My experience is that the MF Tamron is definitely sharper than the MF Tokina
at the long end. As Moose mentioned it is also significantly heavier. As
much as I prefer the weight of the Tokina, the Tamron is the fast lens I
almost always choose to take with.
My Tamron came without a tripod mount so I put the Olympus tripod mount on
it. The Olympus mount works very well. Later I obtained the Tamron mount but
the Olympus tripod adapter works better. Mike described how little work it
takes to make it work. Tamron sold at least two very similar looking
adapters but one is significantly smaller.
Adding to the trivia ... the foot of the Tokina tripod adapter comes off. I
had to buy one several years ago.
Jeff Keller
-----Original Message-----
From: Moose [mailto:olymoose@xxxxxxxxx]
Subject: Re: [OM] FS - It is time to pay to the piper . . .
I've not seen the AF version Chuck has. I have both the Tokina and Tamron MF
versions. The Tamron is a tiny bit longer,
but the big difference is that it's 30% heavier, weighed with caps and
tripod mounts.
The seriously robust steel hood for the Tamron is also much heavier than the
plastic one for the Tokina. The net result
is that the Tokina seems not only lighter, but smaller, in the hand and on
the camera.
One thing Bill didn't mention is whether the Tamron he's selling has the
tripod mount. You really want a mount for this
lens. I think at least a monopod is needed to use either of these lenses
well. For me, it doesn't take long trying to
hand hold them to get really unsteady. I've got some good shots with the
Tammy on a monopod, though.
The Tammy mount is very hard to find. I suspect that's because of design
flaws in the mount itself. There is slight flex
in the mount itself. It's easy, as I almost did, to conclude that the flex
you feel is because the mount isn't tight
enough around the lens. Tighten down the lens attachment screw really hard -
and the mount breaks.
The Tokina mount can't be removed, but is unobtrusive and sturdy. I believe
I recall others here have said that the Oly
mount for the 300/4.5 and 65-116 tube is easily adapted to work on the
Tammy. That is probably superior to the original
Tammy mount.
Gary's tests showed the Tamron to be a bit better than the Tokina. I've done
no formal comparison, but the Tokina is a
fine lens. The Tammy is more flexible, in that it can be mounted on
practically any camera with their interchangeable
mounts. My OM mount Tokina could, of course, be mounted on EOS cameras with
the same adapter as for my Zuikos.
80-200 Trivia Moose
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