Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC HDL Review

I picked up the new 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC HLD Lens to use on my Nikon D500 the lens features a 15-36mm (35mm Equivalent) wide view and Tamron’s new four stop-effective Vibration Compensation (VC) system to minimize the appearance of camera shake when shooting handheld plus a new HLD autofocus motor. This is my first wide lens like this from Tamron I have had and so far I am liking it but it does have a few shortcomings as well I will get into as part of my full review.

For my first test of the Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC HLD Lens i took it on D500 and shot all the same things with the same basic settings using a Nikon 1 J6 and the small little Nikon 6.7-13mm f/3.5-5.6 VR Lens that gives a 18-35mm (35mm Equivalent).

The Nikon D500 with the new Tamron 10-24 Di II VC lens and the Nikon 1 J5 with the 6.7-13mm lens.

Many of you might be saying to yourself that is not going to be much of a comparison the great D500 VS the small smaller chip Nikon 1 J5. I have been shoot with both cameras a lot and I have been shooting a lot more lately with the small J5 and a Nikon 1 system V2 camera I have as they are some small and lite and very easy to take with you anyplace and the image quality is very good. I would have to say in good light it can be very hard to tell the smaller J5 shot images from the D500 images.

Below you can see two images one shot with the Nikon 1 J5 and one with the D500 other than the D500 with the new Tamron 10-24 being a little wider both cameras produced very good images and outside in better light other them the zoom range it is very hard to tell one from the other.

Shot with the Nikon 1 J5 18mm (35mm Equivalent)



Shot with the D500 and new Tamron 10-24 15mm (35mm Equivalent)

Back to the Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC The build quality is good for the price and on the D500 the focus is very fast I did not have any problems so far with the focus in any lighting but I will be testing it some more.

Sharpness is very good in the center on out to around 80% and then you can see it starts to get soft to the right and left edges in landscape mode but it is a lot better from top to bottom I can see in my images when looking at 100%.

Before buying the new Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC lens I spent a lot of time viewing lots of different wide angle lens from many brands including Nikon and I would have to say I see the same softness in the outter edges on all of the lens samples i have looked at even Nikons high priced wide lens in fact I feel this new Tamron is right up there with any of the higher priced lenses for sharpness and sharpness to the edge and much better than many of them for edge sharpness from top to bottom in landscape mode.

Amazingly the little Nikon 6.7-13mm f/3.5-5.6 VR Lens on the J5 produces sharper images out to the edges better than the new Tamron but I feel the new Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC handles lens distortion better and for low light the Tamron matched up with the D500 produced much cleaner long exposures. Then add on the little extra wideness you get with the Tamron 15mm on the D500 VS Nikon 6.7-13 = 18mm on the J5 and you have a winning combo.

With that being said if you put the new Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC on a not as good clean images camera like a older Nikon D300 then you might not see any better image quality VS using the Nikon 1 J5 and the 6.7-13 lens.

I have been enjoying shooting with my Nikon 1 system cameras and the Nikon 6.7-13 lens is a great little lens but I am planning on shooting a lot more long exposure images so with the new Tamron and the D500 I can do that and end up with cleaner images and that little extra wideness does make a difference more than I would have thought till I shot both side by side for a few hundred images around town.

So yes it is a keeper for me. If the J5 was able to produce the same long exposure clean images as the D500 I would send the Tamron back as shooting with the J5 is so easy and for long exposures, the live view is much better on the J5 then working with the D500.

Good uses for the new Tamron

The new Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC would be great for weddings just remember it is not a super great low light lens its not a 2.8 or 1.8 but 3.5 at the wide end is not to bad and with the new Vibration Compensation (VC) system that can make it good for some things but you still have to watch for moving subjects.

Real Estate photography would be a very good use for this lens on a tripod inside for any room in the house or for outside shots 15mm is quite wide and will show a lot.

Landscape photography another great use for this lens for when you want that extra wide shot you can not get with your 24mm or you are up close and would not be able to get the shot with out a wide lens like this.

I myself would not use it for portraits but for some large group shots this might be just what you need.

One of my main uses for the new Tamron 10-24 Di II VC is shooting wide shots at RV parks as we travel and I post RV park reviews on another site I run.

Shooting wide can be addictive.

I will be updating the gallery with new images over time and adding in any new comments on the lens as I use it more.