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Tokina 17mm ATX Pro Lens


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I already have a 24-120mm lens for my Nikon D800. Im looking to get a bit wider then 24mm and see the Tokina lens as an option. Its an older lens. Will it hold up on a D800? Any other lens option is quite a bit more money and Im looking for an inexpensive ultra wide. But if it isn't sharp on a high megapixel camera, I may pass. I have looked at the 16-35, 18-35, 14-24, and so on. The first two aren't near as sharp as a prime lens, and the 14-24 which is close, is way up there in price. A 20mm prime isn't a big enough difference from 24mm. And there are really no primes below 20mm. And this Tokina is reasonable priced for a used lens. What say you?
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I love my Samyang 14mm. (make sure you get the MK II version... not the one with Aspheric in it's name) It's a pretty good astro lens too.

 

Equally I got an irresistable deal on the Nikon FX 8-15mm . It's a rather unique lens in going from 180 deg round to 15mm rectilinear....:-)

 

Despite both being extra wide they produce very different images.

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Equally I got an irresistable deal on the Nikon FX 8-15mm . It's a rather unique lens in going from 180 deg round to 15mm rectilinear....:)

 

Despite both being extra wide they produce very different images.

 

I thought the 8-15 was a circular fish-eye to a diagonal fish-eye (straight lines still get bent at 15mm, it just covers the full frame diagonal), not rectilinear? I've been tempted, but it's normally a bit expensive - I like my Sigma 8mm fish-eye, but I believe the Nikkor is a bit sharper.

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I already have a 24-120mm lens for my Nikon D800. Im looking to get a bit wider then 24mm and see the Tokina lens as an option. Its an older lens. Will it hold up on a D800? Any other lens option is quite a bit more money and Im looking for an inexpensive ultra wide. But if it isn't sharp on a high megapixel camera, I may pass. I have looked at the 16-35, 18-35, 14-24, and so on. The first two aren't near as sharp as a prime lens, and the 14-24 which is close, is way up there in price. A 20mm prime isn't a big enough difference from 24mm. And there are really no primes below 20mm. And this Tokina is reasonable priced for a used lens. What say you?

I've owned one for a number of years, and while it's not a "go to" lens for every day use, it's well made. It's also fairly sharp around two-stops down from maximum, while it's a bit soft-edged when I use it @ f/3.5. It does distort when the subjects get off the main lens axis, but any lens wider than 24mm has that "issue". I use it when I need a light-weight wide-angle, and I'm too lazy to carry my 16-35 f/4 Nikkor.

 

If you get it at the right price, it's a great deal.

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I have the Tokina AF version, and can't complain about it stopped down. I tried the older manual focus version that some say is better, but I didn't think it was as good. Though it's been a while since I compared, the Tokina 17 is better than the "good" Tokina 20-35 and a good bit better than the previous generation 18-35 Nikon.

 

My 17-35/f2.8 is better than the Tokina, though. Have not used the Tokina since getting the 17-35.

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When you get into the realm of a 17mm superwide, I think you need to either lower your expectations or open your wallet.

 

I've had the MF version of 17mm f/3.5 Tokina since film days, and really don't rate it very highly. Centrally it's very sharp with good contrast, but the corners and edges just don't get beyond quite smeary at any sensible aperture. My little 20mm f/3.5 Nikkor is a better lens, and very noticeably wider than a 24mm. (84 degrees HAOV versus 74 degrees)

 

Yes, the 14-24mm AFS Zoom-Nikkor is expensive, but IMO it's the gold standard for a super/ultra wide. And I'm afraid that the 17mm Tokina gets nowhere near it. Likewise with Tamron's 17mm, which might even be slightly worse.

 

As for the 'Quantaray' re-badged Sigma AF 18mm that I once had - urrggh! Don't even consider it.

 

If I get the chance I'll dig out the 17mm Tokina and pop it on the D800 to satisfy myself that it's as bad as I remember.

 

Oh, and take no notice of KR's rave reviews of it. He seemingly raves about everything he gets his hands on. "This lens is sharper than you'll ever be able to make use of", or words to that effect, wears a bit thin when it's been repeated a zillion times and applied to lenses that you personally know to be less-than-stellar.

Edited by rodeo_joe|1
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It is generally true, as I understand it, that ultrawides before the Nikkor 14-24 tended to be pretty iffy (excluding the Zeiss 21mm, which was always special); my only personal experience was of a 14mm Sigma prime, which was OFF*. I suspect Nikon worked something out, or possibly were first to a technology, and other optical engineers jumped on it, because the Zeiss 15mm, Samyang 14mm and Canon 12-24 are all a clear step up from older generations. I feel the same happened with the 70-300 zooms - before Canon's EF 70-300 IS, lenses in this range fairly universally sucked; after, both Nikon's and Tamron's 70-300 are pretty competitive. Or it could be coincidence. Retrofocal designs for fast normal primes seemed to come in from several manufacturers too, and cause a big step up in large-aperture performance - notably from Zeiss and Sigma.

 

If it makes you feel better, the 14-24 Nikkor has, at least in my sample, fairly horrendous field curvature. (I got Nikon UK to test it out, but I had to explain to them that field curvature isn't the same thing as barrel distortion, so I don't entirely trust the report that it was in spec. Still, Thom Hogan reported the same.) Mine is often stopped down to f/7-ish in order to manage it, for landscapes, which is a bit of a waste of the fast aperture and large front. If you want to get close to a single subject, it's less of a problem. If Nikon were to redesign one with a flat field, I'd look closely at the upgrade; I don't think I've heard that the Sigma is necessarily better. The 19mm TS probably is, but I need to save for a while.

 

* Trying to coin a new acronym: "okay for film". Is this already used?

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FWIW, here's what I got from the Tokina 17mm (old MF version) and D800 combo.

 

The weather was very dull, so the pictures are quite flat in contrast to begin with.

 

Here's the whole frame scene of my old garden shed:

whole-frame.thumb.jpg.397a6c860599b3897cc0d5e47d3c75b8.jpg

This was with the Tokina at f/3.5. As you can see, the vignetting is pretty horrendous, which causes issues with the matrix metering. There's a strong tendency to overexposure in the centre of the frame. The vignetting never really goes away at any aperture.

 

Here's a comparison with the 14-24mm Zoom-Nikkor @ f/3.5:

744783525_Comparisonf3-5.jpg.92d4883228bb5a363bf2173c180c9fc8.jpg

The Tokina is distinctly soft and lacking contrast by comparison.

 

By f/8 things have evened up in the centre.

40156817_Comparisonf8.jpg.5a2a111bd64f04ea491532b1ff183b02.jpg

The corners and edges are a different matter.

Corners-f8.jpg.130ac70d4d7eb37df9c5fd72d8e5962d.jpg

The blue fringed smear is about as good as it gets with the Tokina, and a change of focus has very little effect. OTOH, the Nikkor needed a change of focus to bring the corners into focus, from being focussed on the shed door. Whether this indicates curvature of field I'm uncertain. I tend to think that needing a change of focus between the shed door, at about 600mm, and the trees at about 20metres, isn't unexpected or unusual.

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