Originally posted by skaktuss I have Vivitar S1 70-210mm V2 too. Color rendering is fantastic, but sharpness could be a bit better. Best performance is at F5.6-F8. F3.5 is too soft for my taste.
Yes, I can concur with the sharpness wide open at f/3.5. A bit soft but I still find it more usable to shoot in indoor than a DA 50-200 lens in f/5.6. I tried indoor shooting with the lens in ISO 800 and it comes out not great, but certainly better than my DA 50-200 in f/5.6 which will hunt continuously in the indoor.
The focusing in indoor is still hard to do in f/3.5, I find few times not able to get a focus lock but with patience and practice, I find the lens quite capable. Overall, little complaints for v2 Tokina for outdoor shooting especially on the tele, photos are pretty sharp and good contrast when stopped down to f/5.6, f/6.3 and even better at f/8.0. There are couple of test shots on the Karate practice in a temple alley that I may have done in f/3.5 but I can't recall which one due to lost of aperture reading in exif. But I remember that I did the following in f/3.5 as the lighting is very dim indoor.
iso 800, wide open in f/3.5
Another noted problem with the Tokina is on the possible ghosting that I find on macro shots. Edges of flower images seems to have double layer. I don't quite know if a lens hood will help.