Tokina 70-200 f/4 VR

[ntz]

Hello,

it turned out that I can buy relatively cheaply this lens Tokina 70-200mm Review ..

I am thinking of replacing my current 70-300 because these lens are physically hit, filter thread is damaged and I cannot mount a screwing things on them .. Price matters for me and I can buy these for something like $500 ..

what I am just worried about a bit is the biggest weakness that most of the reviews are mentioning and moreover they are often using an expressive words like "dealbreaking", "disastrous" or "horrific" .. what do you think about ghost and flare performance of these lens in general ? Does somebody have a direct real-life experience with that ? All reviews that mention that have one problem - they are always showing an extreme examples of this flaw so I have no idea how bad is that under normal conditions and for normal shooting ...

thanks for your input and regards !!!

 

[ntz]

OK, update ... I've bought this lens and tested that in the weekend ..

let me share with you my yet short experience:

1) insanely sharp, just different league than my previous Nikon 70-300mm .. On 200mm you won't recognize the difference between edges and center unless zoomed to 200% and still then you have to try hard .. worth to mention that I have crop sensor camera, with DX is performance just awesome

2) great overall picture quality, saturation, colours, all is great .. none vignetting beyond f/6.3, CA just in norm, all fine, bokeh is much nicer than from nikon 70-300 f/4.5-5.6

3) clumsy but powerful AF, I don't shoot sports or animals (if I don't count a family members and especially the kinds) .. with AF-triggering half-press of release shutter button the VR system turns on with "loud" and noticeable click but then the AF just works great. 1/30 shot on 200mm seems same like 1/250 .. VR deactivates itself after ~ 2 seconds with same noticeable click .. I have to admit, it's kinda disturbing but seems it's the matter of getting used on that .. Also reviews mention that, so I knew it in forward that it works like that but honestly, it still surprised me with intensity .. As far as I am shooting mostly landscape and cityscape, I have VR usually off ..

3) "disastrous" and "horrific" performance against bright source of light would be the issue, but not that much .. Lens has really nice and deep hood, with silky canvas on inner side .. ofc if you wanna flares and ghosts, you could have them with most of prosumer and semi-pro lenses .. for 98% of all normal shooting when you just don't have a sun in the picture directly are flares and ghosting no issue, there are non .. I've tried shooting the sun directly and seems that ghosting is mitigated (or non as well) when using my superb 3-stop ND filter

final conclusion:

**+ a landscape photographer's dream because of AAA build and exceptional picture quality
**+ super smooth controls like for example focus override or zooming ..
**- not sure how it would work but perhaps I'd avoid this for sports because of clumsy VR activation
**- performance against bright light needs to be taken into the account but in reality, you won't hit this issue in 98% of time, just use hood or additional casting out the sun when shooting from tripod and you'll be fine

 

[RVT1K]

Glad you like it and it works well for you.

I've always looked at on-line reviews like the Olympics, throw out the high and low scores.... I'm especially careful with the low scores because they often reflect unreasonable expectations of the item.