I used the lens while working in
the Great Smoky Mountains National Park recently and I
truly fell in love with it. It’s compact and lightweight—a
perfect match for my small digital SLR. I like compact
packages of lens and camera, and at 3.3x3.1 inches and
12.5 ounces, the lens fit my way of working perfectly.
In addition, it performed beautifully in the field. Photos
from it are crisp and sharp.
Tamron’s 11-18mm zoom is a digital lens with new
multicoatings and designs to make it work with digital
camera sensors (which have a protective cover that’s
reflective). A quality addition to this lens is the use
of special glass elements for higher image quality—the
lens has one element of HID (High Index/High Dispersion
glass) and LD glass to minimize chromatic aberrations.
The lens also includes three aspherical elements—a
high-precision, glass-molded aspherical element, plus
two hybrid aspherical elements—important lens features
to reduce aberration problems with wide-angle lenses.
The combination of low-dispersion glass and aspherical
elements obviously works well for this lens, as it offers
excellent results with the very short focal length of
11-18mm. And it’s an internal focusing lens (IF),
which keeps the lens short and compact as well as ensuring
that the front of the lens doesn’t rotate (important
when you’re using filters with it).
The only limitation I found was the maximum ƒ-stop.
To keep the lens small, the designers had to use a maximum ƒ-stop
of ƒ/4.5 at 11mm that changes to ƒ/5.6 at 18mm.
Still, I found that a small price to pay for the versatility
of a lens that would easily fit my gadget bag. The Tamron
SP AF11-18mm zoom has a list price of $981.95, although
it likely will be found for a street price of around $600.
Contact: Tamron, (631)
858-8400, www.tamron.com.
Specifications
Focal Length: 11-18mm
designed for small-format digital SLRs
35mm Equivalent: Approx.
17-28mm
Maximum ƒ-stop: ƒ/4.5-5.6
Filter Size: 77mm
Minimum Focus: 9.8 inches
Size: 3.3x3.1 inches
Weight: 12.5 ounces
Mounts: Canon, Konica
Minolta-D and Nikon-D
List Price: $981.95 |
