Okay. I'm having a blast shooting this big, bulky lens. It's the Tokina 16-28mm f2.8 ATX Pro lens. It's the cheapest of the big, fast wide angle zooms and while nobody is going to insist that the corner sharpness, wide open, is anything to write home about I am starting to understand why so many people like shooting this wide; you can get a lot in the frame and that makes you work harder at trying to pull good compositions from chaos.
When I stop this lens down to f8 I become fearless about
using it at any distance and any focal length. While the Tamron 15-30mm might be sharper and, according to reviews, better in the corners when used at the maximum aperture I can say that this lens is no slouch. The trade off is the monstrous weight of the lens. But I'm still spry and hale enough to drag it around.
While the seems fine on the D800 (although that camera exacerbates the mostly minor lower sharpness of the corners at f2.8-5.6) the lens just sings on a lower megapixel camera like the Nikon D700. That's the camera that I've been shooting the 16-28mm with for the last three days.
I photographed the new Austin Public Library (just above) this morning at the 16mm focal length and f8 so I could used the tools in Lightroom to straighten up the frame (poor man's PC lens workaround) and it seems to work fine. I'm sure there is more data for big corrections if I use the D800 or D800e.
Nearly mandatory self portrait in reflecting glass of corporate America.
I have no idea why bars have tanks of liquid nitrogen in their back alleys. It seems a bit disturbing to me. But then I don't own a bar....
I even got carried away and shot a portrait of our new college grad at his grandmother's house in San Antonio. The other grandmother; Belinda's mom.
It seemed to want to be black and white.
8 comments:
Wide zooms are definitely fun! The nitrogen is what makes the beer come out of the tap :-)
Good to know, Ed. Thanks for the mini-enlightenment.
I had the Canon crop sensor equivalent of this lens - the 11-16/f2.8, it was one of the last Canon lenses and was sold way after my Canon body on the way to a full switch to m43. Definitely a fun lens to use and it felt like you could use it for other purposes such as hammering nails.
I've owned a few ultra-wide zooms over the years, including a Quantaray badged Tokina (Tokina manufactured a lot of the Quantaray lenses). They were fun, and on occasion I would find a shot that only that lens could accommodate. But I never felt like I really connected with the ultra-wide perspective. As in most things in photography it probably was really just a lack of practice, as you really have to get out and explore with a lens (as you often do, Kirk) to come to terms with "seeing" through that lens.
You and the Nikons seem to have quite a thing going on, in particular with regard to color. These are the D700’s output? 12 megapixels on a full-frame sensor looks like a fine idea. Combining it with the Tokina lens makes it an even better one.
I couldn't agree more. The D700 files look great. Better to me in small sizes than the D800 series cameras.
Buildings call out for really wide lenses. Borrow a 12 from Precision Camera and see if you like it. It will let you separate out buildings in tight urban spaces. Like shooting a 47mm on 4x5 in the old days.
http://www.epr-art.com/galleries/b6-forts/photos/2098.jpg
http://www.epr-art.com/galleries/a1-favorites/photos/1578.jpg
Did your Mother work for USAA ? I retired from there.
What part of town is your parents' house in ?
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