Nauticam Zoom Gear for Tokina 10-17

A few weeks ago I was reading a thread that Alex Mustard started initially talking about a problem he had with his aperture sticking on his Tokina 10-17 lens. The thread devolved a bit into problems people are having with the lens coming apart by removing the rubber ring on the lens in order to get the Nauticam zoom gear to fit. They have resorted to using different kinds of tape to hold the lens together. See: http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41838

I had mentioned in that thread that I wondered why I wasn't able to get my zoom gear to fit. For some reason there were no instructions that came with the gear and no one at the store I purchased it from could figure out why it wouldn't fit on my lens. I would never have thought to remove the rubber ring on the lens.

Anyway, by chance I decided to try another zoom gear I had purchased for my Tamron 10-24 lens and that worked so I just sent the other zoom gear back. My question for you is why do people buy the zoom gear that requires you to take apart your lens in order to get it to fit? Nauticam sells another zoom gear called "Nauticam Gear for Sigma AF 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Canon", part number SKU-19535 that fits the lens without requiring you to remove anything on the lens. I used this configuration for a week in the Red Sea and didn't have any problems. I'm wondering if there is something that I don't know and I'll discover a problem on a future dive or are people just not aware that this zoom gear fits the Tokina?

Wow Andy,

I have just moved to the 7D Nauticam Combo and have yet to purchase the 10-17. But i have already got the zoom gear for this unfortunately :-(

But if what you say is correct then i may just send this back and get the sigma zoom gear part SKU-19535. Would love to hear from others on this.

thanks for this info Andy.

Cheers,

Diggy

Hi both,

Thanks for this valuable feedback, I have referred this back to Nauticam to look at a modification to the design. To confirm though, this has only been an issue in my experience with the Tokina for Nikon mount. The Canon mount is more robustly built.

Alex

Thanks Alex,

But would it not make sense to get the sigma zoom gear if there are no issues, considering that one does not have to remove the rubber covering on the lens ?

Cheers,

Diggy

One important fact that seems to be overlooked here is that the rubber zoom ring has nothing to do with holding the lens' cosmetic cover with focal length markings in place. I wish Tokina would use something more robust than Kapton tape here, too.

We've actually seen the most lenses "broken" by another company's delrin gears that are thermally expansive and very tight fitting, where there is no choice but to exert pressure on the lens when removing the gear.

As long as someone is careful removing the rubber zoom ring there is almost no risk of popping the focal length indicator off of the lens.

The two part gear design used by Nexus and Nauticam allows very precise gear positioning. Tolerances vary significantly in the rubber zoom rings of these lenses, so setting up a gear to use that part can be problematic, and these companies choose just to remove it from the equation. There are ways around this inconsistency like set screws or rubber o-ring shims, but personally I don't feel anything is as precise as the Nauticam solution. The plastic ring is also indexed, allowing very reliable positioning of the teeth forward and back on a lens. A design that is a friction fit can take 2-3 tries assembling and test fitting to get the gear in the correct front-back position.

Thanks Ryan. So to summarize, given the variability in tolerances for the rubber ring, I guess I lucked out in that my other zoom gear happens to fit my Tokina lens well but what you are saying is this same gear may not work with all Tokina 10-17 lenses.