 |   Publisher : Tokina Company : Tokina List Price: Our Price: $449.00 You Save: $550 (56%) |
Features
- Zoom lens
- Wide-angle to telephoto
- Auto-focus
- Auto-exposure
- APS-C SYSTEM
Product Description
16.5-135mm Auto Focus ZOOM LENS FOR Canon EOS DIGITAL APS-C system.Customer reviews
Good build, quick and accurate focus, Sharp photos by .. Fatih Eman (Switzerland)
It is declared all over the internet that this Tokina lens as well as the 11-16mm are specifically designed for APS-C format sensor cameras. What does that mean?
To begin with, these sensors have a crop factor of 1.6, so this lens will work as 26.4-216mm a very practical range for a general purpose lens. If used with a larger sensor camera, like I did with my EOS 1D Mark III which is APS-H (x1.3 rather than x1.6) or with a full frame camera, pictures will have dark corners, particularly at wide open apertures (anything wider than f/11). But, well, with a APS-C the image is already cropped and does not show the dark corners, but this cropping I can do myself with any picture editing software. I can also ignore it, if the corner information is of no importance to me, or I can even use it to my advantage to give a special effect in certain cases. All up to you for that matter.
For the rest, the picture quality in terms of Sharpness, color detail and contrast, I would say it's no less than many lenses that cost twice as much. Very good quality really. Also, the background blurr (boquet) when taking portraits at 135mm is very nice. I also tested this lens at night with room light compared with my Canon EF 28-135, the results from Tokina were much sharper and better field depth at exactly same settings. Also compared to Sigma 24-135, the Tokina did a better job.
The Sigma gave better, bigger (nearer) and brighter pictures in the middle (around 70mm).
Some people criticise Tokina for not including an image stabilizer, like Canon did with their 28-135mm. I did not suffer from this at all, although at 56 years of age, I'm not a great example of stable hands and shoulders. Maybe at 300mm an image stabilizer is really necessary, but in my opinion, up to 200 you would only need it in dark environment, but then don't use a f/3.5-5.6; use no less than f/2.8 lenses. Honestly you invest much better if you pay for a better f/ range than for an image stabilizer, definitely, and you get better pictures. If at all, then use it with cameras that support higher iso sensitivity, like the Canon EOS 50D.
What else shall I say about this lens? It does not creep when carried downwards. The manual focus feels like screetching a bit, but works well. The red dot indicator to mate the lens in the camera is on the inside ring. Would be more comfortable ouside it. The lens extends when zoomed to 135mm, which is not shown in any of the lens pictures I have seen on the internet.
One more important thing, at 16.5 or anywhere near, the picture edges are slightly bent, but not much. Can easily be corrected by image editing. If you point at the target horizontally, this effect is minimal. Otherwise picture qulity is very pleasant.
In good daylight, use f/8 f/11 to get better and sharper pictures, especially if your subject has depth. This is true for all lenses.
The tests I did were with both a Canon EOS 50D and a Canon EOS 1D Mark III.
I'm planning to publish some example pictures later on, so stay tuned.
My advice: You will not find such a good quality lens for this price.
I hope this was useful.
I like it a lot by .. Larry Sloan (Kent, WA)
I'm an amateur photographer - I just got it a couple of weeks ago, and I've really enjoyed shooting with this lens. The wide angle gives me a lot to work with. The zoom is enough for most situations. I use my Canon T2i to shoot scenery, model railroads, and full size trains mostly. I do some video with the camera, but mostly it's stills. The manual focus is a little bit too tight for shooting video, but I'd say that's my only complaint about this lens so far. Outside of that using the lens has been a joy. I'm posting pictures I've taken with this lens, and I'm picking ones that I haven't modified. I hope to update this review as I get the opportunity to use it more. I felt compelled to get a review on Amazon because there's not much in the way of reviews for this lens. And that's a shame. I played with a Canon 18-135mm lens (the $600+ lens), and it seems to me that this lens is better in low light. You should see some pictures of HO scale locomotives when I'm through and those were shot under standard 4-bulb fluorescent fixtures. The BN loco was moving when the picture was taken, and because of the lighting, I have the camera set to Aperture Priority to achieve larger depth of field. With this lens and the camera set to f9 of f11, I tend to get just the shot I want. With the Canon 50mm f1.8 II, I have to set the camera to f22, which means everything has to be perfectly still to prevent blur.