I talked with Ken Hubbard, supervisor for Tamron at PMA. He informed me that the Tamron indeed would be available for the Alpha-Mount in late April even towards late may. So good news indeed.

I had a chance to play around with this lens on another camera (cough).

It is a big heavy hunk of glass. It rivals the weight (offhand) of the 200-500 Tamron believe it or not (although it is less overall). A true fast, budget, high IQ lens, that feels like it is 4x as expensive than its targeted price.

Carl

Hi Aug,
I'm in Canada and I tried getting my hands on it since January. I was told that sometime before June would be more realistic before stocks would make it so that they would be easily available.
Since then I went crazy for the SAL70-200 G series and went and bought it.
I've been in heaven ever since
Picfreek

I wonder if Tamron will make a matching 2x tcon for this lens?

I know Sigma has a 2x pro tcon...I wonder if it could be used or if it can be used with the Sigma 70-200/2.8 USM Sigma?

I think MSRP for the Tammie will be $700 and $1000 for the Siggie? Hope someone...cough? could do a comparison...break out the credit card... :)

I have seen them on Ebay Germany in stock. Hopefully this is a sign their starting to ship!!!!! It's about time as the 80-200 g is now going for over 1700 bones almost double what it originally cost.

Thanks for the scoop, maybe its time I email them and ask for that sample copy I was promised to get for review purposes here.

Carl

I purchased one of these after having worked with it at the dealer hooked up to a Nikon D3. I have a D700. I am VERY impressed with this lens for some things, and very disappointed for one other thing. If it weren't for it's slow focus speed in less than ideal light it would be a Nikkor killer. That's right....it is as if not more sharp then a 70-200 f2.8vr and man the bokeh is to die for. Yummy color rendition (a tad warm like I like it). Built like it could go to war. solid with no slop and precise all around. Even the tripod bracket is solid. I have yet to see ANY f2.8 lens that could equal this one. It's that impressive wide open. I hope to have some sample pics up for this Labor Day weekend

BHphoto supposedly had some in stock and have already sold out.

I ordered one from B&H the other night. It has shipped, and will deliver to me at work on Thursday. I can't wait.

With regards to the focus speed, I'm convinced that it will be significantly faster on the alpha mount than in the C/N mounts due to the LACK of the in-lens micro motor used for focusing. The current Sony bodies have quick & strong focus motors and pretty good AF algorithms, so focusing with a screw drive should be decently fast. I'll let you all know on Thursday evening.

PS - if anyone wants to claim first dibs on the rental side, I'm taking orders/reservations already :)

I woke up to an email from Amazon this morning telling me that the Tamron AF 70-200 f2.8 is finally available! Now, where did I put that credit card?

I couldn't find it on Amazon for Sony.

Thank you, and congrats in advance!

Carl

What the . . .

After waiting forever and requesting an availability alert from Amazon - this happens. I got the email and came here to post, then went back to hit the link. When I hit the link Amazon says it is NOT in stock! What kind of business practice is this?

I'm the dummy here. I should have checked the link before posting. Sorry. I just never thought that would happen.

Don't worry about it. Just the first I've heard and at some point more units are going to show up besides the 15 initially at B&H.

Hang in there!

Carl

I got Mine mid August. Love it. Absolutely love it. Considering selling my old Minolta "G". This is worthy of being in any pro ensemble.

You got one in the SONY mount?

Absolutely. Sony Alpha Mount. I Feel like I purchased a sleeper weapon here. Its absolutely that good. It really is worthy of any pro kit.

Where did you get it?

Norman Camera. located in Kalamazoo Michigan. It was the suggested reseller on the Tamron Site for this lens. I had it overnighted to PA for an additional $17.00.

http://www.normancamera.com

And it works with my old Cambron 2X teleconverter from Cambridge camera.

