It really is a versatile lens, pics from today

Is there any chance Mr Bantin could try this out behind a Sea and Sea compact dome port ? Alan James says the Nikon 10.5 works with this port and a Sea and Sea extention port 40. Us poor folks could do without having to buy another port .

I would but my lens has been lost in the post!

As for the compact dome port, throw it away and get a large acrylic or optical glass port. That's what I did!

got a 10-17 today to do some test: this lens is astounding topside... I hope it'll be the same underwater - some pictures next week

I did some quick topside chart tests yesterday;not too scientific or rigorous, but there do not appear to be any quality differences between this lens and the Nikon 16 and 10.5

http://homepage.mac.com/jeffinorlando/Toki...ikon/index.html

I wouldn't expect to see any difference in resolution or sharpness.

The areas there might be differences in image quality is in CA and fringing in corners and also maybe vignetting.

I took this shot to look at CA and fringing. Taken on D80 - at high contrast fine detail near corners - ideal for revealing CA (ISO 200 at 10mm end of zoom).

And here is a 100% crop from the JPG:

As you can see there is some pretty nasty stuff in there. But this is at 100% and a particularly harsh example. Underwater with blue water in the corners you wouldn't see any of this.

I didn't have the 10.5mm with me (I have a 70-200 on my camera!) - so I didn't do any back to back tests. But my gut feeling is the Nikon lens is probably less prone to CA than this. But then again this was a pretty extreme example so can't be sure.

Alex

I wouldn't expect to see any difference in resolution or sharpness.

 

The areas there might be differences in image quality is in CA and fringing in corners and also maybe vignetting.

 

I took this shot to look at CA and fringing. Taken on D80 - at high contrast fine detail near corners - ideal for revealing CA (ISO 200 at 10mm end of zoom).

 

 

And here is a 100% crop from the JPG:

 

 

As you can see there is some pretty nasty stuff in there. But this is at 100% and a particularly harsh example. Underwater with blue water in the corners you wouldn't see any of this.

 

I didn't have the 10.5mm with me (I have a 70-200 on my camera!) - so I didn't do any back to back tests. But my gut feeling is the Nikon lens is probably less prone to CA than this. But then again this was a pretty extreme example so can't be sure.

 

So if you had a choice between the nikon 10.5 or the tokina 10-17 which one would you get?

 

Alex

sorry, it posted funny. I am trying to ask if you could get only one lens, which would you Dr Alex Mustard get? The 10.5 nikon or the 10-17 tokina?

sorry, it posted funny. I am trying to ask if you could get only one lens, which would you Dr Alex Mustard get? The 10.5 nikon or the 10-17 tokina?

If you could only get one then it is hard to argue against the 10-17mm.

I will be interested to see which gets the most dives out of me over the next 12 months.

Alex

Great Pictures.

My wife and I will be diving in Cairns this summer. We are still looking at which live-aboard will be best for us.

I took this shot to look at CA and fringing. Taken on D80 - at high contrast fine detail near corners - ideal for revealing CA (ISO 200 at 10mm end of zoom).

A French guy did some serious tests with DXO Analyser: there is a good amount of CA and fringing... but shooting in RAW and using Capture NX or DXO will reduce it to nearly nothing!

He came to the conclusion that sharpness is “very good†from f8 but shoots taken at f3.5/f4.5 can easily be sharpened by software.

Claude

Thanks shark6047,

Make sure you book onto a liveaboard that goes up the Ribbon reefs, they are better than the local stuff, if they go out to Osprey reef thats the best (they do shark feeds out there). Taka Dive, Undersea Explorer, Spirit of Freedom and Nimrod Explorer are the boats I know of that go there. I have been on Taka and loved it, but have heard good things about all the boats.

All the pictures I have displayed here have been taken on the day boats out of Cairns

Regards

Gary

Alan James says the Nikon 10.5 works with this port and a Sea and Sea extention port 40..

My lens finally turned up today courtesy of Royal Mail guaranteed delivery for three days ago, as I was packing to leave on a trip. I will take the extension port 40 with me but I suspect the SX is the right one to use as per Pakman (and I don't have one) but I will try it with the extension 40 (expect vignetting) and with no extension.

Well just got back from a 4 day weekend to Cabilao Island in the Philippines. Took the Tokina FE and had some fun taking reefscapes, close angle WA coral shots, and even fitted a Magic Filter on the back for some ambient test shots in the shallows.

Will post some shots shortly as soon as I can process them...

edit: John, I'm pretty sure the 40mm ext. is gonna vignette on you. Give the no extension a shot while you wait for a SX ext. I recall that the image "appeared" OK when I did some quick bathtub tests without a extension.

rene from the german digideep.com forum has already a magicfilter on the canon tokina ... he told us, that he cut out a big circle, so that it fits in the body ... he just needed to cut out a smaller part for the contacts.

 

the filter seems to be stable in this position. i think it's quite a good idea, because it is so big, that its quite save from falling off and falling into the shutter ...

 

anyone has a concern with this method? i think also alex should be happe, because quite lots of filter is needed

This is what I did to fit a MF to my Canon Tokina FE. I had some extra MF's that fit the front of the 10-22mm. I basically cut it to fit the inner diameter and left little tabs that I could use tape to secure to the lens. Used it for 1 dive over the weekend and didn't have any problems.

and here is a shot with the MF on @ around 4-5m.

My lens finally turned up today courtesy of Royal Mail guaranteed delivery for three days ago, as I was packing to leave on a trip. I will take the extension port 40 with me but I suspect the SX is the right one to use as per Pakman (and I don't have one) but I will try it with the extension 40 (expect vignetting) and with no extension.

Its a shame you don't have an SX extention ring, you could have borrowed mine for the trip. I'd have dropped it into Mike's Waterfront Warehouse for you to pick up.

Its a shame you don't have an SX extention ring, you could have borrowed mine for the trip. I'd have dropped it into Mike's Waterfront Warehouse for you to pick up.

I'm back from Egypt today. It vignettes at fully wide with the 40mm extension and the overall sharpness is suspect without the extension. My SX is on the way from Japan. I am off to the Maldives on Sunday. I might take you up on that offer - whoever you are!!!

Regards

JB

I'm back from Egypt today. It vignettes at fully wide with the 40mm extension and the overall sharpness is suspect without the extension. My SX is on the way from Japan. I am off to the Maldives on Sunday. I might take you up on that offer - whoever you are!!!

Just say the word and I will and I'll take it to Mikes, Post haste!

Just say the word and I will and I'll take it to Mikes, Post haste!

Which word was it?

YES, PLEASE!!!!

Regards

JB