The Nikon D5000 and AF 35mm f/1.8 lens have proven to be a great fit for my needs, but I've been on the lookout for a nice autofocus portrait lens. At 75mm equivalent, the AF 50/1.4G is a touch shorter than I would like. Also, as is the case with the 35/1.8, the 50/1.4G shows noticeable color fringing on out-of-focus background elements (longitudinal chromatic aberration). There's also the Sigma 50/1.4, but in addition to being too short, that lens has too much heft.

I looked at the Nikon 60mm f/2.8 micro (macro), which is just about my ideal length, but that lens is just a bit too slow. The manual focus Voigtlander 58/1.4 SL II was another option, but I'd like to have autofocus.

Along comes the Tamron 60mm f/2 macro, a lens which isn't much larger or heavier than the Canon and Nikon equivalents, yet offers an additional stop of speed plus internal focusing and full-time manual focus override. Being familiar with Tamron lenses (and macro lenses in general), the early reports of slow autofocus with this lens were expected and aren't a deal breaker for me.

I've been holding out for image samples to see if this could serve as both my portrait lens and a nice 1:1 macro, and today I found a second set of samples. Having not seen much discussion of this lens or its samples in the various forums, I thought to share the links here.

Here are the samples:
Canon-board.info (translation)
Fengniao.com (translation)

Although this lens is somewhat off-topic for Serious Compacts, I know I'm not the only one here using a compact DSLR kit. The Tamron 60 macro has the potential to replace two other lenses, such as a 50/1.4 and 60/2.8 macro.

Having reviewed those image samples, I'm pretty much set on buying the Nikon mount version of the Tamron 60 macro as soon as it becomes available. Lucky Canon users out there can pick one up now at Amazon:

Link:Tamron 60mm f/2 macro at Amazon