Last month, Tamron announced the 35-100mm F2.8 Di III VXD, a full-frame zoom lens that focused on offering a fair amount of reach and a fast aperture while still being compact and lightweight. We’ve had the chance to shoot with it a bit to get a feel for what it’s like to use and how it performs.

The first thing that stands out about this lens is the weight. If you’re used to shooting with a 24-70mm F2.8, this lens is noticeably smaller and lighter than most full-frame options. That’s not to say that the focal length ranges are particularly comparable – they’re not, especially on the wide end – but it’s a good frame of reference.

The lens is quite small and light, which would make it a good pairing for some of the more compact full-frame bodies. It also includes a customizable mode switch and function button.

Despite the light weight, the lens feels solidly built. To my hands, the materials and design of the zoom and focus rings actually feel a touch nicer than other recent Tamron lenses that I’ve tried. While most wouldn’t consider a $900 to be cheap by any stretch, it feels more premium than its price tag might suggest.

Paired with an a7R V, the autofocus was very snappy, and it never felt like the lens was holding back the camera.

The lens extends a bit when zooming in, but not enough to throw off the balance or meaningfully change the center of gravity.

While this isn’t a full review of its optical quality, I was pleased with how sharp the samples I got with this lens were, even when I was shooting wide-open. As we’ve seen with many recent F2.8 zooms, especially ones that focus on size, it has a fair amount of vignetting at F2.8 and even still some at F4, but it largely clears up by F5.6. I also find the out-of-focus rendering to be perfectly fine; it’s not distracting, and the falloff is pleasant enough, though if you inspect the specular highlights in the bokeh, there is some cats-eye effect.

Toward the edges of the frame, you’ll start to see some cat’s-eye bokeh. (Note that the lights on the left edge of the frame aren’t being distorted by the glass cups.) Sony a7R V | Tamron 35-100mm F2.8 | 100mm | F2.8 | 1/100 sec | ISO 500

In the past few years, we’ve seen companies playing focal length ranges, such as Sony’s 20-70mm F4 and 24-50mm F2.8, so it’s interesting to see someone experimenting in the other direction. However, we suspect many people who learned photography after the era of the 35-70mm might feel restricted by a lens that only barely dips its toe into the wide-angle range, especially if they were trying to use it as an all-around standard zoom.

However, I found I really enjoyed working with this zoom range, especially given the size and weight of the lens. I could easily see being happy with just it and a wide (or maybe even ultrawide) prime, though your mileage may definitely vary, especially if you’re someone who often finds themselves wishing they could go wider than 24mm, rather than someone like me who often wishes they could reach past 70mm. In that respect, I prefer this to Tamron’s own 28-75mm F2.8, as it feels like I get more for giving up something on the wide end (though obviously it’s a greater sacrifice).

For most people, though, this lens might make more sense as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, a standard zoom, especially if their standard zoom is a variable-aperture kit option. It offers F2.8 and some of the most popular portrait focal lengths with more flexibility than a prime, and without the need to carry around a giant piece of glass like a 70-200mm.

Sample gallery

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Thank you to LensRentals for loaning us a Sony a7R V to shoot this lens gallery, and to Tamron for loaning us the lens. All images were processed using our standard lens workflow in Capture One, with the manufacturer’s distortion correction applied but no vignetting correction. Before correction, the images have some minor pincushion distortion, but we wouldn’t consider the profile to be an essential part of the lens design if you prefer not to use it, or your preferred software does not support lens corrections.

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