And As I understand...this lens will work perfectly Full Frame on the A900 without APS Cropping. So this is a good lens to use as a crossover between both formats. I currently use it on my A700 and my 7D, Focus is smooth and not as slow as some reviews have stated, but then again the reviews were using the lens on Nikon and Canon bodies. The screw drive on the A700 held its own just fine. As for hunting in low light.....well I tried it as dusk was settling in to shoot my children playing on the driveway and riding their bicycles. Just added a 56AM Flash as it got darker out and it performed well. Only hunting at the darkest areas and at a range beyond 15 feet. Within that range it performed well, found focus and locked.

"The new tele-zoom lens covers a desirable focal length range of 70mm medium telephoto to 200mm telephoto when mounted on full size format SLR cameras and a focal length range from 109mm to 310mm ultra telephoto when mounted on a DSLR camera with an APS-C sized imager."

That's interesting, since Norman Camera doesn't promote Sony DSLRs very much compared to C & N.

Perhaps a sign of change? Although they were basically promoted by Tamron as having the Lens available. Although I see now they are out of stock. So I consider myself lucky since it seems difficult to get hands on this ont.

I just got mine delivered yesterday.
I just checked and they are still showing up as in stock.

PS. I'm new here this was my first post ;-)

let me know how fast you it;s auto focus is, think it be good for action sport shots?

Yes it's fine much better then anticipated on my a700.
I will try it later today on my a350 and let you know.

thanks man, (picking lens are so complicated, i hate just reading reviews because they are all differnt and dont compare them to anything or get into exactly how fast its focus speedis. so i have nothin to base it off of. and i just tried some local camera stores around me none of them had any sony lens except the really cheap 75-300 kit lens)

The a350 is definitely slower than the a700 that became clear right away.
It's very gray and dark today and we have been getting rained on most of the day, so the conditions were great for focus tracking my dogs.
The lens did okay but you may want to wait for the Sigma version because of the SSM if you want to use it for mostly sports.

thanks for the fast response i think i will wait for the sigma then

I just ordered mine. I should be receiving it on the 1st. I can hardly wait!

I'm thinking the difference is in the Body driving this lens. My 7D is noticeably slower than my A700 when this lens is mounted. Not sure how the A350 will fare with it. But as I've mentioned in another post on these forums my Tammy lens tracked, focused and locked onto my Flat Coated retrievers running flat out on a 160 acre farm. The conditions were bright and sunny. The shots I got were very nice. I'll put some pics up when I get them ftp'd to my site. right now my wife has some of the cropped shots on our FCR website...for the money you can't go wrong IMHO. I'm going to stick with this for everyday use for now over my older Minolta "G".

http://www.chathamhillkennels.com

its just a start, and my wife just threw it together last week. But some of the photos are up there. Albeit a bit shrunken down.

Keep in mind that the condition I used the lens with on the a350 were not good but did simulate a late afternoon or evening football game pretty well.
Don't get me wrong I love this lens and it's sharpness very much and it's not going anywhere ;-)
I will try it out again with the a350 when we have some sunshine again and will report my findings then too.

I'll let you know how it goes with the Tammy tomorrow. I'm at at the dog shows this weekend and the weather is expected to be overcast and cloudy/rain. So I'll give it a go on both the KM 7D and the A700 and let you know.

To my surprise the Sigma HSM version....didn't get stellar reviews on the picture quality and one review I read actually preferred the Tammy over the Sigma. Go figure.

update: Went very well. There was a downpour in the morning. So I took pics from under the tent aiming onto the field. later in the day for the best of group it was still overcast. On the A700 the focus was respectably accurate and set to aperture priority of f4.0 iso 200 the lens on this body still tracked well, focus locked on and it performed well. Held up even after a drizzle. Sigma 28-70 on my 7D. I didn't have time to swap the lenses today on these bodies. perhaps tomorrow.

Got my Tamron 70-200 and it's really nice from what i have been able to play with it, which is not much as I've been doing homework (went back to finish my BS degree) and full time work. Here are some pictures i took and just posted to google picasa web albums. Have the full fledged shot if you want to see more detail of the birds and the lizard.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mike.pisto/10212008#