Customer Reviews

Tokina 12-24/4.0 AT-X 124 AF Pro DX Zoom Lens f/ Canon EOS Digital USA

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I lowered my pride and bought a third party lens. I have been horribly dissapointed with third party lenses in the past, but this lens is increadible! its very sharp and has less distortion than my 18-70mm nikkor AF-S DX lens! this lens has permanantly replaced the kit lens on my D70. I have been using this lens for about a month now and I the only complaint i have is minimal ghosting in direct sunlight. this is easily cured with a well placed hand. I can block all ghosting without getting my hand in the picture even at 12mm. i dont use the lens hood, so I dont know how effective it is. this lens is large and it will cause horrible shadows with the built in flash or an attached speedlight. it will also cause shadows while in commander mode with a wireless set up. this is not a concern for me. I simply hold my speedligh in front of my built in flash in commander mode when ever I need a flash. I have used a nomal thickness UV filter with this lens (hoya 77mm) and i could see no distortion at all at any settings. I am a diehard nikkor fanantic, however, I am very impressed with this lens. I would definently recommmend this lens over the poorly built $1000 nikkor version.

This lens is astonishingly good value. Price, build and optical quality really shine with this beauty.

Normally I am less than impressed with zoom lenses, I prefer primes. However I had owned Tokina lenses before with total satisfaction and so bought the 12-24mm for ultrawide shots on my Canon 400D.

Quite honestly I am hugely impressed with this lens. In my opinion it is very sharp over the whole frame by f5.6 (all my photography is done on a tripod for maximum sharpness). The build quality is easily as good as the best maker's lenses, the whole package exudes confidence and quality. At this price point the lens is a serious bargain, a keeper for sure.

I never thought that I would say this about a non-Nikon lens, but this is one of my favorite lenses to use. You can easily save the hundreds of dollars by purchasing this one instead of the Nikon/Canon equivalent and feel comfortable about purchasing a quality off-brand lens.

The images are sharp at both ends and quite crisp and clear. The lens feels solid and is built to last. This is definitely one of the best wide-angle zoom lenses that I've ever used. Very good buy.

I shoot RAW with a 40D and the resulting images are sharp and well-defined. There are the usual distortions with this level of lens but no more than with the Sigma or Canon lenses of 10-20 mm range. Excellent option to the Canon and Sigma choices.

I have had the Tokina 12-24mm for 3 years and it is an amazing lens. Incredibly well built, sharp and great contrast. All my other lenses are Canon L -- and this one keeps right up with them. The ability to go super-wide (past 17mm) is a lot of fun -- -enables a lot of creative shots and adds a great sense of depth to landscapes.

I have compared the Tokina directly to the Sigma 12-24 and Canon 10-20mm lenses. I thought the Sigma was nearly as good in picture quality, but not nearly as well built as the Tokina. The Sigma may have even been a touch sharper, but the color saturation and slight warmth of the Tokina create strikingly beautiful images with very little retouching. The Tokina lens is nearly all metal with great grippy dials -- the Canon and Sigma are mostly constructed of plastic. I also liked that the Tokina is a fixed f4 in aperture - enabling more flexibility in exposure. The Sigma is only f4 at 12mm, and then you lose a stop to f5.6 if you zoom in at all -- requiring more light for the same exposure.

The extra 2mm of vantage that the Canon 10-20mm provides (over the 12-24mm Sigma and Tokina) is attractive, but I thought the barrel distortion ("fisheye" effect) was pretty pronounced between 10-12 mm. It's not too tough to fix the distortion in photoshop -- but considering the significant extra expense for the Canon and the great images I got out of the Tokina I decided to stick with the Tokina tank. Only downside of Tokina is that the autofocus is slow -- but I rarely am trying to catch anything in motion with a super-wide angle lens anyway.

Anyway -- even from a Canon L devotee, I say this lens is a 6 out of 5. Especially when you take the price into consideration -- worth every penny.

Some samples are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoneman

If you want a lens that is sharp and contrasty then this is a good choice. I have been very impressed with the quality of the images taken with my XTi when using this lens. Recently, I took it on a trip to Utah and we stopped briefly in Arches NP where I got to use it at Double Arch. My images are superb. If you want a good wide angle zoom then I think you cannot go wrong with this lens. It's not perfect but nearly so. Works great with the new Cokin Wide Angle P Series holder as well.

for the past 3 years i have been shooting with a canon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 as an every day lens and a canon 16-35mm f/2.8 when i could get my hands on one. after my professor and adviser recommended the tokina 12-24mm to me several times, i finally splurged and bought one. OH MAN do i love it.

sturdier than the 24-85 and significantly less bulky than the 16-35, i find it sharper than either lens at any aperture. the manual focus ring is nice and tight and because the zoom element is internal, it does not slide when pointed down. the auto focus is a touch noisy, but pretty quick and accurate. over all, it is very well built.

not to mention, the super wide angle makes excellent and interesting images. it is great for landscape photography and close-up portraits, among many other things.

i definitely recommend this lens. it is well worth the money.

The Tokina lens arrived at noon today. I have had a ball shooting wide pictures.17th Street provided good service. I will order from them again because of their courtesy. They refuuded my shipping cost when my package arrived late.

I've used only one Tokina lens prior to this one, but it was one of my most beloved lenses, the 80-200 f/2.8 from some 15 years ago.

So I had no qualms about buying another Tokina to fit the ultra-wide slot in my lens lineup.

I can't say enough about this lens. Well-built, sharp as all get out, easy to use, minimal distortion. It's a joy to use, even if a bit heavier than comparable lenses.

I've had a few dogs among my third-party lens purchases over the years, but this isn't one of them.

It's built like a tank. The push-pull system to switch between manual and auto focus is very well done (My Tamron 90mm macro had a similar system that worked really well, too) and a far cry better than Canon lenses.

If I could give it six stars, I would.

I have never had such mixed feelings about a photography product. Overall, it's still the most-used lens in my arsenal of 5 lenses, but it has a flaw that drives me up the wall. It can't autofocus worth a damn. If I aim at something 15 feet away, it will usually focus at about 3-5 feet. It does better in bright light with a narrow aperture, such as shooting landscapes, but a blind monkey could focus in those conditions, and even then it sometimes short-focuses beyond the range of the aperture setting.

I sent it back to Tokina and at first I was very happy to be given the e-mail address of an actual person, and he made me feel all warm and fuzzy about getting it fixed and back to me right away. It ended up taking 11 weeks to get it back, and they would never give me status. I had to keep calling to get the latest ETA. And you know what, when it came back, I think it was even worse.

That said, on those rare times when it focus properly, or more often, when I switch to manual, I really like this lens. The wide field of view is wonderful and I could never live without a wide angle lens again (most newbies run out and buy a long telephoto as their first accessory - if that's you, I highly recommend you re-think that idea, as super wide angles excel at both landscapes and interior shots in small rooms. I use the Tokina 20X more than my Canon L 70-200).
The build construction is great, and the picture clarity is very good, with only a mild hit at the extremes of focal length and aperture settings.

So, I mostly recommend this lens - just cross your fingers you don't get a brain-dead focuser like I did. (BTW: it behaved the same on both my Canon 40D and 60D)