Tokina 16-50mm f/2.8 user report???

These are truly jaw dropping if they are a representative sample. It seems to me the 12-24 appears sharper than the 16-50 from the images I have of both. I also think the 50-135 may be sharper as well, but again, I have not been pixel peeping yet so this is just an 'off hand' impression that I cannot yet back up.

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-jts
http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall
Canon, Nikon and Olympus
equipment in profile

'From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.' Julia Margaret Cameron

you mentioned that you dropped your nikon 35-70 f2.8 and so tested the tokina 16-50 as a replacement.

may i ask which replacement you bought? and if it was not a new copy of the same nikon lens, why not?

i have the same nikon lens - it fell out of my bag, and hit the ground hard enough (while still in the case) to shatter my filter (it must have landed on the lens front). i tried focussing after and it still worked, but i have it on a film camera so not sure if the insides are OK.

i'll test it on my new D80 when i get it soon but if it's not working i'll need to replace it.

i will get tokina 12-24 so i'm debating between the following as other lens to compliment it:

1) nikon 35-70 f2.8
2) tamron 17-50 f2.8
3) tamron 28-75 f2.8
4) sigma 28-70 f2.8

curious as to what you did.

thanks.

Yes that is the one and it does have Nikkor just look down the page. As far as pixel-peeping and suff. I always hear this, but in my experience I can tell the difference most of the time in real life as well. Not in every shot, but why would you pay more money for knowingly worse glass? If you do not shoot at 2.8, this is fine. But I do. This is the reason I am not getting 18-55 instead. There are other reasons to get Tokina -- if you use standard 77 filters a lot and you tand to bang your equipment against stuff . For me those are not very important.

I have no ill feelings against Tokina. I own 12-24 and I like it. But for me optical performance at the widest ISO wins over the other considerations.

I do have a Tamron. As far as resolutio and AF it is great. It is a bit uncomfortable to take off and put on since there is vertually not non rotating suface on the lens, but other than that it I am quite happy. Colors are a bit coller than Nikon glass. So if money was not an issue I would for sure get 17-55.
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Eugene

chompy said:

As you can see at least with the sample I tested, the Tokina at f5.6
is even worse that the Tamron at f2.8, so despite I wanted the

Click to expand...

Hi Chompy, it seems to me that your Tokina shot at f/5.6 suffered from a little camera shake, so it looks worse than at f/2.8. In any case I agree that at wide open it exhibits that soft dreamy look, just like its bigger brothers 28-xx/2.8. Sometimes you can turn that into advantage, i.e for portraits.

Hi TK,

TK241 said:

may i ask which replacement you bought? and if it was not a new copy
of the same nikon lens, why not?

Click to expand...

I bought a used nikkor 28-70. I did not buy a 35-70 again, because I always wanted to have the 28-70 f/2.8 (faster focussing and a bit wider)
Furthermore the store were I always buy did not have another used 35-70 on sale.

By means of image quality there is not much difference between the 35-70 and 28-70. I'm not sure what your budget is. It might be that because of the new 24-70, (much) more used 28-70 will be available, which will reduce the price a bit I guess.

TK241 said:

i have the same nikon lens - it fell out of my bag, and hit the
ground hard enough (while still in the case) to shatter my filter (it
must have landed on the lens front). i tried focussing after and it
still worked, but i have it on a film camera so not sure if the
insides are OK.

Click to expand...

I fell from the stairs with it. Wearing tatami slippers on a wooden stair is not the best thing to do after a couple of glasses of Suntory whisky and Asahi Super Dry beer... Camera okay, lens not. Filter was gone and between the glass elements grease was making nice stains. Cleaning and possible repairing lens miss alignemt 30.000-40.000 Yen. By the way for the rest the lens was functioning well, no problems.

TK241 said:

i'll test it on my new D80 when i get it soon but if it's not working
i'll need to replace it.

i will get tokina 12-24 so i'm debating between the following as
other lens to compliment it:

Click to expand...

I use my lens also for my work (bump into people and into bad weather, besides that I need a fast constant one)

If not: I would go for the tamron 17-50, but only when you can try it out before you buy, warning is that there is a lot of sample diffrence, lens has excellent reviews on many sites and in many magazines.

However if you can get another 35-70 f/2.8D when your current one is broken down, I would buy that one immediately again.

Michel

--
~ Light is eveything ~
http://www.fotopropaganda.com
http://www.pbase.com/photopropaganda

Just so, I think it might be an advantage for wedding use too, which is what I bought the 16-50 for anyway. I have however not reached a conclusion on this issue. I suspect the posted crops are indicative of their relative sharpness however, as I could see this difference between the 16-50 on the D200 and the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS on the Canon 40D. I may yet return the 16-50 and rethink the Nikon 17-55, much as I dislike the asking price. For f/2.8 in this useful zoom range I see no options other than trying one Tokina after another in the hopes I can find one of comparable sharpness. And oh yes, a bit less PF would be a nice thing.

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-jts
http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall
Canon, Nikon and Olympus
equipment in profile

'From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.' Julia Margaret Cameron

It would be helpful to list your methods. For example, tripod, cable release, etc? The crops posted are compelling enough that this information becomes important.

