Tokina 10-17 FE test fotos I

nice series, Pakman ... I loooove Jellyfish Lake!

hehehe... you won't regret it. really nice lens u/w and topside. Plus the lens itself is as small as the Canon EFS 60mm macro so it doesn't take a lot of room in your camera/gear bag or pose any problems with port extensions. I just noticed nexus has released a compact dome just for this lens. Would make for a pretty compact kit to travel with.

Yes. The equipment I have. Now I just need to have the talent LOL.

The Nexus port would not work with the Sea&Sea housing, would it?

Yes. The equipment I have. Now I just need to have the talent LOL.

 

The Nexus port would not work with the Sea&Sea housing, would it?

Canuck - thanks

Nuno- I vaguely remember Athena or someone making adapters to use nexus ports to S&S housings or the otherway around (I forget). Anyways, I'm pretty happy with how compact the Athena dome is for travel, especially when I was looking at the size of the case my friend requires to fit his Aquatica dome!!

hehehe... you won't regret it. really nice lens u/w and topside. Plus the lens itself is as small as the Canon EFS 60mm macro so it doesn't take a lot of room in your camera/gear bag or pose any problems with port extensions. I just noticed nexus has released a compact dome just for this lens. Would make for a pretty compact kit to travel with.

You just made me want to run out and get one this weekend... how much did the lens cost you in HK?

You just made me want to run out and get one this weekend... how much did the lens cost you in HK?

here's a useful page that someone is nice enough to keep somewhat updated on the best prices for camera lenses, bodies, etc in HK.

http://ygdragon.net/index.php?page=photo/cameraprice.htm

Looks like the current price is HK$3780 at Wing Shing in Mongkok, about the price I think I paid on Stanley St. (exchange rate is approx US$1/HK$7.8)

OK, back from Palau. Absolutely love this Tokina FE lens! Never took out my Canon 10-22 once during the entire trip. Took me awhile to get use to strobe placement, especially on closeup WA shots. The 22mm port extension SX Extension + Athena Dome worked out perfectly.

oops, just a correction. I am using the SX Extension + Athena dome, not the 22mm ext.

I got my Tokina lens already! To come back to the issue about using the S&S EFS 60 zoom ring with this lens, I tried several alternatives but although they looked snug when out of the housing, when inside the housing and in a dome port facing down position, the ring would end up falling after playing with the zoom several times.

What I noticed is that the oring inside the ring is in the front while the zoom of the tokina is in the back of the lens. This means the oring is not grabbing in the lens. Until so far the solution I got was the following:

- 1 elastic band (the ones you use for clothes) in the zoom ring.

- 2 of these velcro bands, cut small and thin so that it does not scratch when you put it back in the EF-S 60

If you guys have new ideas, please let me know

Nuno

Interesting Nuno. Where does the rubber band go? And the velco is taped onto the lens zoom?

Interesting Nuno. Where does the rubber band go? And the velco is taped onto the lens zoom?

If you see from my first picture, I have an elastic band that I can put in the lens (I dont have to tape it because is elastic and will stay there. The two small velcros (from my second picture) are taped inside the S&S zoom ring. This velcro will grab the elastic band that is over the lens zoom. You need to have an elastic band that is just as wide as the lens zoom. If it is wider, the lens zoom gets stuck.

Pakman,

How far and how are you positioning your strobes with the lens. I tried two dives and I always get flare on the sides of the picture. I positioned the strobes to the back of the dome pointed straight in front. In any way, I always get some flare.

Example (shot at 1/60 F3.5 ISO 200)

Nuno, nice pics! Well to be honest I'm still learning with this lens and strobe placement. A lot of my pictures suffer from that as well. But I think the experts here would suggest making sure you pull the strobes back as far as possible behind the housing. Depending on the distance to the subject, you might want to also point them outwards slightly.

I tried to point the strobes further away from the lens and I got rid of the flare.

