imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

I have used the Tokina 300 2.8 in Minolta/Sony mount - and was never really happy with it - after having used the Canon EF 300 2.8. For me, the 300 that comes closest to the Canon is the Sigma 100-300 f4 !

bobgreen Loc: Maryland

I am very interested in the 11-20. Would like to hear your opinion on it. One of the reviews I read loved everything about it except the color rendition which they said was weak. Kind of surprising actually.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Tokina makes some excellent lenses... High optical quality, very good build, decent AF performance. They also appear to make a number of lenses for other manufacturers. Several Pentax lenses are made by Tokina. Some Nikkors look to be, too.

Tokina uses mostly micro-motor focus drive in their lenses, but because they don't make many telephotos, they get very good AF performance out of it. They also use a rather unique auto focus on/off mechanism, called a "focus clutch". On most (all?) of their lenses the focus ring slides forwards or backwards to engage or disengage AF. When it's set to the AF mode, the focus ring doesn't do anything when you turn it. You can only manually focus when the ring is slid to the MF position, which completely disengages AF and protects it from possible damage. As a result of this design, which is pretty unique to Tokina lenses, you cannot instantly override their lenses the way you can many other manufacturers' that use some form of ultrasonic drive or stepper motor. AFAIK, Tokina has only designed one lens using an ultrasonic motor (and with image stabilization)... a 70-200mm f/4 that was only available in Nikon F mount.

Some older and at least one current Tokina lens in Nikon F mount don't have any focus motor at all... they rely on a motor in the camera body to autofocus. Older, now discontinued models were the original 11-16mm f/2.8 and 12-24mm f/4. (The version "II" of those lenses in Nikon mount saw a focus motor added). The current 100mm f/2.8 macro still uses this motorless design, but only in the Nikon mount (it's manual-focus-only on Nikon D3000 and D5000 series cameras, capable of autofocusing on D7000 series and higher).

Like all manufacturers, Tokina has made various grades of lenses to sell at different price points. Their "AT-X Pro" are top of the line (some of which look and feel like some Canon L-series).

Tokina also use the same designation as Nikon... DX for "APS-C crop sensor" design lenses and FX for "full frame capable".

Tokina doesn't currently make many telephoto lenses. The vast majority are wide angle. The above mentioned 70-200mm (for Nikon only) and 100mm macro are two telephotos they make. The only other Tokina telephoto currently is a compact, 300mm "reflex" (i.e., "catadioptric" or "mirror") lens for micro 4/3 mount.

Dickwood33 Loc: Alberta, Canada

Will the Tokina wide angle lenses fit M 4/3 mounts?

RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

The only mirrorless lens I could find is their 20mm F/2.0 FE Manual Focus Lens for Sony E Series.

Dickwood33 Loc: Alberta, Canada

Thanks RWR. I was hoping there would be something to fit my Lumix GX8

Einreb92 Loc: Philadelphia

I will report in, when we get back and I look over the images from the 11-20 and combine my response with my overall opinion thus far. I will add here this lens was purchased to substitute for the 14mm 2.8 we used to great advantage last year at the Canyon, Bryce etc. We shall see how it fared.

jeryh Loc: Oxfordshire UK

I have no complaints with the Tokina autofocus, its quick, accurate, and doesn't hunt. What more could you ask for ?

marki3rd Loc: Columbus, Indiana

And how did you determine that. Specifics please...i.e.model comparisons.

blackest Loc: Ireland

It's very hard to speak in generalities about a brand after all there is a difference between their high end and low end models. I know a couple of Pentax branded lenses are made by Tokina, that has to be an endorsement for Tokina.

I just bought an old tokina 35-105 lens, one of the things i saw in on review was very little CA and way better than a similar canon lens shooting the same targets. It really is something you can only compare on a case by case basis. But lens making is pretty much what they do and they are at a minimum competent.