Hal81 Loc: Bucks County, Pa.

I have that same lens and haven't had that trouble. Now on my Nikon 55-300 mm lens, my walking around lens, I sometimes have to put it on manual focus to keep it from jumping back and fourth.

crazydaddio Loc: Toronto Ontario Canada

Actually, my experience with VC on (IS on in Canon) will cause the image in viewfinder to "jump around" as you try to track a far away, fast moving object versus help "frame the image"....and at shutter speeds you are describing...VC does not add any value. When shooting at 600mm, VC will constantly try to stabilize and as you track...you will be fighting the VC system. Switch it off. I agree with everything else said...(and I could be wrong...perhaps VC is better than IS )

DougS Loc: Central Arkansas

Those last four posts cracked me up, due to the fact that I live in Arkansas, and just returned from our first winter trip to Alaska Feb. 07, going as far north as Atigan Pass. I think I can identify with both posts at least a little, or a lot. Here, we had never heard of 'bunny boots', and I had never used hand warmers, (tip: for you folks going way north in the winter, use adhesive body warmers in the toes AND heels, between two layers of wool socks!!!). Although it gets down to zero at my home, nothing like the windy -35 we experienced as we entered Alaska. It really is two completely different worlds, both are fascinating, interesting, beautiful, completely different, and hard (impossible?) to relate to if you come from one, and never experience the other, even if only for a brief time. Apaflo, think tornados, snakes, and traffic jams. I wish we here could relate better to northern Alaska's. As Apaflo stated: The value systems are different because the physical and natural environment is not the same. And then here are all those people...
p.s. I like/use my Garmin AND a paper road map! Both are indispensable for a long road trip.
I also am having an issue with my lens focus... and have spent many hours trying to find out the source of the problem. Nikon D7000, hence my interest in this subject. Thanks for everyone's imput.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

You nailed it! I don't sleep well when the wind is over 50MPH, and a tornado scares me. So do snakes. I don't care for crowds and traffic is downright scary (I was the senior medic for an ambulance squad, and have scraped dead bodies off the road).

A guy here who came from Hawaii a decade ago once decided he was going back. I warned him he'd be back in less than six months because the first time he got caught in a traffic jam that would be it. Three months later he called me on his cell phone from a traffic jam moving about 5 miles a hour. On the next plane he was home forever... : - )

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

But you can - that lens is quite sharp - at least as good as the Sigma Sport.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Not being snarky in the least. You obviously know the intimate details of how this all works - so write the damn article already and teach us something.

AKA shooting in the middle of correction - in layman's terms is exactly what I described. Your answer, though technically correct, is incomplete - there is sampling frequency, amplitude and vector of the motion, system response lag time, and the statistics used to measure effectiveness, which as you should know, will vary widely from system to system and from photographer to photographer - to mention a few. I am not a lens designer, but I don't have to be to understand the underlying concepts. There is lots more to this than you represent in your short response about the one aspect of stabilization that you have a good grasp of. All of it affects optical stabilization performance, and why as the shutter speeds get faster the image quality can go down. Get out of the trees so you can see the forest. The view is much better.

And yes, allowing a VR/OS/IS system to "settle down" or stabilize after being implemented will improve your results. An image taken when the elements are moving around are never going to be in focus - that's just common sense, Floyd.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

All that snark, and ambiguous obfuscation, but in the end it comes down to this one incorrect statement repeating the same obvious and illogical misunderstanding you posted previously. Take some time to actually think about how vibration reduction works. Post about that, and leave emotional rants about me out of it.

Common sense will tell it is the opposite of what you state quoted above: the lens elements must be moving when the exposure is made. That movement has to precisely counter the camera movement.

There is no point in discussing other details until the significance of that is fully understood.

Mike Jackson Loc: Jackson Hole, WY

I see people going to my old blog post: https://www.bestofthetetons.com/2017/02/26/tamron-150-600mm-g2-lens-my-experiences/ The post on the site now is the second version.

Tamron replaced my first copy of the 150-600mm G2 after I sent it in and after it still didn't work. The replacement lens worked much, much better right out of the box. The Rep suggested I send my D5 and the new lens to the service center to have the lens micro adjusted to the body. I've been using it regularly since, and updated the blog post after pairing the lens and body.

The rule of thumb I work under now is to turn VC off when on a tripod regardless of shutter speed. And, as others have suggested, I don't use VC on shutter speeds over 1/500th of a second. Most of my wildlife shots are at 1/1000 second to 1/1600 second if I can get enough light, so again, no VC on or off the tripod. The VC Mode#2 (panning mode) seldom gets used (birds in flight) because the shutter speeds are usually too high. The Rep suggested using Mode 3 for most times I actually use VC...limited to shooting at slower speeds out the window of my truck. On a Nikon D5, I typically use Manual Mode to set the shutter speed and aperture, then turn on Auto ISO. I seldom shoot above F/9 and despite conventional wisdom, get good images when wide open. When photographing subjects like Mountain Goats that usually stand fairly still, I try several different settings. On my D5, I see a considerable slow down of the frame rate with VC on.

If you can stand to be without your lens and body for a couple of weeks, I'd definitely suggest sending them in.