Tokina AT-X 17-35mm f/4 PRO FX lens prototype
Besides a picture on dpreview and a two sentence coverage on dc.watch, there is no further information on the Tokina AT-X 17-35mm f/4 PRO FX lens prototype that was shown at Photokina two weeks ago. A reader emailed me that this lens will take 77mm filters and is rather compact in size, similar to the Tokina 12-24mm f/4 DX version.
Tokina already announced a AT-X 16-28mm PRO FX lens few months ago (for now available only on eBay).
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18 Comments
I sincerely hope that this lens materialize, in spite of almost zero press interest. This could be my UWA lens when I finally switch to full frame. Most intriguing is the small size – it’s almost same as the 12-24mm DX. Though I fear that it will be hard for Tokina to retain good image quality in such a small size…
Hopefully this is option is very cheap compared to the Nikon. For those who already have a 14-24, the 16-35VR is a bit pricey just for the slight extension.
Side tangent: this has been bugging me — what does the UMC stand for on Samyang lenses?? Is that a motor? Or are they manual-focus only? My brief search didn’t find a clear answer.
it means better coating according to photzone. Other sites mention multi-layered coating. What the abbreviation stands for is not known, but it’s not hard to guess ot would be something like ‘ultra multi-layered coating’ or some sort.
Canon has had the 17-40 for ages and its f4 full frame lens also, i was thinking the next step (after 17-40) would be a 17-51, but no @Photokina Tokina decide to go backward.
i prefer this though, would value image quality over versitality. think that has always been tokina’s goal anyway. but.. to each his own.
funny how not many people covered this. It could definitely be a cheaper option to the nikon 16-35mm option
i was wondering why i only saw one picture of this. thought it would attract abit more attn.. i like this. have been using the tokina 20-35 f/2.8 and it is about the same size as the tokina 12-24 and works really well. so im pretty sure thay can make this one good. 17mm would be great, sad none of the new lenses have aperture rings… =\
Bleah, pity that people in press ignore Tokina so easily. They make really good lenses, and full frame 17-35 will be very attractive for many people, especially in Sony system where there’s no cheap UWA lens…. though apparently Tokina forgot about making to for the A-bayonet, lol
Why get this one instead of the tamron 17-35/2.8-4.0? Speed is the most important factor for a lens..
Really? According to whom?
I’d say image quality is the most important factor to consider before purchasing a lens. Speed, lenght, versatility, AF, coating, OS-VR etc., are all very important, but definitely secondary…
you forgot build quality. and Tokina has the best build out of all the 3rd party lens producers and for the most part as good as any 1st party lens.
The tokina 12-24 has been a great lens for me. I am also surprised this did not get more press.
I am more interested in Tokinas 16-28 but will wait to see pricing on both. I would not be surprised to see a new tokina 28-75mm f/2.8.
among 3rd party lens makers:
Tokina is king of build quality
Sigma king of specs, (eg 17-70 f/2.8-4.5 or the bigma)
Tamron king of optical quality (eg 17-50 f/2.8)
if they were to unite and make lenses that offer these 3 things together, they would beat Canon/Nikon pro lenses.
“Tokina has the best build out of all the 3rd party lens producers and for the most part as good as any 1st party lens.”
- Actually: In many cases Tokina offers better buld quality that 1st party lenses, if you’ll looks at the cheapest of their compared to similar at competition.
In fact, this lens got so little press that when I saw it at Photokina, I thought it must have been a pre-existing lens I did not know about.
I don’t understand the logic behind purchasing cheap glass after spending boku bucks on a high priced sensor enclosure system. I have used, but never owned, a number of TokSigRon lenses and found all of them to be breathtakingly unremarkable in most respects including the most important to me: IQ and build quality.
The Tokina 12-24 mm f/4 is optically very close to the Nikon 12-24 mm f/4, at half the price. The main differences were CA (which can be corrected very well in post) and flare (which only affects a subset of all images and can often be largely avoided by appropriate shading). The first version of the Tokina also lacked AF-S/HSM.
It thus offered a very, very similar IQ (if you took care of its weaknesses) at the half the price. Is that logic hard to understand?
i could wish for vr on this puppy.