Widen your horizons with the Tamron 10-24mm, a wide-angle lens designed for crop sensor DSLR cameras. In this Tamron 10-24mm Lens Review I will go through the features of the lens and look into the quality of photos you can expect from it.
If this is not your first rodeo and you’ve already looked into the Tamron 10-24mm and are ready to purchase, please use the links below. These are affiliate links and if you buy I will receive a small commission. As running a blog requires time and money, your purchase helps me keep my blog alive. Don’t fret, you won’t pay any more than you would if you purchased directly from the supplier:
- Australia – Tamron 10-24mm Lens Nikon / Tamron 10-24mm Lens Canon
- Australia Alternative – Tamron 10-24mm Lens Nikon / Tamron 10-24mm Lens Canon
- Anywhere else in the world – Tamron 10-24mm Lens Nikon / Tamron 10-24mm Lens Canon
Tamron 10-24mm Lens Overview
The Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC HLD; a wide-angle lens designed specifically for APS-C DSLR cameras. This means it gives you the 35mm equivalent of 16-37mm.
The lens has Tamron’s VC (Vibration Compensation), to help you get great shots hand-held at slower shutter speeds. It has a Fluorine coating and moisture-resistant construction. An added bonus is the HLD (High/Low torque modulated Drive), an Auto-Focus system that produces precise focusing.
Another great feature of this lens is the full-time Manual Focus override. This is a feature I love in lenses as it allows you to take control of the focus at any time if you wish. This coupled with the distance-scale window allows you to achieve great focus in any situation.
All this is packed into a beautiful-looking lens that weighs just 440g (15.5oz).
It’s All About The Looks
From front to back, this is lens is a thing of beauty. The shimmering front glass element sits perfectly into its skillfully contoured outer casing. A sleek black barrel with a soft matte finish houses the wide zoom ring and silky-smooth-action focus ring.
The switch box is smoothly contoured into the barrel and the super-functional VC and AF switches feel great under your fingers.
Moving back towards the mount we find the luminous gold brand ring that wraps around the lens to finish its stylish, sleek design.
It’s certainly the best-looking lens I own and I love having it on my camera.
Tamron 10-24mm Performance
Ok, so it looks great, but how does it perform?
Auto Focus
The autofocus on the Tamron 10-24mm is fantastic. It’s incredibly fast, accurate, and very quiet. This is due to the High/Low torque modulated Drive system in the lens.
The full-time Manual Focus override allows precise adjustments if needed to get sharp focus every time.
Manual Focus
The Manual Focus ring is the smoothest I’ve come across and feels great under your fingers.
One thing I have found with this lens is that it can be difficult to manually focus in Live View for Landscapes. I find that the image in Live View is not as crisp as other lenses I have and this makes it difficult to see fine lines. This is not a huge problem as I just use autofocus on the wide-angle setting, and it gives me sharp focus from front to back every time.
Zoom Ring
The Zoom ring on this lens is not the smoothest that I have used. That aside, it is nice and wide so you can get a good grip on it.
VC (Vibration Compensation)
The Vibration Compensation in this lens is quite good. It really helps to get sharper images while hand-holding at slower shutter speeds.
Below are some test shots I took with VC on and then with it switched off. You can see that the images taken with VC on are slightly sharper than those without it. These shots were taken hand-held with my Nikon D5200 at 24mm with ISO set at 125 and 200.
Tamron 10-24mm Lens Image Quality
The most important thing with any lens review is image quality. So, what is the image quality like with the Tamron 10-24mm?
Well, it’s quite good, considering the price you pay for it. On the other hand, I will say that it can be very soft at the edges of the frame. Some of this is due to lens distortion. Lens corrections in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw can improve it.
It’s also not as pronounced at certain Apertures, as shown in the test images below:
Images Taken At 10mm Focal Length
These images were taken with my Nikon D5200 and apart from Lens Corrections, have not been edited.
Images Taken At 24mm Focal Length
These images were taken with my Nikon D5200 and apart from lens corrections, have not been edited.
Hopefully you could see above that the images produced by this lens can be soft at the edges of the frame.
Like most lenses, this is more of an issue at wider apertures. For instance, here in this X-Y comparison in Lightroom, you can see that the softness is more profound in the image with an aperture of f/4.5 as opposed to the one at f/14. (Note that this is not camera shake as these images were all taken with the camera on a tripod):
If you are an amateur photographer, this would be a great lens for you and you are not going to notice or perhaps even care about this slight blurring at the edges. For professionals, however – you might find this to be a problem. I have sold many images that I’ve taken with this lens and as such it’s not a deal-breaker for me.
Tamron 10-24mm Lens Review Summary
In summary, this is just a great lens. I have already told you it looks great; it focuses quickly and accurately and takes a really good image for the price you pay for it.
I will leave you with a couple of images that I’ve taken with the Tamron 10-24mm lens and my Nikon D5200.
To get one of these lenses in your camera bag, use the links at the top of the blog post………
Oh, what the heck?! I’ll put them down here for you too!
- Australia – Tamron 10-24mm Lens Nikon / Tamron 10-24mm Lens Canon
- Australia Alternative – Tamron 10-24mm Lens Nikon / Tamron 10-24mm Lens Canon
- Anywhere else in the world – Tamron 10-24mm Lens Nikon / Tamron 10-24mm Lens Canon
