Home > Blog Posts > Lens Review > Tamron 35-80mm f2.8-3.8 Model 01A Adaptall-2 macro lens Review
Tamron 35-80mm f2.8-3.8 Model 01A Adaptall-2 macro lens Review
Tamron Adaptall-2 SP Model 01A, 35-80mm Macro Focusing Zoom Lens
This lens is special to me. With a not-so-wide wide end and a not-so-telephoto zoom end, its not the kind of field of view range to write home about. The macro close focus is around a foot, which again, is not much to write home about. It’s not amazingly fast, or compact, or light. But it’s still special to me. On top of producing fantastic images with great resolution, contrast and sharpness/acuity, it was also my introduction to the Adaptall-2 line of lenses. So let us explore why, beyond sentimentality, it is a unique and quite nice vintage standard-range zoom lens.
Build quality and feel
As with the rest of the SP Adaptall-2 lenses in my collection, the build quality is fantastic. The zoom and focus operations are smooth as butter. The aperture ring is clicky, which while standard in the 80s has apparently fallen out of favor in modern manual lenses sadly, so the clicky aperture adjustment is always appreciated. Speaking of the aperture ring, its plastic and slightly flimsy feeling, making up the entirety of my complaints with the build quality of the lens.
Tamron Adaptall-2 SP Model 01A, 35-80mm Macro Focusing Zoom Lens. Fully extended to macro zooming levels.
The zoom of the Model 01A offers a good slightly extended standard field of view range at 54.4° to 25.4°. For my uses as a nature details/close-to-macro lens the field of view is even better, with an equivalent focal range of 52.5-120mm and a field of view of 37.2° to 16.7°, which is basically standard view to short telephoto with a near-macro close focusing ability. It's just overall a really interesting lens to use for my use cases.
The Model 01A takes normal 67mm filters, and has a large front element without much body overhang. Flare does become a problem shooting directly at bright light sources, but it's less susceptible to flaring than something like the Model 13A Adaptall lens. It is something to watch out for, and a hood might be useful, but flaring hasn’t been enough of an issue for me to get a hood for this lens… not yet, anyway.
The style and design is, as usual with Adaptall lenses, fantastic and one of my favorite aspects of the entire series. Focusing and zoom gauges are clearly marked, cleanly engraved, and colorfully painted. The slick design is always inspiring with these lenses.
Image Quality
The image quality is pretty fantastic in this lens, at both ends of the zoom range. With the aperture set wide open it is somewhat soft, but uniformly so, and it sharpens up beautifully as you stop down to f5.6 and beyond.
Color reproduction is good, as usual with Adaptall-2 lenses, and contrast is adequate. The Model 01A is capable of producing lovely images, and the zoom range offers a good variety of field of view, making this an ideal nature details lens.
The out-of-focus areas are soft and pleasing, the focus falloff is smooth and doesn’t have that abrupt, chaotic border between focused and unfocused parts of the frame.
Check out some of my quick test shots with the lens
The good
- Lovely image quality
- Great resolution
- Beautiful color and contrast
- Great close focusing ability
- Design looks lovely
The Bad
- The aperture ring
- That all Adaptall lenses aren't this damn good
Conclusion
This is a fantastic lens and would be a worthy addition to anyone’s camera bag who needs the focal range or the close-focus ability this bad boy has to offer.
Written on Wednesday, 23 December 2020, by Aaron Brown. Last edited on
