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Tamron 11-18 Review - Tamron's First Ever Wide Angle Lens

In this article, I will be sharing my Tamron 11-18 review. I was excited to test the first ever wide angle Tamron lens made for a cropped sensor DSLR.

I used a borrowed Canon mount to test this lens. This Tamron 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 lens is Tamron's first try in making an ultra wide angle lens, so you really can't expect everything to be perfect.

First of all, the 11-18mm zoom ring might be too limiting for some people. However, remember that creating an ultra wide angle lens is not an easy feat, especially for a cropped sensor DSLR camera.

One of the reasons that I can think of on why Tamron limits the amount of zoom range is that they are trying to maintain the optical sharpness on this lens.

In addition, they might also be trying to keep the chromatic aberration, distortion and vignetting control high as well.

In terms of optical performance, there is plenty of vignetting, chromatic aberration, and distortion. They are all visible at any focal length at any aperture. Moreover, it is priced on the higher side.

Certainly not all photographers would be able to afford this lens at this price. Maybe in the future, Tamron can release the upgrade of this lens and market it as a budget super wide angle lens instead.

The build quality is pretty good, the mechanical parts such as the zoom ring and focusing ring are smooth. This certainly helps for landscape shooters who take their equipment to extreme degrees.

That being said, I would not recommend any photographers to bring this lens to below zero temperature as I do not believe this lens will survive such condition.

I am a photographer who believes that optical performance is of the utmost importance in a lens. Given that this is Tamron's first try in making an ultra wide angle lens, I certainly believe they can learn several lessons with this first release.

I hope that on their next lens release, Tamron will improve on their optical characteristic while maintaining the good and solid build quality from this lens. In addition, they might also add the zoom range.

Many lens manufacturers have produced lens in the same league with longer zoom range.

Given the amount of competition for an ultra wide angle lens out there and Tamron's resilience on delivering a solid product, I believe Tamron can outperform their competitors in the near future.

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Do you think this is the perfect lens for you?

 

I know it can be hard choosing the perfect lens for your camera. You can spend hours researching and still end up buying the wrong lens. Even worse, you could waste a lot of money and time in the end.

 

If you think this is not the lens for you, then see my Tamron 10-24 review for an alternative.

 

This will give you a fresh alternative from this Tamron 11-18 review.