Tamron 150-500mm f/5-6.7 Di III VC VXD Lens for Sony E Mount (A057S)

The 150-500mm F/5-6.7 Di III VC VXD (Model A057) zoom lens for Sony E-mount full-frame mirrorless cameras upends conventional wisdom for ultra-telephoto zoom lenses, with a very compact design and high image quality. The 150-500mm F5-6.7 achieves a 500mm focal length while retaining a compact size, with a length of just 209.6mm (8.3 in) and a maximum diameter of 93mm, enabling comfortable handheld shooting. The design places major emphasis on image quality. The optical construction features 25 elements in 16 groups and utilizes special lens elements and hybrid aspherical lens elements to control various potential aberrations such as chromatic aberrations.

In addition to covering a broad range of focal lengths, the 150-500mm F5-6.7 zoom has high resolving power with excellent image-rendering performance across the entire zoom range. The optical construction features 25 elements in 16 groups. The effective placement of special lens elements—including XLD (eXtra Low Dispersion), LD (Low Dispersion) and hybrid aspherical lens elements—enables the 150-500mm F5-6.7 to produce clear images while controlling chromatic aberrations. BBAR-G2 (Broad-Band Anti-Reflection Generation 2) Coating is used to suppress ghosting and flare, which commonly occur under backlit conditions. These features allow the lens to produce finely detailed images of a wide variety of subjects including wild animals, birds, nature and sports, while producing soft and beautiful bokeh effects.

The 150-500mm F5-6.7 zoom lets users freely enjoy telephoto macro shooting of subjects at closeup distances. The lens has an MOD (Minimum Object Distance) of 0.6m (23.6 in) at the 150mm wide-angle end, and 1.8m (70.9 in) at the 500mm telephoto end. More remarkably, the maximum magnification ratio at the 150mm end is 1:3.1, offering excellent close-up shooting capabilities for an ultra-telephoto zoom lens. The versatile performance of the 150-500mm F5-6.7 enables shooting of a diverse range of scenes from plants and insects to closeup tabletop photos. It also allows users to shoot very dramatic images because it gives the illusion that the distance between objects is less than in real life. Secondarily, it’s also possible to get interesting head-and-shoulder portraits because of this compression effect.