Having some problems with my Olympus 14-150, which is my most used travel lens, I decided to get another of these super zoom lenses but I didn't want to get another Olympus 14-150. Wanting to use it on an Olympus camera I decided to get the Tamron because Olympus has IBIS, especially the simply superb E-M1 IBIS.
To keep the size down, I decided to try it on the E-M5. IBIS is not as good as the E-M1 but it's still good enough especially for the kind of light I was going to try it lens out. After using it for some test images my conclusion is there's not a lot of difference in image quality to the Olympus. Actually, I just couldn't tell the images apart. So if you're thinking of upgrading or cross-grading to the Tamron, think twice. Just don't do it.
Another problem I had on the E-M5 was focusing. I had no problem at the wide or tele focal lengths but I did have in the middle. The lens just wouldn't focus and I had to turn the camera off and on to get the focus motor turning again. A couple of times I actually had to remount the lens to get the system working again. Not good. I haven't noticed this problem on the Olympus E-M1 or the Panasonic GX7 so I'm starting to think it has something to do with my E-M5. I've been thinking that I have a problem with my E-M5 for some time now as image quality is not all it should be. I'm going to have to look into this a bit more in the coming weeks.
All-in-all an ok lens, but nothing to rite home about. If you're looking for an all-in-one travel lens you could contemplate this lens for your Olympus cameras. Don't forget it's got no image stabilizing system. I'll let you decise if the image quality is up to standard. All images resized to 1200px.
