Posted by Joel Hazelton on March 24, 2009 at 3:02 PM
I'm looking to upgrade my lens (Sigma 10-20) to a better, sharper super-wide. My first choice was obviously the Canon 10-22, but I've read some positive reviews on the Tokina AT-X 12-24. This lens is a couple hundred bucks cheaper than the Canon. Although I'm willing to spend the extra for the Canon, is this Tokina lens as good or better? I'm using a Canon 40D.
Heard nothing but positive reviews for this lens myself.
However, losing 2 mm on the wide end may be more than you imagine as you can see in the graphic.
I use a Sigma 10-20 lens with a 40D and it's plenty sharp!
Images from that lens need to be sharpened just like all images from a DSLR.
Seems like what you post here using that combo. look pretty good.
Posted by Joel Hazelton on March 25, 2009 at 12:48 AM
Well, I actually zoom to 12mm on every shot with my sigma 10-20. I find it significantly sharper around the edges than at 10mm.
Also, I dropped the whole setup in a bedrock creekbed with running water the other day (actually it fell off my tripod) and the lens broke. Something broke in the focus ring and it won't focus. It looks like about a $200 repair and possibly over a month wait to send it to Sigma, and I was honestly looking to upgrade sometime around fall anyhow, and I can't justify the money to repair it when I'm going to get a new one some point in the near future.
Check out these user reviews of the Tokina lens at Fred Miranda.
Note that the new Tokina 10-17mm lens also gets plenty of positive reviews there, as well.
Tokina 11-16 pretty good too, but I love the 12-24. It's solid and sharp - I am Nikon user and I heard that it is better than Nikon 12-24
Posted by Joel Hazelton on March 25, 2009 at 2:39 PM
John- It looks like the 10-17 is a fisheye lens. I've actually used a fisheye for nature photography before (back when I had a Nikon FE). Too much distortion for my taste. Thanks for the link though, those reviews do look good on the 12-24.
I think I'm going to go for the 12-24. The 11-16 is tempting with the extra mm of zoom on the wide end, but I think I would benefit more from the extra 8 mm of zoom on the 12-24. Plus Tokina just came out with the new MkII 12-24 with some additional coating and such that helps control flare, which seemed to be one of the main issues with the original 12-24. I'm not sure if they've worked on controlling CA in the new version, but I'm not too concerned about that.
I've had a 12-24 tokina for about 3 years now and absolutely love the lens. It is very sharp, the extra bit of zoom is very useful and it' s one of my workhorse lenses. I have nothing but good to say about the lens and learned early on what situations caused flare, I'd say it's definitely worth it.
Discussion
6 repliesThanks for any advice.
However, losing 2 mm on the wide end may be more than you imagine as you can see in the graphic.
I use a Sigma 10-20 lens with a 40D and it's plenty sharp!
Images from that lens need to be sharpened just like all images from a DSLR.
Seems like what you post here using that combo. look pretty good.
Also, I dropped the whole setup in a bedrock creekbed with running water the other day (actually it fell off my tripod) and the lens broke. Something broke in the focus ring and it won't focus. It looks like about a $200 repair and possibly over a month wait to send it to Sigma, and I was honestly looking to upgrade sometime around fall anyhow, and I can't justify the money to repair it when I'm going to get a new one some point in the near future.
Note that the new Tokina 10-17mm lens also gets plenty of positive reviews there, as well.
I think I'm going to go for the 12-24. The 11-16 is tempting with the extra mm of zoom on the wide end, but I think I would benefit more from the extra 8 mm of zoom on the 12-24. Plus Tokina just came out with the new MkII 12-24 with some additional coating and such that helps control flare, which seemed to be one of the main issues with the original 12-24. I'm not sure if they've worked on controlling CA in the new version, but I'm not too concerned about that.