This year marks the 40th anniversary of Tamron’s SP lens line. To celebrate, they’ve introduced a prime lens that represents the culmination of the design and technology skills they’ve amassed in over four decades of lens making. That lens is the SP 35mm f/1.4 Di USD for Canon and Nikon full-frame DSLRs.

It’s a stacked lens, with the second generation of Tamron’s Broad-Band Anti-Reflection coating (BBAR-G2) to minimize flare and ghosting. The Fluorine coating used on the front lens element has also been reformulated for improved performance. Autofocusing is driven by Tamron’s Ultrasonic Silent Drive with a newly-developed Dynamic Rolling-cam mechanism which improves performance and reliability when working in extreme temperatures.

But that’s what we know on paper. What’s the lens like in the real world? We turned it over to commercial and portrait photographer David Patiño who hit the streets (and the beach) to see what a lens 40 years in the making is all about.

Sponsored by Tamron