Tokina AT-X 107 DX 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 Fisheye
Started By
Dallas
, 15 May 2009 19:03
3 replies to this topic
#1
Dallas
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Posted 15 May 2009 - 19:03
Please post your experiences with this lens here. This topic will be indexed on our Equipment pages.
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#2
kanzlr
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Posted 18 June 2009 - 11:06
bought this lens for my now-sold D200 to replace the not-so-fishy-on-dx zentiar.
I was surprised how useful this lens is, especially if you combine it with the fisheye-hemi plugin from imagetrends.
It is surprisingly sharp, shows some CA, has good contrast and typically good tokina colors and, for close ups, smooth OOF rendition. Highly recommended.
I was surprised how useful this lens is, especially if you combine it with the fisheye-hemi plugin from imagetrends.
It is surprisingly sharp, shows some CA, has good contrast and typically good tokina colors and, for close ups, smooth OOF rendition. Highly recommended.
#3
Phiggys
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Posted 25 June 2009 - 18:12
Got one of these earlier this year as I found the even the Sigma HSM 10-20mm wasn't always wide enough to meet my needs.I have some really pleasing images that I have already taken with this lens.
If you are looking for a fisheye with that bit extra I would Highly Recommend this lens.
#4
gsabbio
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Posted 28 December 2011 - 08:46
Assured by several good feedbacks, I bought mine one on nov.2011.
The lens body is pleasantly small and strong.
The autofocus (on D7000) is a bit slow also compared to other not AFS Nikkor lenses, but this is not an issue unless you need to point and shoot in really short time (anyway I lost some pix because of this, so it's better to have it ready pre-focused to the proper distance).
Before to buy it, I compared the corner results with my old and beloved SMC Takumar 17mm f4 fisheye, a screw attachment lens modified for Nikon, that in the 'film age' was among my best lenses ever, but in the 'digital era' is showing the limits of its optical design, with a low quality in the corners (on DX format)
In the comparison (at 17mm), the tokina was not super... but at least a bit better in the corners vs. the Takumar, so I bought it.
Ok... it wasn't a good deal.
My lens is overexposing at least 1,5 stops
The lens treatment is effective also in critical front sunlight, and that's a sure good point.
The chromatic aberration is generally visible but acceptable.
At 17mm, and only at f8, the sharpness in the corners is becoming acceptable (but not good), but, it's still poor at 10mm (f8).
Wide open this lens is not usable unless for very low enlargements, because of its softness outside the centre of the frame, that is visible also when the image is simply displayed at 16" desktop dimensions.
So, the general performance is low and that's a pity, because this lens offers an interesting creativity also on FX format (I have no digital FX but on my F100 it looks pretty funny and even usable at 12mm; at wider focal lengths the lens hood becomes visible in the corners).
Maybe somebody would ask for: "Why do you bother for the corners? Well, I'm used to enjoy the fisheye lenses since over 20 years (I always told that in a photographer gear there are two 'must': a 300mm f2,8 and a fisheye... between these two... you can use what you want). Anyway, properly for it's extreme image impact, the image's readers is pushed to deeply look into the corners that are becoming a really important part of the composition, and for this reason the lens used must have an acceptable sharpness.
In my opinion it's still a 'concept lens' to be further tuned, the creativity options are really interesting and worth to be developed also on the FX format, but the optical quality it's still not satisfying.
For this reason my judgement is only 2 stars
Update August 2012
I recently bought the D800.
On full frame this lens would be usable till 12mm, after that the lens hood becomes visibe.
But the quality is very very poor even deeply stopped down, so, it is not usable at all.
Strange... on full frame the quality of my old and beloved Takumar 17mm fisheye is widely better of what I saw on APS size, I mean that it's quality do not degrade in the corners, so, it is enough to stop it at F8-11 and I can get perfect images from the center to the corners, not extremely sharp but quite good anyway, and suitable also for enlargements.
So: my Tokina will remain as an APS tool, but I rate it no more than two stars.
The lens body is pleasantly small and strong.
The autofocus (on D7000) is a bit slow also compared to other not AFS Nikkor lenses, but this is not an issue unless you need to point and shoot in really short time (anyway I lost some pix because of this, so it's better to have it ready pre-focused to the proper distance).
Before to buy it, I compared the corner results with my old and beloved SMC Takumar 17mm f4 fisheye, a screw attachment lens modified for Nikon, that in the 'film age' was among my best lenses ever, but in the 'digital era' is showing the limits of its optical design, with a low quality in the corners (on DX format)
In the comparison (at 17mm), the tokina was not super... but at least a bit better in the corners vs. the Takumar, so I bought it.
Ok... it wasn't a good deal.
My lens is overexposing at least 1,5 stops
The lens treatment is effective also in critical front sunlight, and that's a sure good point.
The chromatic aberration is generally visible but acceptable.
At 17mm, and only at f8, the sharpness in the corners is becoming acceptable (but not good), but, it's still poor at 10mm (f8).
Wide open this lens is not usable unless for very low enlargements, because of its softness outside the centre of the frame, that is visible also when the image is simply displayed at 16" desktop dimensions.
So, the general performance is low and that's a pity, because this lens offers an interesting creativity also on FX format (I have no digital FX but on my F100 it looks pretty funny and even usable at 12mm; at wider focal lengths the lens hood becomes visible in the corners).
Maybe somebody would ask for: "Why do you bother for the corners? Well, I'm used to enjoy the fisheye lenses since over 20 years (I always told that in a photographer gear there are two 'must': a 300mm f2,8 and a fisheye... between these two... you can use what you want). Anyway, properly for it's extreme image impact, the image's readers is pushed to deeply look into the corners that are becoming a really important part of the composition, and for this reason the lens used must have an acceptable sharpness.
In my opinion it's still a 'concept lens' to be further tuned, the creativity options are really interesting and worth to be developed also on the FX format, but the optical quality it's still not satisfying.
For this reason my judgement is only 2 stars
Update August 2012
I recently bought the D800.
On full frame this lens would be usable till 12mm, after that the lens hood becomes visibe.
But the quality is very very poor even deeply stopped down, so, it is not usable at all.
Strange... on full frame the quality of my old and beloved Takumar 17mm fisheye is widely better of what I saw on APS size, I mean that it's quality do not degrade in the corners, so, it is enough to stop it at F8-11 and I can get perfect images from the center to the corners, not extremely sharp but quite good anyway, and suitable also for enlargements.
So: my Tokina will remain as an APS tool, but I rate it no more than two stars.
Edited by gsabbio, 01 September 2012 - 19:54 .
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