My thoughts on TAMRON SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 G1 lens

Posted on: Monday, April 27, 2026

life

I bought this used lens at a local camera store on November 14, 2025 with Chinese Yuan 2,400, which equals to 300 Euros. Few weeks before buying the lens, I did rent the lens for a day and tried it on my Canon 80D. As first time using a telephoto lens, I was amazed by the reach it’s capable of, although that day I didn’t took any nice photos, probably I didn’t know yet that I need to shoot with a higher shutter speed since I’m holding the lens with my hand.

Fast forward to today when I’m writing this post, it is April 25, 2026. So, I’ve been using the lens for almost six months, I want to share some personal thoughts on this lens.

Weight

It started to feel a bit height in the very beginning as I don’t have a strong arm, but after one week in, I pretty much have gotten used to the weight, and right now I can carry my camera and lens through the whole day.

Focus

Maybe focus is mostly determined by the camera body? I’m not exactly sure how to wrap this up without testing the lens on another camera body, but with it on my Canon 80D, I struggled with getting the correct focus a lots of times, especially when there are other objects near the bird or in front of the bird, like shooting in the forest. That’s why most of my crisp shoots is shoot with single-point focus. The downsize of single-point focus is sometimes you don’t have much time to react to get a good composition before the bird flies away, and also it will be very difficult when the bird is constantly jumping around on the tree.

Built quality

I think TAMRON released this lens as budget telephoto lens to compete with the big boys, so for the money, I think the built quality is ok, but I did try the G2 version of this lens for a day earlier this year, and G2 is much better in terms of built quality. But I don’t have any opinion of the image quality and that day when I tried the G2, I didn’t get any good shoots, either due to the lighting was not good or I’m a bit rusty with the lens.

Image quality

This is for Canon 80D + this lens, and my personal way of shooting, other photographers might do a better job than me if they use the same combo. But for me, after getting into wildlife photography, I think the lighting is the most crucial part of getting a good shoot. One photo that came to my mind is this Red-headed Trogon. It was at a local forest park and as you can see the ISO is bumped up to 6400, but the light is soft and this image — in my opinion — ends up pretty nice. Also, this Crested Serpent Eagle I took at a local mountain in my city, the eagle is perched on a tree that is really far away from me, but the tree leaves block the harsh sunlight from above, the final result of this photo is quite good in my taste. Another same situation is this Black Bulbul, it’s around 1pm or 2pm, the light is too harsh, but the bird is sitting among tree leaves so the the light reached the bird is pretty nice for a good photograph.

Bird in flight?

With my current setup, the camera body does’t have an animal tracking mode, so it’s really hard to nail the bird in flight shoots unless it’s a big bird and there are nothing distracting between the bird and the camera. I did tried lots of times with camera set to manual focus, and try to anticipate the flying direction of the bird but I haven’t got one good shot yet, either I turned the focus ring too much or too less.

Yes, especially when you have a small budget. Although I heard that G2 is much better, but I only have one-day experience with it so I can’t say much here. For me, it can really hone your skills as a wildlife photographer with a lens like this. And it will help you know better what your next lens needs to have to fit your style of shooting.