Tokina 10-17 vs I am new on the Forum and now contemplating between the tokina 10-17mm and the Tamron SP AF 10-24mm F3.5-4.5 Di II LD

Hi

I am new on the Forum and shoot with a Nikon D200 in Ikelite with 8" Dome and a Sigma 12-24mm full frame.... (that fits after drilling out 1 mm of the dome port wall)

Because of loss of sharpness in the corners and no cure I am now contemplating between the Tokina 10-17mm and the Tamron SP AF 10-24mm F3.5-4.5 Di II LD

The Tokina 10-17mm is a favorite with lots of UW photographers but crap on land, plus it is very fisheye

The Tamron 10-24 is has a very good review at dpreview.com and fits in my port. Also for architecture the lines are straight.

Has anyone good experiences with the tamron 10-24 preferably in combination with the ikelite 8" dome?

looking forward to hear about it.

Greetings,

Frits Meyst

Adventure4ever.com

Try a B&W +3 dioptre on your rectilinear lens for better corners (although you will lose some angle of view.) I doubt the Tamron will be much of an improvement over the Sigma. Get the Tokina. It may have limited use above water, but it is by far the best underwater lens and you should get good corners with it. Quite often on trips to the Coral Sea and GBR I use the Tokina 10-17 on every dive. When I do use the 12-24 Nikon (with a dioptre) I usually regret it.

While I haven't used the Tamron, I strongly recommend you buy the Tokina 10-17. Your corners will be very sharp with this Fisheye lens. It is really an amazing lens underwater. I used to have both the 10.5mm Fisheye and 16mm Fisheye (both Nikon lenses) but I sold both of them once i got the Tokina 10-17. When I had my 10.5 and 16, I used to be able to "de-fish" the lenses if I didn't want the Fisheye effect with Nikon Capture NX software. My software won't defish a non-Nikon lens such as the Tokina, but I've heard that there is software out there that can defish fisheye lenses if you want the images to look like they were taken with a rectilinear lens.

Over the years, and especially soon after the Nikon 12-24 lens came out, I've seen post after post by uw photographers who were unhappy with the effect of the rectilinear lenses behind a dome port. And they were still unhappy even after using a diopter.

Another lens to consider if you want a lens, although not as wide as the Tamron or Tokina, that can be useful for uw shooting, and which is rectilinear, is the Sigma 17-70. I learned about this lens from Alex Mustard and used it at his uw photography workshop in Grand Cayman in January for the first time. I was very pleased with it and was glad I bought it.

That's my two cents,

Ellen

Thanks for the response,

it looks like I will go for the tokina 10-17!

I tried to attach some pix in our archive but that did not work due to limitations in the BB coding...

so here a link to our underwater photography galleries:

http://archive.adventure4ever.com/c/advent...0000uEGZnIbOFyc

cheers

Frits

The Tokina 10-17mm is a favorite with lots of UW photographers but crap on land, plus it is very fisheye

Hi Frits,

Another vote for the 10-17mm. You'll love it. If you'd like you can compare some dolphins shot with the 10-17mm here on my Flickr page.

You have some very impressive images on your site. Love the snorkeler with the elephant. Welcome to Wetpixel.

Have fun,

Steve