Tamron Ultimate Travel Kit review: Tamron Ultimate Travel Kit
Tamron's Ultimate Travel Kit is a combo of lenses and accessories for amateur digital SLR photographers to explore their creativity.
Jeremy Roche
Hi, I look after product development for CBS Interactive in Sydney - which lets me develop a range of websites including CNET Australia, TV.com and ZDNet Australia.
Tamron's Ultimate Travel Kit comprises two zoom lenses for digital SLR cameras. One is a wide-angle lens (11-18mm) for capturing considerably extensive landscape shots and outlooks. The other is a versatile zoom lens (18-250mm) that gives flexibility for everyday photography such as portraits while still letting you focus in tight on the action.
Tamron Ultimate Travel Kit
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Both are designed for dSLRs with reduced frame (APS-C) sensors, such as popular entry-level and mid-range dSLRs including Canon's EOS range such as the 40D and 400D, and most of Nikon's cameras like the popular D80 and D40.
A Conkon filter kit for landscape shots is also included, which includes adaptor rings for both lenses as well as warm, blue and sunset filters. Bayonet-style lens hoods are also included.
The wide-angle lens is fairly slow at f/4.5-5.6, while the 18-250mm lens is a full stop faster at f/3.5-6.3.
Both are a soft, non-reflective black and fairly light. The 11-18mm lens adds 355 grams to the front of your camera; its larger 18-250mm sibling adds 437 grams.
The zoom and focus rings are smooth and both lenses feature a solid switch to change between auto-focus and manual focus. The rubberised grips surrounding these are smooth; the 18-250mm lens also has a lock mechanism to hold the barrel in its shortest position.
We didn't notice any major image quality issues using the lenses during the daytime or in bright environments. The wide-angle lens produced some vignetting (dark areas in the corners) at 11mm when used at night and in low-light on the camera we tested it with, Canon's 400D. This is exacerbated due to the limited range of the 400D's built-in flash and the relatively large distance the lens is capable of capturing.
Focus speed on both lenses was decent and we only noticed slight distortion of images taken at wide focal lengths on the 11-18mm lens.
Photos came out sharp with good contrast, although we did find it hard to take a non-blurry shot with the 18-250mm at its maximum focal length, especially when a subject is not well lit. We'd recommended a tripod for these occasions.