JAPB has put together a compendium of Tamron’s legacy lenses. Tamron (see also company profile) is one of those interesting specialist lens-makers that has managed to remain current and relevant for practically the entire era of SLR photography. Moreover, in today’s world of combining legacy lenses with modern sensors, Tamron’s back catalogue of lenses that predate autofocus and computer design have become all the more interesting to both still photographers and videographers.
While there is no shortage of information on Tamron lenses online, most existing knowledge is scattered, and accessing it often requires use of translation. Moreover, many of those resources online that claim to be comprehensive listings turn out to have obvious omissions.
The JAPB lens compendium on Tamron legacy lenses hopes to address some of those shortcomings. The compendium starts from the early days of Tamron and continues all the way to the last Adaptall-2 lenses. Even so, we acknowledge that our compendium is likely also not entirely complete and we will keep adding data as we progress.
Every compendium tries to present the essential facts of something in a comprehensive but concise way. So if you’re searching information on a Tamron pre-AF lens, the compendium will allow you to find that lens and its basic details. However one of JAPB’s key aims in putting together the compendium is to structure it in such a way as that the reader can also see the lens in relation to the general development in the field of SLR photography. This structure transforms what could be an overwhelming catalogue into an accessible resource.