Thanks.

--
-jts
http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall
Canon, Nikon and Olympus
equipment in profile

'From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.' Julia Margaret Cameron

For web posting the performance of this lens is up to par. The image here is the original pbase which was downsized from the camera to x768 (so, of course, this is not comparable to the detailed of a 100% crop comparison). Three strobes were used including on-camera (sb-800, sb-600x2) with two fired into umbrellas.

I have enough images PP from RAW with Lightroom v1.2 to say this lens is up to the job in this respect. I do not have 100% comparsion crops from this shoot but I shall shortly with the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 IS (comparable to the Nikon). They will be, unfortunately, all handheld as they were obtained during actual wedding conditions.



http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall/image/87462117
Nikon D200 1/60s f/5.6 at 17.0mm iso400

Yes, somebody still had their eyes closed even using Kebly's backward 3-count method! The sunglasses were an intended comic effect by the groom's uncle that I did not catch until PP. They are present in the previous wedding shoot with his niece. So at least he's consistent. We kidded him then, saying we were glad to have Secret Service protection! So of course they reappeared in this shoot.

--
-jts
http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall
Canon, Nikon and Olympus
equipment in profile

'From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.' Julia Margaret Cameron

Despite some cons I ordered the Tokina to join my 50-135 ;-) I hope I will be as enthusiastic about the 16-50 as I am on the 50-135. Now I have to wait till it arrives :-S

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I enjoy mine.
Do not forget to give us your first impressions.

Thanks Only the long wait is not really my thing...

Maybe a strange question for the owners here but do you have some pictures of the Tokina mounted on your camera?! ;-) Was looking for some examples but maybe you have some for me.

Something like this f.i.

You can find one picture of the lens mounted on a D200 on the review of photozone.de

I found it. Still more pictures are welcome.

Well, sort of. This is my assistant, who looks a lot like me only larger! Try to focus on the lens.



http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall/image/87786260



http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall/image/87786258

PS. I believe 'You Asked for It' appeared on Sunday night TV just before Walter Cronkite and 'The Twentieth Century'.

--
-jts
http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall
Canon, Nikon and Olympus
equipment in profile

'From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.' Julia Margaret Cameron

Thanks.

I don't understand what you mean with your last sentence.. I am from Europe so what show was one TV????

The show is from the 50's. Write in's with unusual requests were covered during the weekly program. It was very interesting to me as a kid. The whole family watched.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Asked_For_It

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-jts
http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall
Canon, Nikon and Olympus
equipment in profile

'From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.' Julia Margaret Cameron

Today I received my 16-50mm It had the same quality feel as the 50-135mm. In real life it looks better than on a picture when it is extended to 50mm.

The focus is superfast I must say! But then... the scale is very small so there is not much to turn. But this is a + for me.

Not really got to test at this time but I immediately saw the advantage of the 16mm over the 18mm I was used to.

as is well known. For group shots that extra 1mm is of benefit, which is why I have this lens in the first place ... event photography (in this case weddings and family events). So to me it makes some sense to cover 16-50 and 50-135 and in the process avoiding the 50-70 gap. It's not that the 50-70 gap is intolerable but if there's a way round it, good.

This brings to mind the inevitalble question: why not a 50-135 VR? Or say, a 50-150 VR (it has been said that Tokina dropped from 150 because they weren't happy with the 135-150mm results)? Indeed, why not a 16-50mm VR too? I very much like the Canon 17-55mm IS lens.

I look forward to hearing your impressions shooting the 16-50mm.

--
-jts
http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall
Canon, Nikon and Olympus
equipment in profile

'From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.' Julia Margaret Cameron

-jts
http://www.pbase.com/jtsmall
Canon, Nikon and Olympus
equipment in profile

'From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.' Julia Margaret Cameron

Any update to this thread? Like many I have been watching with interest, as I like my Tokina 12-24mm for it's image quality and solid build. I hate to see such a questionable result in the 16-50mm...

For me build quality and flash performance is important, so it's between the Tokina and the Nikkor - I just don't know if I can justify the price and the size/weight of the 17-55mm. Any chance that Nikon might update this lens with VR in the near future? It seems unlikely to me, as the new 24-70mm doesn't incorporate the feature.

Has anyone tried the Tokina on a D300? I read that the issue may actually be related to back-focus as opposed to optical sharpness, and the AF calibration on the D300 may be able to take care of it.

I have also seen posts suggesting that given a good example the lens is quite sharp - if not at 2.8 (extremes of 16 or 50mm), then buy about 3.5-4. The problem for me is that in Canada we don't actually have any Tokina dealers (that I can find), so I am forced to order from the US. This makes it significantly more difficult to deal with a bad copy of a lens, if I happen to get one. And that doesn't seem far-fetched, given the mixed reports on this lens so far.

Any updates or feedback would be appreciated. Again, thanks to everyone (especially jtsmall) for the effort that has gone into exploring this dilemna. jtsmall, have you made a final decision between the Tokina or stepping up to the Nikon?