1 day ago
5
A single-lens travel setup sounds simple until you try to cover 25mm through 200mm without hating the compromises. The Tamron 25-200mm f/2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 aims straight at that problem, and the details in this review land right where your real-world shooting gets messy.
Coming to you from Christopher Frost, this practical video puts the Tamron 25-200mm f/2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 through the kind of checks that actually affect keepers: handling, autofocus behavior, and what the zoom range does to sharpness once you stop treating the center of the frame as the whole story. Frost points out an awkward bit of timing, since the Sigma 20-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DG | Contemporary arrived right around the same window, which makes the Tamron’s choices feel more deliberate than accidental. You get the main pitch immediately: 25mm is still genuinely wide, and the brighter f/2.8-to-5.6 range can matter when the light drops or when you want a bit more background blur. There’s also a close-focusing trick in the mix that sounds great on paper, and the video gets into what it’s like when you actually try to use it.
The handling notes are specific enough to save you a return. The lens is mostly plastic but doesn’t come off as flimsy, and Frost calls out the weather-sealing, the USB-C port for firmware updates, and the general “modern Tamron” feel without pretending it’s a metal brick. Autofocus is one of the headline points: quiet, accurate, and notably quick in continuous AF on Sony bodies, with tracking that doesn’t fall apart the moment the subject moves toward you. If you care about video, there’s a key detail you’ll want to hear: focus breathing is basically a non-issue across the zoom range, which is rare praise for an all-in-one zoom. The zoom ring gets a reality check too, including a bit of zoom creep near the wide end and the fact that it can be locked at 25mm.
Then Frost moves into image quality on a high-resolution body, the Sony a7CR, and the results are more nuanced than “sharp” or “soft.” The center performance is strong early on, but the corners tell a different story at the wide end, especially wide open, and stopping down changes the balance in ways you’ll recognize from other superzooms. There’s also a blunt section on distortion and vignetting, because the lens doesn’t perform miracles there, and you’ll want to know where the barrel distortion flips into pincushion as you zoom. Close-up performance is another area where the marketing line needs context: you can get near half-macro magnification at the wide end, but the working distance becomes so tight that lighting and framing turn into a mini wrestling match. Later, when you zoom in and give yourself space, stopping down brings a different kind of close-up result. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Frost.
English (US) ·