Author: | | New Member Registered: February, 2019 Posts: 1 | Review Date: March 30, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $12.00
| Rating: 8 |
Pros: | Sharp from f/5.6 - Very sharp at f/8-11 - Very usefull range - Tokina at-x quality construction - No zoom creep - Smooth settings - Nice bokeh | Cons: | Faded colors - A bit soft wide open - Maybe a bit heavy - Macro not really convenient to use | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 10
Camera Used: Sony a6000
| | I received it faulty, haze on intern glass. I have to disassembly and clean it (very easy). Now glass are free of fungus or haze.
I saw some bad review of this lens, but the range interested me so I found a copy on internet.
I am not disappointed!
I like vintage Tokina at-x lenses (I also have 50-250mm f/4-5.6 and 28-85mm f/3.5-4.5) : solid construction, smooth settings and image quality.
This one is a little bit soft wide open (not surprising for a vintage x7 zoom) but honnestly, it's usable for portrait for exemple and the bokeh is really smooth.
But stop down to f/5.6 at 200mm and it improve sharpnest drastically! f/8-f/11 is tack sharp!
I think this is a very underated lens only because it's soft wide open. It's a pity because this lens is also fast (f/4.5 at 200mm for a zoom!) and it is a bonus in low light condition.
My copy have no zoom creep, this is very cool.
So you have a lens from 35mm to 200mm, usable in low light condition and very sharp in good light condition, with 1:4 macro (not a fan of this weird system), and solid construction for 15$...
[[[ Edit : After a few more test, I think the only big problem of this lens is the rather fade color rendition. Some may be satisfied, it feels very "vintage", like an instagram filter, but I prefer colors a little bit more...colored. But the modernity offer us PP software so... whatever! ]]]
Compare to my (lovely) Tokina at-x 50-250mm, is as sharp at 200mm f/5.6 as the 50-250mm wide open at 250mm, but a bit softer at wider range. I fully recommend these 2 lenses, but I can't choose between them (The 35-200mm maybe, wider and faster... oh god what a dilemma!!)
| | | | | New Member Registered: July, 2018 Posts: 1 | Review Date: August 15, 2018 | Not Recommended | Price: $100.00
| Rating: 8 |
Pros: | Sharp, Useful Range | Cons: | MF, FF Performance | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 9
Camera Used: FF, K-1 Crop
| | This review is for the SD version of this lens, with 62mm filters. manual focus.
On crop cameras this lens is surprisingly sharp, prime like, past F/5.6, with low distortion and minimal aberration. Bokeh is quite pleasant. It is light and compact for the zoom range. You do have to set the stabilisation distance manually. It has useful macro / close up focus at 200mm magnification. Otherwise minimum focus is quite close long, around 1m.
On full frame this lens has a little more distortion, edges get slightly softer, and without correction, there's a little aberration.
Overall, this is still a useful, sharp mid range lens.
| | | | Forum Member Registered: August, 2012 Posts: 90 1 user found this helpful | Review Date: September 17, 2017 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 7 |
Pros: | Nice zoom range, relatively wide aperture | Cons: | Image quality not up to modern standards, a bit hard to focus | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 6
Camera Used: Pentax K-1
| | Bought this lens new in the mid 1980's and used it quite a lot on film, mainly on my Pentax LX. Very rarely gets used these days. It was a nice lens on manual focus cameras and optically quite alright for film, especially 400 ISO film which I used a lot, but shows its age on a modern digital camera.
Aberrations are not a major problem though, slight barrel distortion at the wide end but actually surprisingly little given how old the lens is and how wide the zoom range is. Resolution is also ok but the images are a bit soft and the colors not as vibrant as with good modern lenses with state of the art coating.
Focusing is not terribly hard on a camera that is designed for manual focus with a good viewfinder, like the Pentax LX, but harder on the K-1, although of course there you can rely on the autofocus system to indicate whether the image is in focus. The combined focus and zoom ring complicates things a bit too - although it was usually considered a benefit in the manual focus era.
It is interesting that the widest aperture is 3.5 at the wide end and only goes down to 4.5 at the long end, not bad for the zoom range. The construction is quite sturdy, all metal, and mechanically the lens is fine after more than 30 years. The lack of an 'A' setting on the aperture ring made no difference on the LX but makes using it on a digital body a bit more of a hassle, especially with the variable aperture.
All things considered it is hard to recommend this lens for a digital camera, although it is probably quite inexpensive if you can find one used. For a manual focus film camera it makes more sense. | | |