Tamron Adaptall-2 24mm F/2.5 Model 01B teste

Tamron Adaptall-2 24mm F/2.5 Model 01B: A very wide angle lens with above average performance, although not quite as good as some of the best OEM lenses of the era which were much more expensive. Tamron nevertheless should be commended for producing a very fast and wide angle lens which provides very good optical performance. The design is notable for being fairly compact and lightweight which, for you, may be desirable attributes. Optical performance wide open is somewhat below that of the 24mm F/2.8 Nikkor, yet is sure to please at F/5.6 and smaller apertures.

How does the optical performance of this lens compare to the “legendary” Kiron 24mm F/2 lens? Well, the Kiron is about 25% sharper at the center of the field, yet the Tamron is approximately 25% sharper toward the edges of the field. Thus Tamron chose to balance the optical performance across the field to yield fairly uniform sharpness. This is a nice optical attribute within this Tamron lens, particularly if your wide angle scenes include details towards the corners which you wish to be sharper than provided by the Kiron.

Overall this lens is a very good example of the Tamron optical design team’s skills at balancing a fast maximum aperture and optical performance across the entire field of view. This is exactly why the Tamron 24mm is my favorite wide angle fixed focal length lens — the F/2.5 aperture is fast enough for very low light situations, yielding images which are just slightly soft, yet this lens produces very satisfactory images at F/5.6 smaller apertures under normal lighting conditions.

Note that Tamron’s later cosmetically redesigned model 01BB features the same optical design as this model 01B.