Photo Plus

TOKINA AT-X 11-20mm f/2.8 AF PRO DX

An appealing APS-C format ultra-wide zoom with a fast and constant f/2.8 aperture

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Tokina was one of the first independen­t manufactur­ers of ultra-wide zooms for APS-C cameras, in the shape of its 11-16mm lens which has since been updated. This ‘Pro’ lens is similar in many respects, including its f/2.8 aperture rating, which stays constant across the zoom.

Optical finery includes three aspherical elements, of which two are all-glass moulded elements, with an additional ‘precision-moulded’ element. There are also three SD (Super-low Dispersion) elements. The AF system is quick but noisy. Typical of Tokina lenses, this one has a ‘one-touch focus clutch’. This enables you to swap between AF and manual focus simply by snapping the focus ring forwards or backwards.

Unlike the Canon and Tamron zooms on test for APS-C cameras, the Tokina has no image stabilizer. You could argue that it doesn’t really need one, due to the ‘faster’ aperture rating.

However, you’ll often want to use narrower apertures in landscape photograph­y, to increase the depth of field.

Performanc­e

Although the AF system feels outdated and there’s no stabilizat­ion, the Tokina performs well in terms of image quality. Sharpness is impressive across the aperture range and the whole image frame. Distortion­s are of a low order as well, although lateral chromatic aberration is worse than average and, unlike in Canon and most Sigma lenses, auto in-camera correction is unavailabl­e.

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