Tamron’s mighty 150-600mm ultra-tele lens to ship next month

 

 

Back in early November, we told you about an exciting lens announcement from Tamron, the SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 DI VC USD. At the time, Tamron hadn't released any information on price or availability, but today it has revealed its anticipated ship date -- and although it won't be under your Christmas tree unless you live in Japan, it's not far off at all.

The Tamron SP 150-600mm is an impressively far-reaching zoom that's designed for both full-frame and APS-C crop camera bodies. For the latter, you can expect a range of 230-918mm or thereabouts on most bodies, or around 243-972mm on Canon's APS-C bodies, which have a slightly higher focal length crop.

Weighing 4.3 pounds (2.0kg) and with a length of 10.1 inches (25.8cm), it's a hefty optic, but that's not surprising given its complex optical formula. There are a total of 20 elements in 13 groups, of which three are low-dispersion elements. The design also features Tamron's Vibration Compensation stabilization technology, Ultrasonic Silent Drive autofocus system, plus eBAND lens coating to fight glare and ghosting. Focusing is possible to as close as a little under nine feet (2.7m).

Can't wait to get your hands on this lens, which ships in Canon, Nikon, and Sony-mount variants? Look for it to arrive on December 19th in Japan, with a US debut slated for January 17, 2014.

Pricing has still not been revealed in the USA, although in Japan the lens is priced at ¥140,000 (US$1,360 or thereabouts, before tax.) Interestingly, a custom variant of raw development software Silkypix is included in the product bundle, with chromatic aberrations, distortion, and peripheral light fall-off corrections tuned specifically for Tamron's glass.