Tokina 12-24 F4 : Nikon mount

[cameron_price]

Hi everyone. I am giving serious consideration to purchasing the Tokina

12-24 as my wide-angle zoom to replace my Nikkor 18-35 (a hold over from my

Velvia days). I've read a lot of reviews on the web about this lens, and there

seems to be mixed statements about its propensity to vignette with a polarizer

at 12mm. For those of you that have used/owned this lens, what are your

experiences with polarizer use and vignetting? Please let me know which

polarizer you used (I own a Hoya multi-coated non-slim circular polarizer).

Thanks.

[elmroc]

Cameron, I have this lens. Just purchased it about a month ago, and yes, i do get very slight vignetting at 12mm with a Polarizer. I have a Nikon 77mm Full sized circular polarizer that i use. Iget vignetted corners at 12mm

[tri-x1]

I've only had mine a couple of weeks and haven't tried a polarizer or filter. But I love the result it produces and its build.

[pete_s.]

Don't have the Tokina 12-24 but have the Nikon. Obviously you want to remove any other filter while using a polarizer but what difference does it make? If it vignettes at 12mm just back of the zoom a millimeter or two. At 12mm it can be also difficult to get even polarization of the sky due to the wide angle.

 

Peter

[ShunCheung]

If you use a polarizer on a super wide lens such as a 12mm on DX, you'll likely get uneven polarization anyway. So you'll get darkened corners even though the rim of the filter is not obstructing anything.

 

Personally, I have stopped using polarizers on such super wides.

[eric friedemann]

What Shun said- using a polarizer on an 18mm/35mm-format-equivalent lens is not advisable:

 

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/polarizers.shtml

[cameron_price]

I realize that blue skies will be unevenly polarized(when using wide angles). Of course, that's not the only use of a polarizer (in fact, I'm not even sure the last time I used my polarizer in this manner). I most often use it to enhance or subdue reflections on a reflective surface, or reduce glare (such as from wet leaves after a rain shower). So yea, lets get back to the original question of people's experiences with the Tokina 12-24 and vignetting, shall we?

[cwphoto]

I have this lens for several years, love it. It will vignette with a regular polarizer. I now have a thin polarizer & no problem. As to uneven sky polarization at 12mm. It might do this, however there's more to polarize than blue skies. I use it for foliage & water also.

[Sanford]

I used the recommended thin filter with the lens hood and definitely got dark corners. Even

without the lens hood the corners were dark. The lens hood has to be firmly locked into

place. If it is even slight turned it will cause two really dark corners. I've now settled into

using no hood and no filter and it works great that way.<div></div>

[Peter_in_PA]

Charlie looks like quite a character!

[Rich B NYC]

Mine also vignettes, even with a thin CPL. Although I don't normally use a CPL on my superwides, I tried it when I first got the lens just to see what would happen.

[eric friedemann]

Sanford, that horse shot is wonderful.

[joseph_wisniewski]

Curt is a very brave man, to speak an actual truth in this forum, while others are parroting "common knowledge".

 

Aside from all the lovely things it can do outdoors with nature on an ultrawide (foliage, lakes on an overcast day, a wide angle near/far composition with a dominating subject that can be de-glared without regard to the sky) there's an entire world of other uses, including architecture (indoors and out) and even group photos (o kill a shine on skin). If you can get tripod access in a museum, they're similarly useful.

 

And, for those of us in Michigan, we can use the polarizer on an ultrawide to darken the 20% of the sky that is normally visible at any given time through breaks in the clouds.

 

I'm surprised the Tokina 12-24 vignettes. I tried my standard (not slim) B+W on a Nikon 12-24 recently, with a flat white field (shot through a piece of paper) and there was no vignetting.

[bruce_margolis]

Cameron, I have seen some vignetting sometimes with this lens but it is a non-issue to me. It is easily corrected with most software today. I certainly wouldn't consider it a deal breaker because the optics and the build are just outstanding.

 

BTW, I use the Hoya S-HMC polarizer on it.

[rick_larkin]

I've used the Tokina 12-24 with a circular polarizer a fair amount and it does vignette a bit at 12mm in the corners. At 13mm it's gone. That's with a standard size filter. Using something like a B+W Slim should do the trick to eliminate it completely. Using Lightroom's Metadata Browser of my images reveals a little over 1700 photos taken with this lens. Of that, a fair amount has been from boats or rafts. It's a great lens by the way- with or without a polarizer. The example below shows vignetting as well as the uneven polarization Shun alluded to.<div></div>

[rick_larkin]

This was shot at 13mm<div></div>

[cameron_price]

Excellent. The photos were incredibly helpful, Rick. Many thanks!

[mihut_ionescu]

I use the Tokina 12-24mm lens with a *slim* B+W polarizer and I don't see any vignetting.

[rick_larkin]

You're welcome Cameron. Given my druthers, I prefer to avoid any filter if possible. But at times a polarizer is needed to cut some glare off the water and better reveal bottom structure that I'm over. Here's the same lens at 12mm (sans polarizer) in overcast light.<div></div>

[cameron_price]

Thanks again Rick. I just received my Tokina 12-24, and it does indeed vignette with my Hoya polarizer at 12mm, and it is indeed gone by 13mm. Now I'm onto my next concern about the lens: flare!

[les_barstow]

Congrats on the purchase. I use a slim Heliopan polarizer on my Tokina and don't see any vignetting under my normal shooting circumstances (I am always stopped down a couple of notches, which helps).

 

As for flare, I haven't noticed mine to be as bad as some of the reviews make it out to be. I just got it recently, so maybe I just haven't seen it at its worst, but it hasn't killed a shot yet.

[cameron_price]

I believe you're right about the flare, Les. I've tried to intentionally cause flare with this lens, and it seems that I only really get flare or ghosting when a very strong light source is directly in the frame. All in all, not a bad performance.