Vibration Compensation). VC is effective at both presentation camera shake and does a great job of “freezing” the image in the viewfinder. Tamron has included another highly effective system here, although my copy did have a slight “jumping” on occasion when stabilization begins that is (in my experience) probably copy specific and seems to have faded after a bit of use. Tamron claims 4 stops of assistance, and that seems about right here.Chromatic aberration– We did notice quite a bit of CA on some of our images and this is definitely one of the weaker points of this lens.

At the wide-angle end, sharpness is very high, right to the corners from f/5.6. At 16mm (24mm equivalent) it's wider than any other superzoom. There's obvious barrel distortion and CA visible in this uncorrected image. Tamron has possibly hit a home run with the image stabilization system on this lens. Referred to as Vibration Control by Tamron, the image stabilization on this lens is outstanding.

The versatile nature of the Tamron 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD doesn’t come without its price though. Despite the fact that the image quality isn’t half bad when you consider the daunting nature of designing such a long zoom lens, it still falls short of cheaper zoom lenses (such as the Nikon 70-300mm we compared it to), although to be fair it does improve considerably when stopped down. When looking through the viewfinder while engaging and disengaging the VC, you can truly see an immediate and substantial smoothing out of camera shake. Though definitely not a replacement for a good tripod and steady hands, the VC made a noticeable difference in the sharpness of images taken at slower shutter speeds in low light. Small Details Let’s talk about all those letters on the side of the lens that were mentioned earlier and go over their meanings. The “Di-II” designation simply means that the lens is intended for use with digital SLR cameras. The “VC” means that the lens is equipped with a vibration compensation (image stabilizer) feature and the “PZD” indicates the lens has Tamron’s proprietary Piezo Drive autofocus mechanism. Fit and Finish