Tokina 12-24mm lens tested
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 1:54AM 
The Tokina AT-X Pro SD 12-24mm F4 (IF) DX is a lens that could easily be overlooked by buyers considering a wideangle zoom, simply because of its more limited angle of view compared to most similar lenses on the market. But perhaps because of its more modest aspirations, it comprehensively outperforms the other third party APS-C wideangle zooms we’ve tested recently, i.e. the Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM and the Tamron 10-24mm F3.5-4.5 Di-II. It’s simply a much sharper lens, especially wide open, delivering consistently good results at almost all settings; it also scores well with respect to its distortion and falloff characteristics. These characteristics, coupled with the constant F4 maximum aperture, makes it much better suited to shooting interiors or in low light than similar lenses (with the exception of Tokina’s own 11-16mm F2.8), adding to its overall versatility. This from an extremely solid, well-built lens which feels like it would shrug off knocks capable of breaking less rugged designs, and which also has excellent operational characteristics; the zoom and focus rings are impressively smooth, and the focus clutch system is one of the better-implemented of its kind.
digital, lens, photography, tokina in Hardware 
