Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD focus issue

Hi everyone,

I just joined to ask for some advice or opinions. I have had my Tamron 70-200 for about 3 weeks now and have noticed an issue with the focus. Sometimes when it fails to grab focus it will make a long, loud beep/squeak kind of sound. Now I understand that lenses will sometimes be unable to find focus, however in previous experience they will immediately recover and attempt focusing again. With the Tamron, after it has missed focus and beeped, it will sometimes be completely unresponsive. It was unresponsive for about 3 minutes on one occasion, not good when the action is fast and unpredictable. I have tried manually bringing focus to the general range, I have tried turning the camera off and on, I have tried switching settings. Nothing seems to recover the AF after it has failed and gone to sleep.

I am wondering if anyone else has experience with this lens? Has anyone heard of or experienced this issue? Is this a standard trait of a camera lens that I am just unaware of?

I am not that experienced so perhaps I have made some inappropriate decisions regarding my camera settings.

I use a D610. I have my 'AF with lock on' setting set to 'off' to keep tracking as fast as possible. I vary the rest of my AF settings with respect to my subject, all varieties of shooting from 9 point AF-C for sports to single point AF-S for portraits etc and the problem has been present in all instances.

I hope someone can shed some light on my situation, apologies if I am just begin a noob here.

ABoon

Welcome to the forum!
I don't own any Tamron lenses, but just going by the loud squeek / beep noise, I'd say it sounds like a fault with the focus motor. If you switch it to manual focus, is there any uneven resistance when you turn the focus manually?
I'm sure others who own the lens will respond soon, but in the mean time another option would be to take your camera to a shop that has them in stock, and try theirs.. Then compare the two.

Thank you Steve for the welcoming response,

Playing with the lens now I feel like the manual focus is fine and smooth. I will head back to the store I bought it from and see what they think and compare. It's good to know this is not likely to be normal behaviour! It takes great shots when it's happy to take them so I hope this issue can be rectified.

ABoon said:

Thank you Steve for the welcoming response,

Playing with the lens now I feel like the manual focus is fine and smooth. I will head back to the store I bought it from and see what they think and compare. It's good to know this is not likely to be normal behaviour! It takes great shots when it's happy to take them so I hope this issue can be rectified.

Click to expand...

The focus motors in all lenses should be sooth and almost silent - Also that it is fine when manually focussed would suggest a problem with the motor...

Once you have it checked, make sure you post up some pics with it!!

Thanks Steve and once I nail some shots I'll be sure to share them!

ABoon said:

I am wondering if anyone else has experience with this lens? Has anyone heard of or experienced this issue? Is this a standard trait of a camera lens that I am just unaware of?

Click to expand...

I haven't experienced this yet & have shot many thousands of photos using it. However, that's with a D600 & not a D610. If it were me, I'd send it in to Tamron. They have a pretty fast turnaround and seem to be far more customer-centric than Nikon.

Thanks for your input NVSteve. I have been in contact with Tamron and they have been very helpful, they also suggested I send it to them for a repair but if I can avoid that would be nice. I will see if the store I bought it from will replace it first, I mean it's only been in my possession for less than a month... We shall see.

Just wanted to let anyone who was interested know that I took the lens into the store I bought it from today. They confirmed the issue and replaced the lens for me. They said it was a rare defect that was not caused by my user error. I'm glad they didn't try to put the blame on me as I feared they might, and that they didn't try to push me to deal directly with Tamron. I tested the new one in the store and it seems perfect with no signs of the problem so I am stoked.

Snapped this a while ago on the old Tamron when it wasn't playing up. Looking forward to taking out the new one soon!