The Tokina 35mm f2.8 macro lens - Value as a standard 35mm lens?

[Overread]

Ok so I've mostly given up hope that sigma will get the 150mm OS onto the market any time soon; B&H is listing it for April after it missed March - but unless anyone hears different I'm assuming that the original stock was lost/destroyed during the disaster in Japan or is otherwise trapped within the country and will likely remain as such for a long while.


So I've nosed around and started looking at the Tokina 35mm f2.8 macro lens - a lens probably more rare than even the canon MPE 65mm macro. However whilst its macro feature is what is attracting me to the lens, I'm curious as to its performance and position in the market as a regular 35mm lens in its own right.

As well as that I'm also curious as to if 35mm is something I really "need/might go for". At present I've really nothing between 16mm and 70mm (got a kit lens but I dislike using it) and in the future I plan on covering this range mostly with a 24-105mm L. My interests are also not pressured toward that focal range - being wildlife, macro and a smattering of landscape shooting.

So its kind of a two fold question - how good is the Tokina 35mm as a 35mm lens and how good is it as a possible option for a photographer with similar interests to my own.

Also some people over at Fred and Mirinda are throwing around the "Zeiss" word near this lens
Tokina 35mm Macro 2.8: Nikon SLR Lens Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

I should point out that its currently contesting against a new camera bag (something more padded than my minitrekker!)/tripod (carbon fibre Gitzo greatness of some unchosen description most likely - though looking at the prices and what I want from a tripod upgrade it won't fit into the same budget) or "something else maybe"

 

[Overread]

And its here now!

Initial views on the lens - AF is better than my 70mm macro, well its quieter and seems abit more nippy, though the barrel has less extension to it so that does help it out a fair amount. Front element is also recessed into the body of the lens (like the 70mm) so using it without the lens hood (which is really like a filter without any glass in size) is perfectly doable whilst still having the front element protected when working close.
Image quality seems very good, though I've not given it a propper testing - I think it might be a little more prone to some colour fringing at f2.8, though its the first time I've ever really looked at this and in quick tests next to my 70mm both appeared fairly similar (I just sorta noticed it more so with the 35mm, but that might just be the "new lens" factor).
Focusing distance at 1:1 is, as expected, tiny and certainly makes lighting at that range a tricky prospect.
Manual focusing gives a little grainy sound as you can hear/feel the gears being moved, not quite as smooth as my other lenses, but certainly no barrier.
Mount to the camera body is very solid and actually needs a little bit of force to get the lens fully locked into the mount. This is one lens that certainly would not easily dismount itself.
Build quality is a metallic outside with plastic focus ring grip - overall it feels very solid and certainly feels sturdy.

Overall it feels like a good solid lens, well built and with good overall features for what one expects. The slight colour fringing aspect (and I might be missusing the name here) at f2.8 might be its only real detracting element that I've found this far - however I'll have to do a side by side test against my other lenses to really see if this is a weakness of the lens itself or just the regular effect of shooting wide open.

 

[Derrel]

The "value as a standard 35mm lens" will depend on how well you can get this lens to autofocus at "standard 35mm distances". And no, I'm not joking. In the closeup ranges shown in that dPreview thread of floral close-ups from the summer of 2010, it looks like the Tokina 35/2.8 macro acquits itself pretty well. Quite a few macro lenses are difficult to focus accurately in a repeatable way at distances in the 2 meters to Infinity range. If the Tokina has a good hit rate, it would seem okay, although it is giving up one, or two f/stops' worth of possible maximum aperture against standard 35mm f/2 or f/1.4 lenses. Additionally, the wide-open aperture performance of the Tokina at f/2.8--how well do you suppose that lens does compared against say a 35mm f/2 lens one stop down from its maximum aperture?

 

[Overread]

I suspect that a regular f1.4 35mm lens would have a superior control over general abberations and the like than the 35mm when both are set to f2.8 - that isn't fact, but my estimation based on my experience that most lenses are not always their best when shot wide open - though I'd say that the 35mm does decently well when used wide open.

Myself though I kind of factored in the point that I generally don't do too much wide open shooting and that the main (but not only) reason for this need is when people are shooting indoors when in dim lighting - a thing I generally don't do that often save for family events where most of the shots are not of critical importance.

As for its focus in at further distances the AF isn't too bad and I'd say its at least on par if not possibly better than my sigma 70mm macro (though neither come close to the 70-200mm in AF performance) and its certainly a lot quieter.