Ultra-wides

Figure 1: Crisp images from the Nikkor 17-70mm. 

I have to admit that I love and enjoy landscape photography. It is my main activity on the island during my past-times. Whenever I am online, I would look at pictures from far away which are spectacular and very beautiful. It widens up my perspectives and encourages me to travel which I have yet to do.

I discovered my tendency to use the wide end of my lens instead of zooming in for the kill. Thus after sometime shooting with the Nikkor 17-70mm which is a sharp kit lens which I enjoyed using right until the tripod which I left, fall over and smashing the front element into the stony mud.

Before I did some research on ultra-wides which are available for APS-C sized sensors and asked my friends who owned these type of lenses on their opinions. My friend, Mr.Henry Lee strongly recommended me to get the Tokina. This company is famous for their ultra-wides.

Figure 2: Taken with the Tokina 12-24mm f4.

Ultra-wide angle lenses for APS-C sized sensors starts from 15mm below. Thus there are a few lenses from different manufacturers which are able to supply these type of lenses at different aperture openings. If it weren't for the zoom range, I would have chosen the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 which is phenomenal.

Since I need a new lens,  the Tokina 12-24mm f4 immediately comes into mind as I couldn't afford Nikkor's version of 12-24mm f4. So that lens is the lens which I used for most of my landscape photography. My version is very sharp at f4 and I usually use it at f8 for my application.

The build quality and feel of the lens is also great. The lens is internal focusing and zooms internally too. A very solid and smooth moving lenses. I bought mine second hand at a very reasonable price and never regretted the purchase. I like that it has the gold ring which is similar to Nikon's pro-line lenses.

Figure 3: Tokina 12-24mm f4.

That lens has been stuck into my Nikon D200 ever since I bought it. My next purchase will be the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 which will be for the Canon 20D but until the Canon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens fails I guess that will have to wait. For sure, if I get a good price and condition I'll always purchase second hand.