Before purchasing this lens, I'd been searching for a reasonable ultra-wide-angle lens for my D800. This was among 4 or 5 options in consideration. I love my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 Pro DX Digital Zoom Lens Nikon for DX, and had wanted an equivalent lens for full frame.
This is my third Tokina lens, behind the 11-16mm f/2.8 and 100mm macro. I'd been satisfied with those two, and so decided to give this lens a try.
First off, mechanics:
The build quality is typical of Tokina; that is to say: very good. It feels perfectly solid in the hands, and I doubt anyone would complain about the quality of the construction. One thing that I'd noticed, however, is that the zoom and focus rings are a bit more loose than the 11-16mm. This perhaps makes the lens a bit more usable, but at the same time gives it a different feel than I'm used to.
The focus and zoom rings are spaced well, and allow for easy manual focus. One thing to note: when changing the clutch from AF to MF, or vice versa, the focus setting can change slightly. This can sometimes be obnoxious, though it will not matter for most use.
Despite, on paper, only being slightly larger than the 11-16mm, make no mistake, this is a larger lens. It is just generally bigger in all regards. Despite being fairly large, it 'looks' like an appropriate size on the D800. The 82mm filter thread is annoying, but it is better than none at all. Anything other than a UV filter at this size can be a bit pricey.
Second, optics:
I've not had as much chance as I'd like to to 'real world' testing, so most of these findings are based off of test-type environments. I understand that this lens seems to have a moderately-high variance in quality (based on internet searching), so I can't generalize beyond my copy:
In the center, it seems to be sharp at all settings. Wide open is definitely less sharp than f/5.6 and beyond, but still not bad at all.
Towards the moderate corners, it is fairly sharp wide open, and plenty sharp from f/5.6 onward. Seems to be better at the wider focal lengths.
The extreme corners are somewhat disappointing. Wide open, they are not sharp. They don't become sharp until around f/8, and even then, not ideally so. Here, ~20mm seems to be the most sharp setting.
In general, the sharpness does not seem to be limited by resolution so much as it is by contrast. I think that it can resolve very well, but wide open it has a bit of 'haziness' about it.
Flare: at its worst when a bright object is just out of frame, which causes a low contrast veil. When the bright object is in frame, it copes with the flare better.
Distortion: Almost none, and looks easy to correct.
Bokeh: Very good actually. Certainly the best I've seen in the several UWA lenses I've owned.
Overall and conclusion:
If you treat it as a constant f/5.6 lens, you will certainly not be disappointed. For me, this is quite fine, as I likely won't shoot it much below f/8. Alternatively, if you crop away the most extreme bits of the corners, you'll be perfectly happy too. (I can see myself using 5:4 aspect ratios more commonly with this lens.)
In general, this lens has exceptional build, and very good, though not exceptional, optics. Is it an 11-16mm for full frame? Not really. Is it worth the money? I'd say so.
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