2005/11/22, Alexandru-Cristian Sarbu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > A friend of mine told me about the Tokina 19-35, in fact he is also > looking for a 'standard' lens. It's cheap, and - while affordable - > I'm concerned about it's optical quality: if any of you have this > lens, I would appreciate if you'll share your opinions about it.
Hi Alex, I've had one for almost 5 years now... Used it on my MZ5n, then more recently on my *istDS... It's great when you know its weaknesses and use it where it is best. I used it for wide and landscape photo on 35mm frame, and it performs reasonably well is you close it one or two stops (which I tend to do for landscape anyway). A bit of distortion, but nothing too terrible. At F=19mm, there is some fairly visible sharpness decrease in the borders, reduced when you stop down. So it's a great wide angle if you do not plan to use it much at f/3.5 for a 35mm frame. On APS-C frame (*ist Dx), it is cropped to a 28-50 equivalent, which is a much less convenient range. On the other hand, distortion, vignetting, and overall sharpness are better, because you only use the best part of the image. Even on APS-C format, it produces far more chromatic fringing than my new Sigma 18-125 3.5-5.6 DC. it is well-built. A bit bulky. Focussing and zooming rings are comfortable to use. Geat thing, although the front lens rotates during focusing, the filter thread is on the barrel around it, and does not move. Great for polarizer. The downside of this is that the filter diameter is a huge 77mm (if I remember well). And with a 35mm frame, don't try and buy a regular filter ring, I did and you get nice black corners. You have to buy a slim mount version. I have the Hoya HMC-Super slim, and it's great, but the filter alone is half the price of the lens. And you can't put a lens cap on it because it has no front thread. With APS frame, you should be able to use regular "thick" frame filters, anthough I haven't tried. It focuses reasonably fast and accurately. A minor plus is that this lens has a fixed length, while focusing and zooming. At 19mm with a 35mm frame, it causes considerable obstruction to the built-in flash, too. I enjoyed it very much on the 35mm SLR, and less on the DSLR. It's mostly not its fault, I just miss a wide angle, I should buy a 10-24mm if my wife doesn't kill me before. To me, the bottom line was: - buy a 18-55 or 18-125 instead for APS-C DSLR (I went to the 18-125) - keep it for very wide angle pictures with my 35mm film SLR. If anyone interested, I can provide crops of images done with it, both on the 35mm SLR and on *istDS. I've also calibrated this lens for distortion removal with PTLens. Profiles are available (although not on line yet). BTW, PTLens can't recognize this lens automagically, as the *istDS reports it as a Pentax 20-35 in the EXIF data. Regards Patrice
