Tamron has reinvented themselves in recent years, releasing highly practical and affordable lenses alongside innovative options like the 35-150mm f/2-2.8 Di III VXD. They have now announced the development of another lens in the spirit of the latter group, the 50-400mm F/4.5-6.3 Di III VC VXD, expected to arrive later this year.
The 50-400mm F/4.5-6.3 Di III VC VXD is expected in fall of this year for Sony E mount cameras, though that could change with ongoing uncertainty surrounding COVID and supply chains. Nonetheless, with a focal length range from normal to extreme supertelephoto, it already sounds quite exciting. It wouldn't be the first time we saw such a lens; Sigma used to make a 50-500mm lens, for example, but in the old days, lenses with such extreme zoom ranges often made significant compromises in image quality to get that focal length versatility. However, we've seen major strides made in recent years, and you can now get decent to very good image quality out of many such lenses.
The 50-400mm will be rather compact, coming in at 7.2 inches long, though it'll weigh 40.7 ounces. It will also feature a VXD autofocus system for fast and quiet autofocus and Vibration Reduction, a welcome addition for longer focal lengths. Another welcome addition will be its 1:2 maximum magnification at the 50mm end, adding more to its versatility. The lens will also be compatible with Sony's Eye AF.
There's no news yet on price, but altogether, the 50-400mm F/4.5-6.3 Di III VC VXD looks like it will be an impressively versatile and interesting lens. Hopefully, we'll see it soon!
I'm guessing $2500ish
Hard for me to imagine it would be anywhere near that expensive. I'm thinking an initial release price of around a thousand dollars less than what you predict.
For a someone building a new kit from scratch, a 16-35 and this lens would be very cool.
Minimum focus distance and the magnification that it yields is extremely important to many photographers. These specs are weighted heavily when one is deciding what zoom lens to purchase.
I see that Tamron's 35-150mm lens has a minimum focus distance of 13", and a maximum magnification or just 0.18x. That renders it pretty much useless for any kind of close-up work (not talking about close ups of people or any kind of people photography - that's a completely different genre than what I am interested in).
Conversely, many of Canon's new RF mount zooms have minimum focus distances that are much closer, and yield 0.5x magnification.
Many people who shoot close up at short distances do NOT want to use a dedicated macro lens, as a zoom offers much greater freedom and flexibility. I am talking about small product photography and photography of small critters such as spiders, butterflies, bees, etc. Not anything to do with photographing humans.
If this 50-400mm that Tamron is going to make doesn't have a really close MFD, and strong magnification capabilities, they are going to lose a lot of sales to people like me, who depend on our long zooms for frame-filling close-up images of small objects.