Nikon Lens Question

[Artful Dodger]

Hello,

As of late I've been looking for a nice wide angle lens for my Nikon D50 and my local shop made the suggestion of this lens: Tamron SP Autofocus 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) Lens. Also I've read about the: Tokina 12mm - 24mm f/4.0 PRO DX Autofocus Zoom Lens and was wondering which would be better for shooting urban buildings and landscape? The Tokina has been discussed in a previous thread here but does anyone know a thing or two about the Tamron lens?
Here is a link for the Tamron: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...TF8&coliid=I2P09SGC9L7DVS&colid=1TLCTNT921GR4

Any input as to how the Tamron would fair for my needs would be great as my local shop is giving me an extra 10% off making it better than buying it from Amazon.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

I had the Tokina, it was phenomenal. I would go with that over any others. Its performance matches the well regarded Nikon 12-24, its very well built, and takes amazing pictures.

Heres a couple:

 

[Artful Dodger]

Thanks taylorwilsdon I've been reading a lot of comments that it's "just as good" as the Nikon. I really like your falls picture, very nice and thanks

 

[Abstract]

I had the Tokina, it was phenomenal. I would go with that over any others. Its performance matches the well regarded Nikon 12-24, its very well built, and takes amazing pictures.

From your experience, have you ever had issues with distortion? I also own the Tokina, and I think I get an abnormal amount of distortion at the corners. From every review I have read, and from every user's experience, the low distortion at 12 mm is one of the main reasons to buy this lens. Also, the sharpness at the corners drops significantly. I understand that lenses have lower sharpness at the corners, but it's a very dramatic decline in quality at the corners.

I may ship mine in to see whether the lens is functioning within spec. I don't know if it is or not. I also have a nagging suspicion that the drop in sharpness is worse on the right side of my photos than it is on the left. I can't verify this, though.

 

[cutsman]

I've been reading up a lot on several ultra-wide angle lenses lately... namely, the Sigma 10-20, Tokina 12-24, and the Tamron 11-18. From what I've gathered from online reviews/comparisons, the Tamron seems to fall short of the Tokina.

With that said, I recently purchased the Sigma 10-20 for my D50 and I love it. The Tokina is supposedly sharper, with the biggest complaint coming from the CA department. However, the biggest factor in my decision is that 10mm vs 12mm is a big difference and if I'm buying a UWA lens, I wanted one that was as wide as possible since I already have the Tamron 17-50 to cover the longer end of these lenses.

Tokina should be releasing their new 11-16 f2.8 lens in the coming months and I would definitely keep an eye on that one to see how it fairs against the lenses mentioned in this thread. I was considering waiting for this lens before I took the plunge, but I'm impatient and I happened to come upon a pretty decent deal on the Sigma (2nd hand).

 

[pdxflint]

Most of these lenses will improve edge sharpness considerably stopped down a few stops. It depends on if you need wide-open performance.

I am also in the market for a wide angle zoom to replace my old Canon 20-35 which I used with 35mm. My old lens was an f/3.5-4.5, and was only 40% the cost of the Canon 20-35 f/2.8 lens available at the time, and mostly I shot it at it's widest setting, and it was only a stop slower at 20mm (if I needed a faster shutter speed.) For full frame, 20mm was pretty darn wide for most purposes. Nice thing about wide angles - for street use they almost become hyperfocal stopped down just a bit, and aren't nearly as affected by camera movement at slow shutter speeds, so I felt f/2.8 wasn't really warranted for that focal range. I didn't miss too many shots being limited to f/3.5.

I'm considering the Tokina 12-24 because of build quality and price and the fact that it translates into 18-36 35mm equivalent, but am still not sure if the newest version of their 12-24 for Nikon mount has built-in AF motor or not. That could be a deal-killer for me. I've heard great things about the Sigma 10-20 from several folks who use that lens, and it's lighter, but not as sturdily built. I'd also be interested in hearing from other folks here who use any of these lenses to know what they think.

 

[Abstract]

Most of these lenses will improve edge sharpness considerably stopped down a few stops. It depends on if you need wide-open performance.

Well I was shooting at f/10 in many of my photos using that lens. I'm sure it helped, but after reading a review, maybe I should have used f/5.6 or f/8. I only use f/10 because it's easier to calculate the hyperfocal distance using f/10.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

I haven't had the lens since last August and I can't bring myself to buy another, but I might at some point. I don't recall any sort of major distortion (I did not shoot at 12mm *that* much afaik), and I almost always shot wide open because my photography knowledge was still developing at that point, and I figured that f/4 was the place to shoot.