Tokina 24-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AT-X

[David Kilpatrick]

A couple of days ago one of these appeared on eBay in Nikon mount. I've been wanting to find out whether they were a heap of complete rubbish, or vaguely useful on full frame, so I bought it and had it shipped to son Richard, who sent me a quick batch of Nikon D3S tests. It had some pretty severe vignetting, terrible 24mm geometry on flat subjects, and poor sharpness at the edges, but the bokeh was good on some close-ups. He felt his sample of the lens had been well used, quite worn. Then he found - something which had escaped all my searches - a nearly mint Minolta AF mount example with box, caps, lens hood for a fair price on eBay and sent me the link. He thinks he'll try the Nikon one on Fuji S5, if it's not much good we will sell it again.

I decided to risk it on the M-AF example. It arrived today (very fast ebayer, he has bought from me in the past). Sure, it's not much good wide open (strong CA and distortion - about the same as the Minolta 24-105mm). But stopped down I find it pretty good - even at f/16, not much loss of sharpness.

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No issues with cut-off corners on the A900, or any CA - which is interesting, the CA disappears on stopping down, not many w/a lenses do that.

David

[Fotogeorge]

David, I've owned this lens in the Sony mount for several years. I bought it new as an opened box. I agree that it is a good lens, with careful use. Shortly after purchase, I had the lens serviced by a Tokina service center, because of a lose mount and wiggley lens extension. It's been great ever since. After purchase, I used the lens with my Minolta 7D and MAXXUM 7. Now, I use the lens with the Alpha A-700. I usually use the lens for day-time public events. I don't have need of a fast aperture; I use aperture priority set at F/8. The sun here is usually very bright, so I frequently use a B&W cir polariser on the lens. I have many images shot with this lens on my Pbase gallery. Although it's heavier than I'd like, it's far lighter than the Sony 70-200mm lens. It was also much more affordable. Now, I am even more in need of finding good, inexpensive, light-weight lenses.

[David Kilpatrick]

Another couple from today;

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Cow lowing to calf in meadow - 135mm, f/11, 1/100th, ISO 320 - CA corrected in a fairly big way, but that only affected the extremes, quite lovely sharp focus on the animals (down to individual hairs smoothly shown)

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Preston Mill, East Lothian - 24mm, f/16, ISO 160, 1/80th - really great sharpness in depth probably helped by the field curvature of the lens in this example (edges focus closer than the centre)

Lovely day today, 22C, these are mid-day shots and I must correct my camera's 'clock' away from Croatian time!

David

[bfitzgerald]

I had this lens. Maybe I had a ropey sample..it was minty condition.
The worst lens I have used on a mount it was thumped by even the kit film lenses. The 75-300mm D blew it away in it's focal range
I shoot a roll of 35mm FF side by side with the 28-85mm and it tore bits off the Tokina then some more.
Lowest contrast I have ever seen on a lens, massive distortion WA and huge pincushion tele end. On 35mm it didn't impress poor overall WA even stopped down..lots of CA, vignetting is strong. It's also pretty heavy..on a good note it's got great build quality. APS-C was not as bad as expected but I ebayed it fairly rapidly. Funny thing is it turned up on a Dyxum and got a good review from the buyer.

I admit I never stopped it down to f16 at WA..but it didn't get there at f13 so I never bothered with it. But like I say might have had a bad copy of it. 28-85mm at 28mm f11 is great on film superb contrast and sharp corner to corner, just a hint of extreme corner softness at f8 28mm. I'd say the 24-85 and 24-105mm are both miles better than the 24-200mm.

[David Kilpatrick]

Yes, it's a very poor lens in many ways and contrast is extremely low, combined with vignetting that creates a difficult image to adjust. At anything wider than f/8 it's dodgy. But I took a few interiors and other shots at f/8 yesterday which are fine for Alamy use on the 900 - that means no visible aberration issues - and round 35-50mm focal length no CA correction was needed. It is very well made and the focusing though it seems vague manages to be accurate in the final pics.

I wanted this lens out of curiosity, to see what might be possible in future, and to have a single lens which could occasionally be used on the 900 for 'walkaround' shooting. I also had my 24-85mm, 70-300mm and 60mm macro on me yesterday and should not have left the 24-200mm on the camera, but in the end I did not lose any shots, and by forcing me to stop down to f/16 to be safe it's taught me that I should f/16 more often.

David

[bfitzgerald]

For me it was a combination of weaker areas that sealed it's fate. At first I thought the CA issues were "blooming", however a roll of film later proved that to not be the case..it's just got quite a lot of CA issues. That alone isn't a deal breaker..but add in the distortion, lack of sharpness and the other stuff. Hard to really recommend the lens based on that. Of course it's pretty cheap for an ebay buy has to be said and the range it covers is good even on APS-C (24mm still of some use not really wide but ok). Too heavy for someone who wants to travel lighter.

I thought the lens might do well on 35mm..that's what the interest was. Looking over my film scans it didn't impress. Ok it's not rare for a lens to want stopping down a fair bit..this however needs it across the range and a lot of it too!. So you're left with a pretty slow lens in terms of usability that could be a limitation for some.

[youpii]

Try the Tamron 24-135/3.5-5.6. Very decent when stopped down to 5.6-8 and nice colors.