Tamron 18-200mm

Just bought a used K7 and fitted it with the Tamron 18-200mm. The camera is beautiful to hold and use but the picture quality isn't good due to the lens I presume. I think that I should go for the two lens option to cover that range. What do you guys suggest?

Better to have the 18-55mm and the 50-200mm I suspect, better still to substitute the 55-300mm.

The Tamron 18-200mm was an early superzoom designed for film, so although it has its merits it is probably stretching beyond itself now.

I had a Sigi 28 - 200 which was OK, but since going to a Sigi 17-70 and a Sigi 70-200 the quality is sooooooooo much better, problem is that it's hit the ££££ fairly hard as well

Cheers

Thanks John for that, just one more question, are you suggesting Pentax or sticking with Tamron? BTW the lens I have is supposed to have been designed for APS -C sensors.

I always suggest sticking with Pentax. I like the quality and characteristics of their lenses.

The 18-200mm was definitely a film era lens. The 18-250mm is later and much better. This is available in Pentax and Tamron versions, but the Pentax one has SMC coating.

You will get many different opinions on which lenses you should buy, but I think the two WR kit lenses will go very well with your WR K-7 and open up all sorts of all-weather possibilities.

Thank you John for your expert comments and to Chrism8 for his. Very much appreciated and will be heeded.

Cheers

Ron

Tamron's AF 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di-II lens was made available in the Spring of 2005 and designed exclusively for digital cameras with APS-C sensors. It was superceded the following year with the AF 18-250mm Di-II lens which was said to be an improvement on the 18-200.

The 18-250mm version was also released with a Pentax 'badge' and I understand JR's 'other half' uses one of these as do I and I find it works quite well at all focal lengths.

Recently Tamron have pushed the design further by increasing the telephoto end of its range to 270mm but I am not aware of a Pentax mount version of this incarnation of it yet.

An 18-200mm in the film era would surely have been quite exceptional?

John

as said john is wrong and the tamron was made fo digital and cropped sensor specifically,
http://www.tamron.co.jp/en/data/digital/a14.html

and my husband had one and he said he would take them over the 18-55mm and 50-200mm pentax kit lenses as the tamron is just as good in one lens unless you have the wr versions.

So it seems, but are we sure there isn't a previous version that is film-designed?

It's likely I was thinking of the 28-200mm, after a brief check.

In any event, the 18-200mm DiII is not renowned for its optical quality, so finding an 18-250mm Pentax or Tamron would be a much better bet.

Hi

A big thank you to you all for your comments. It is very much appreciated.

Cheers

Ron

Hi Folks

I have returned the Tamron 18-200mm to the supplier with a view to ordering the Pentax or Tamron 18-250mm but unfortunately neither appear on their website. They do stock however the Sigma 18-250 with built in optical stabalisation which appears to fill the bill. What do you guys think?

Cheers

Ron

the tamron 18-200mm is just as good ad the 18-250mm my partner had the tamron 18-270mm vc in nikon mount and it was just as good.
but about £200 more.

It's a tough call really. Superzooms by design are compromised in their image quality. It is better to have a number of zooms to cover the same focal range. However, they are very convenient and a DSLR with one on it are still far superior to any "Bridge" camera or compact.

Now to the Sigma, It's a non-EX model, so it is built to a budget, and the build quality can be hit or miss. But if you get a good one, then it might be just what you want.

Ron, IMO you should stick to your idea in the opening post, go with the 2 lens option. I would go with the 18-55 and 55-300 combination. Alternatively, there is a Tamron 17-50 2.8 for sale in the classifieds section at the moment. That should be a very good lens for the price and coupled with a 55-300 would provide you with a high quality kit!