Why won’t my Tamron 70-300mm 572D autofocus on a Nikon D5200?
Asked 7/1/2015
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I bought a used Tamron 70-300mm Tele-Macro lens (model 572D) for my Nikon D5200. The manual mentions autofocus, but I can’t find any AF/MF switch on the lens—only the normal/macro switch. Is the AF/MF control somewhere else, or is there a reason autofocus won’t work on this camera?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
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To quote from the 572D manual:
Automatic Focusing (for Nikon/Minolta/Pentax AF SLR)
When the camera is on the autofocus mode, the lens focuses automatically.
Digging a little further, this thread confirms my suspicion that the Tamron lens doesn't have a built in focusing motor, but instead uses the screw drive motor which exists on higher-end Nikon bodies:
Google helped me find a forum note that the D3000 needs a version of the lens with a built-in motor
As such, this lens won't autofocus on your camera as the D3x00 / D5x00 series don't have the screw drive motor.
Originally by user11371. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user11371
11y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
The lens is likely working as designed: the Tamron 70-300mm 572D for Nikon uses the camera body’s screw-drive autofocus system rather than having its own built-in focus motor. That’s why there may be no AF/MF switch on the lens itself.
Your Nikon D5200 does not have an internal screw-drive AF motor, so this lens will not autofocus on that camera. You can still use it, but focusing must be done manually.
If you want autofocus on a D5200, you’ll need a Nikon-mount version of the lens with a built-in motor (often labeled with terms like Nikon AF-S or Tamron built-in motor variants, depending on the lens model). The normal/macro switch is unrelated to autofocus; it only changes the lens’s focusing range/close-focus behavior.
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