Mirrorless cameras are all about traveling light, but all too often the lenses that accompany the cameras are too heavy. Well, Sony shooters using the new Tamron 70-300mm F/4.5-6.3 Di III RXD won’t have any of these issues as the versatile telezoom tips the scales at just 545g.
The compact telezoom measures just 148mm in length – in fact, Tamron says it’s the smallest and lightest telephoto zoom lens in the world for Sony full-frame E-mount mirrorless cameras and thanks to the versatile range, will be suitable for anything from portraits, to travel photography, long lens landscape work and, of course, wildlife photography.
Though compatible with full-frame Sony cameras like the A7RIV, the new Tamron lens can also be used with Sony’s E-mount APS-C cameras, such as the a6600, where the focal length jumps to 105-450mm, which will prove very handy for wildlife photographers aiming to shoot more skittish subjects such as deer and will enable them to keep their distance. In fact, photography in the outdoors shouldn’t be a problem for the Tamron lens as it benefits from weather sealing to keep both dust and moisture at bay.
The 70-300mm lens includes Tamron’s RXD motor unit technology for fast and quiet autofocus, useful when capturing video without the hum of AF hunting and further reinforcing the 70-300mm’s credentials as a wise choice for wildlife shooters, too. The 70-300mm F/4.5-6.3 Di III RXD also retains key Sony features including Fast Hybrid AF, Eye AF, Direct Manual Focus (DMF) and In-camera lens correction (shading, chromatic aberration, distortion).
Tamron has cleverly kept the 70-300mm F/4.5-6.3 Di III RXD’s filter thread at the same uniform 67mm filter diameter as other members of Tamron’s range of full-frame mirrorless optics, which means photographers will be able to switch filters between lenses without needing to invest in bigger/smaller size filters.
Built around a ‘15 elements in 10 groups’ design, the lens benefits from a LD (Low Dispersion) lens element plus Tamron’s BBAR (Broad Band Anti-Reflection) coating technology to improve image quality. The build quality of the lens is also backed up by Tamron’s free five-year warranty, too.
Bokeh, particularly at 300mm should be impressive thanks to a 7-bladed aperture design and the 70-300mm F/4.5-6.3 Di III RXD boasts a fairly decent closest focusing distance with the lens focusing from 0.8m at the 70mm end of the focal length and 1.5m when zoomed all the way in to 300mm. Available from the end of October, the Tamron 70-300mm F/4.5-6.3 Di III RXD will carry a price tag of £649.
