The Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III RXD for Sony FE cameras made a big splash when it was first teased back in February. People were intrigued by its small size and the new Rapid eXtra-silent stepping drive (RXD) AF motor; it even came up in our CP+ interview with Tamron, and we got to see the lens in person at the show.
The lens isn’t going to be officially available for another week; however, photographer David Oastler was able to get his hands on a copy and, while he wasn’t allowed to take photos with it, he was allowed to put it through it’s autofocus paces to see how that RXD motor holds up.
What Oastler really wanted to see is how well the Eye and Face-detect autofocus from the Sony FE body would perform through this third-party lens that was, ostensibly, designed from the ground up to work on this full-frame mirrorless system. While the video isn’t the best quality (a bit of glare) you can still see, and Oastler tells you, that the lens performs exceptionally well. In fact, Oastler goes so far as to say he noticed no performance difference between the Tamron and his own Sony-native lenses.
Tamron promised as much when it released the lens, calling it “quiet, precise, and exceedingly quiet.” But it’s nice to see a real-world test confirm these claims.
We’ll be trying to get our hands on a Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III RXD as soon as humanly possible for our own in-depth testing. But in the meantime, if you’re interested in picking up this $800 USD lens when it ships at the end of next week and you want to see how its AF motor performs IRL, check out Oastler’s video at the top.
Source: dpreview.com