Tokina 12-24/F4 verses Nikon 12-24/F4

The Tokina 12-24/F4 has now trickled into the market place and is

being constantly sold out. Does anyone have any experience with it yet?

Why exclude the full frame Sigma 12-24 here?

Maybe he's partial to Tokina and Nikon? Maybe he's had a bad experience with Sigma?

I've seen a lot written on the Nikon and the Sigma, but no tests on the new Tokina. I'm interested too.

Some more information for you, but it looks like the jury is still out on this new lens

 

http://www.nikonians.org/dcforum/DCForumID17/1113.html

http://www.nikonians.org/dcforum/DCForumID17/1119.html#7

Although I don't own the Tokina 12-24, but do own the Nikon, I can give an educated guess as to the differences...The Tokina will have very similar performance at all focal lengths and f stops except for 12mm and wide open, here the Nikon will slightly surpass it; the Tokina will be heavier, good because it signals build quality, bad because the Nikon can perform as well/better with less weight; the Tokina, if a screw focus vs Nikon's AFS will focus slightly slower, be slightly noisier, and use slightly more battery life than the Nikon; I suspect resale of used lens will be similar, you would expect to lose about 20% of the new value should you sell. I believe it's priced right for the few differences it has with the Nikon. Bob.

Practical Photography Magazine in the UK picked the Sigma full frame 12-24mm the lens of the year, so throw it into this discussion. Also, since so many d70 users purchase the 18-70mm kit lens, perhaps, a 10-18mm lens would be more useful to have.

Some people are wary of the Sigma 12-24mm. zoom because its unusual "Popeye" design makes using filters difficult. I own the lens and the filter issue is not important to me. Optically, it's a very good lens.

Here, vbd70 has posted some "tests":

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1034&message=11824506

The latest Shutterbug magazine has an extensive article on the Sigma 12-24mm. Not so much a test report as a photo layout showing a field trip to the arabian desert. The author found the lens useful on both film and digital cameras. I think the lens is an HSM silent wave drive like the AFS.

I've used he Sigma 12-24 for several months, and like it a lot. It does have a silent

internal-motor HSM (similar to AFS) focus

system. As Douglas said, front filters won't work with this lens (although in theory you

can use the strange lenscap to mount an 82?? mm filter that can function at the long end

of the zoom range on a sub-frame DSLR). It's not fast (maximum f4.5) but it's very

surprisingly sharp and has amazingly low distortion. It's physically rather large, and

seems well built -- although not as elegant as a top-tier Nikon or Canon lens.

 

Caveat: I have not used this lens on a film camera, but it works very well on a 1.3X crop

factor DSLR (Canon 1D).

I have the Tokina, returned the Nikon. From someone who has used both here goes.

Image quality almost exactly the same. Build quality, goes slightly to the Tokina. Focus

speed goes slightly to the Nikon. (lack of) distortion a toss up. While the Nikon has less

distortion at 12mm than the Tokina, the distortion of the Tokina is what I EXPECT to see,

so it's almost welcomed in my opinion. The lack of the distortion in the Nikon gave made

me always check and see if I was at 12mm....Oh the last thing that REALLY annoyed me.

the Nikon zooms in the opposite direction than any other zoom I have ever used, which

makes it couter intuitive to use. The Tokina is a dream to use and at 1/2 the price, was a

no brainer.<div></div>

John, Thank you for the information. This is what I was hoping for. I have one on order now.

Could you clarify what you mean by the Tokina having distortion you'd expect to see? As in, it has normal spherical barrel distortion that can be easily corrected, unlike the Nikon's "mustache" type distortion? Thanks.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/digital-wide-zooms/comparison.htm