Tokina 16-50mm f/2.8 DX

Tokina 16-50mm

Back in the summer of 2007, I was in a public park taking some shots and I had one of my photography bags stolen. One of the lenses in there was my Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 which is probably my most used lens. Clearly, I needed to replace the lens as quickly as possible but with insurance being insurance, I wasn’t getting back the whole purchase price of course and with having to aslo

replace a couple other lenses I was trying to keep the cost down.

It was around this time that Tokina was releasing their 16-50mm f/2.8 DX lens and it was becoming available from more sources. Since it was a great deal less than the Nikon, covered a very similar range with a constant f/2.8 aperture I was interested. As somebody who works with their equipment, its not treated with kid gloves, and I knew from past experience, Tokina really knows how to build a lens to last. Considering all these things, I was sold and decided to give it a try.

First things first, the build quality is incredibly good. Really, there just aren’t that many lenses produced anymore that are even in the same ballpark. Its beautiful to hold and even things like the zoom and focus rings are quite smooth, not like the old manual focus lenses of course, but none too shabby either. It is a big lens as you’d expect from the specifications. It shares the same 77mm filter attachment with the Nikon, which I was happy about as pro lenses are quite often this size and it makes life so much more simple not having to buy various filters in different sizes - not to mention the expense as a decent quality 77mm circular polarizing filter costs quite a few pennies.

The focus accuracy with my D200 and S5 pro wasn’t excellent in all honesty. It was close, but at large aperture settings it never seemed to be spot on. As Tokina do not have an AF-S/HSM motor equivalent, its relies on the motor in the camera body. I can’t complain about the focus speed as I found it more than up to the task for what I needed. They also have a rather innovative clutch mechanism, so that you can pull the focus ring towards you at any time no matter what focus mode you’re in and manually tweak it. Its not as elegant as Nikon’s AF-S approach of being able to take control on the focus ring at any time in single focus mode, but its a cleaver and useful alternative for a company that hasn’t developed AF-S/HSM motors as of yet.

Sharpness at f/2.8 was OK, it wasn’t good and certainly wasn’t great but it was usable in the centre. At f/4 though, it was a different story altogether as it sharpened up very nicely and by f/5.6 it was very sharp and I’d have no complaints there. Its just there was such a noticeable difference as you’d go from f/2.8 up to f/5.6. Every lens gets better of course, but this one didn’t even require looking very hard as it went from being relatively disappointing to being great at medium aperture.

Chromatic aberrations, well - I mean it is a Tokina isn’t it so what are we expecting. I get so frustrated with this company sometimes as they build lenses that often put Nikon to shame for the amount of money charged. They come up with some unique offerings, they are partners with Pentax yet obviously don’t have access to their coating technology and for whatever reason haven’t developed their own yet. This is the one area that effects every lens of theirs I’ve ever used. Their lenses are always significantly worse in this regard and its such a shame, they really need to put some serious thought and development into fixing this as they’ve got everything else down nicely. CA’s of course are never a deal breaker as they are the one optical issue that is relatively easy to fix in software so on a lens that has many other things going for it, you can overlook CA’s up to a point, especially when you shoot RAW.

The end of the story is, I didn’t actually keep this lens. I used it for about a month and then decided to get another Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 DX. That’s not to say the Tokina is a bad lens, in fact its quite the opposite as it has a lot going for it. Its just I need great performance right from f/2.8 as I’m not really bothered by the time we get to f/8 as I never get to shoot up there. I need to be able to shoot in a dark church or reception and with a silent AF motor, so this lens did not fit my needs unfortunately. It will for other people though as there are many things it does well. I’m reminded of the Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 that I shot with for about a year. It too wasn’t great at f2.8 (although certainly usable beyond any doubt), but by the time it got up to f/5.6 and especially f/8, it was a totally different lens and a truly excellent one at that. As always, it all comes down to what you want to shoot. Recommended, but with conditions concerning what you plan on shooting the most.