First Encounter with Tokina 16-28 F2.8 FX PRO

[crabball]

Dear All,

Just got my hands on the new Tokina 16-28 F2.8 FX PRO lens (for FF camera supposely). Below is my personal experience (personal opinion only) with the lens. Please note that the review may not be indicative of the performance of the lens as i'm a noob still learning to use my camera correctly

So here goes:

First Touch:
1. Lens is heavy (950g)
2. Built is solid
3. Zoom ring is heavy but smooth (could be due to the 15 groups of glass inside)
4. Finishing is good
5. No Filter Thread but come with Fixed Lens hood
6. Lens cap cannot make it. (just a ribbed rubber cap that is very loose so likely after some use, it will drop out by itself) - no known price on the replacement part yet.

[Photos of the Lens coming Soon]

Test Shoot in the shop
1. Image is sharp
2. No vignett at all focal length
3. Color is rich and nice
4. Focus is fast and quiet

Test Shoot at Marina Bay
Shooting condition :
1. Strong Wind
2. Overcast sky
3. Light rain
4. Spotlight testing going on in preparation for New Year Eve Celebration
5. Camera on light tripod, remote shuttle release and Mirror lockup

The following photos are shot using Canon 5Dmk2 and Tokina 16-28 F2.8 FX Pro. No PP is done except for conversion to JPG. Please click on thumbnail for full res image.

Focal Length Comparison:-

Photo shot at 16mm, F16, 13s:


Photo shot at 28mm, F16, 13s:


Bokeh 27mm, F2.8, 1/10s:


Ultra Long Exposure 16mm, F10, 239s:

 

[ed9119]

hi crab,

thread released for public viewing and for you to continue adding resources, images and info

u have 12 hrs till midnight tonight to add more content to your review.... thanks

 

[crabball]

<continue..>
Lens Flare Comparison, Constant aperture, ISO
Ultra Long Exposure

Note the rainbow colored flare from the street lamps

Long Exposure

The rainbow colored flares are less obvious in this case.

Effect of light source from the side:

Notice the flare coming from the right side of the photo

Color of image


Like the color of the image. It is the same as what can be seen yesterday

 

[crabball]

Sharpness of the image:

This is a crop from the original B/W image to show the reflection of the street lamp in a puddle of water.


This is another crop from the colored image. There is a rainbow flare again in the reflection of the street lamp from the puddle of water. This can also be seen in the photo of source streetlamp.

Personal Feel
1. Image is sharp
2. Color is rich
3. Flare is well controlled unless you have a large amount of light coming form an angle.
4. Starburst are nice
5. A Little CA in 30 sec long exposure shot for very brightly lit area with color lighting
6. Worth the money i pay for the lens (till date)

The remaining photos i took during the test can be found at the link below:

http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k...d sharing/Tokina 16 to 28mm FX Pro Lens Test/

http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k315/crabball/Public/Night at Labrador Park/

more feedback after i use the lens more

Hope it is help to those looking for this lens

 

[Wurdelak]

hi, may i know how much did you bought the lens? thanks!

 

[crabball]

hi, may i know how much did you bought the lens? thanks!

err... better u call cathay photo to find out. Last check there's 4 sets left

 

[crabball]

Next are some photos taken on buildings for those interested in archi photo. Please note that i didn't straighten the horizon nor fixed the distortion in order to show the characteristic of the lens. All Shots are done on handheld.

1. View from Suntec fountain of fortune:

Notice that the lines are good and the windows are sharp

2. Another Photo from the fountain of fortune


3. The support on the roof of Sky Garden

The beams are straight and sharpness is throughout the photo. DOF is Good

4. Top down shot of the decoration in Suntec.

Notice that the hanging angel is sharp as well

That's all for now. Hope i can go out and do some archi and Landscape shoot over the weekend.

To be Continued....

Happy New Year

 

[crabball]

So First set of photos for the Year 2011 taken using the Tokina comes from the Fireworks at Marina Bay.

The photos turns out sharp and the colour is nice. The rainbow flare didn't makes it appearance this time round though which is quite interesting. Maybe it was covered by the fireworks but more likely i think there's not enough water vapour in the air last night to generate the "rainbow". Need more time to test that out.

Below are 2 sample photos with adjustment to remove the distortion and cropping (for framing purpose) with the usual Level and curve adjustment.

Sample Photo 1 :


Sample Photo 2 :


For those that wants to see the rest of the photos from the NY2011 celebration. Please visit : http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k315/crabball/Public/New Year Fireworks 2011/

I will be posting the shots taken during day time soon for those interested to see how the lens perform in the day.

So far, i'm still very happy with my lens apart from the mysterious "rainbow" flare.


Enjoy and have a happy new year ahead.

 

[crabball]

... reserved.....

 

[ricleo]

thanks for the efforts on the review thus far.agree on your comment on the 5th image and 6th image.

apart from the demonstrations of the lens flare coming from the sides, weird that when there are light sources within the frame, not bright ones shining directly at the camera, but stuff like lamposts, there seems to be some sort of "rainbow" flare effect. Dont seem to see this type of effect with lenses i've used b4, both WA and Tele.

for the first image, the flare from the spotlight was rather bad, cutting into the image contrast although the spotlight was not inside the image. was the spolight right at the edge just outside viewing angle?

 

[crabball]

thanks for the efforts on the review thus far.agree on your comment on the 5th image and 6th image.

apart from the demonstrations of the lens flare coming from the sides, weird that when there are light sources within the frame, not bright ones shining directly at the camera, but stuff like lamposts, there seems to be some sort of "rainbow" flare effect. Dont seem to see this type of effect with lenses i've used b4, both WA and Tele.

for the first image, the flare from the spotlight was rather bad, cutting into the image contrast although the spotlight was not inside the image. was the spolight right at the edge just outside viewing angle?

Thanks for reading through my review. Hope it is useful in some way

I'm also curious why the rainbow effect for light sources from front, first time i encounter this from my use of UWA and Tele as well. Need more images to figure out why it's there but i highly suspect that this is due to light reflecting off water vapour in the air. My reason for suspecting this is becos on the first night the photo is taken, there is a slight drizzle. On the second night, i took the shots just after the rain. Thus, you can "feel" the water still in the air. I'm going to find a night where there's no rain throughout the day and redo the shoot. Another factor to consider could be the long exposure used to take the photo.

You are right about the first image. There's one whole bunch of yellow spotlights just outside the fov of the camera facing into the area of focus. As the organisers is doing some rehearsal of the lights (i think in preparation for tonight's celebration), it could have projected it's beam into the camera fov.