Two pictures taken this weekend

Regards

Nuno

Nice photographs!

Okay, so are you happy with this lens so far and would you recommend going with the 10-17 FE because of the range over a prime like a 15/16FE ?

I am using the D200 in a Subal, looking to going wide angle now and I am torn between starting with the Tokina 10-17FE, or a prime Nikon or Sigma 16/15FE? Is the Tokina 10-17 harder to use?

The only other consideration I am pondering is to go without the FE and try the Sigma 10-20 instead?

With the housing I have and potential for gears and domes, would one of the three be a lot easier to use and more of a compact rig?

I understand I am a little all over the place here but this Tokina looks very promising. However I do know that I do not yet want to get the 10.5 nor the 12-24 nor the 17-55.

Any advice?

Paquito

My turn

Tokina 10-17 on a Nikon D70. Using Ikelite housing, with a #5503 dome port (the 8" dome will hopefully get here next week), Ikelite DS-125 on the left side, DS-50 on the right. I had some vignetting problems with this dome port at 10mm-12mm, but they were solved once i removed the dome's shade.

The conditions for testing this lens wheren't great - bad visibility lots of clouds (very rare around here...). And to make things worse, i had huge problems with the zoom gear. I have both #0073 and #5509.28 ... but i'm not sure which is what (i think i mixed them up when i played with them...). The only one that did work with this lens got stuck once i went deeper than ~15 meters

I'll probably play around with the zoom gear again once i get the new dome port. I guess i'll just have to make another dive trip to check it out .

If anyone have any tips for the zoom gear issues (or have any ideas how to #0073 zoom gear from the #5509.28), please share

Here are some test photos (mostly taken at F/9 or F/11, 13mm and 15mm):

On a 100% crop (top left part of the photo) it's easy to notice the CA. There seem to be less CA in the center of the photo.

Oren

Nice pics Oren. Good to see this lens is proving to be a keeper for a variety of camera makes and cropped sensor models.

Nice pics Oren. Good to see this lens is proving to be a keeper for a variety of camera makes and cropped sensor models.

Indeed it is and i'm happy especially for the Canon 1:6 people, We got our lens this morning and I noticed it would mount on the older A300 / Digital Rebel (pre EF-S camera), that should put a smile on theses owners, not only were they limited to full frame lenses but there was a serious lack of wide option in this area.

I bet the optical engineers of this lens had no clue they where going to have such a hit with the underwater photographers. I also predict future Nikonist will migrate toward this lens, it might no have the aperture nor the sharpness of the 10.5 but it has flexibillity at a lower price and that goes a long way for occasional shooter. just my grain of sea salt

Indeed it is and i'm happy especially for the Canon 1:6 people, We got our lens this morning and I noticed it would mount on the older A300 / Digital Rebel (pre EF-S camera), that should put a smile on theses owners, not only were they limited to full frame lenses but there was a serious lack of wide option in this area.

The 300D / Digital Rebel has an EF-S mount. The more ancient 10D was the last 1.6x camera to have an EF mount.

Oops I #$%@ myself, figure being a Nikon guy and all.

I bet the optical engineers of this lens had no clue they where going to have such a hit with the underwater photographers. I also predict future Nikonist will migrate toward this lens, it might no have the aperture nor the sharpness of the 10.5 but it has flexibillity at a lower price and that goes a long way for occasional shooter. just my grain of sea salt

Speaking of flexibility - the other thing I see on this that I don't see on the Nikon 10.5 is the macro capability (close focus to 1"). Has anybody played with it? Seems like it might expand the possibilities with the lens underwater.

Tim

The Nikon 10.5 focuses to 5.5 inches in front of the film plane, about 1 to 1.5 inches in front of the lens. Unless the lens is touching the dome I cannot see any difference in close focusing ability, probably about the same for both. I would like to see a formal lens test for sharpness etc between this lens and the 10.5 and the Nikon 16 at the other end.