TOKINA at-X 11-16mm F2.8 DXII Canon

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This UWA lens is a MUST for serious astrophotographers that use crop cameras. Its tack sharp, infinity focus is just that, no guessing, wide aperture. You will love the images it captures. I use it with my Canon 70D, a perfect combo. Nothing bad to say, all good things to say. Ive attached a sample of what it can do.

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I got this lens after my online photography group suggested it for shooting the Northern Lights. Its awesome! It has an infinity setting so I dont have to worry about focus issues in the dark. The quality is amazing. I recommend getting the polarizer as well...I like to shoot wide-angle landscape pics, and the polarizer comes in handy on a blue sky day. Its my favorite lens.

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I bought this lens to "complete" my lens collection. I have a fair number of good to high-quality lenses, but the widest lens I owned was a 24-70mm. It just seems that fairly often I find myself needing just a bit wider than that. I read a bit about this lens before the purchase and it seems a lot of people are very happy with this lens. Now that I own it, it is obvious why. Right out of the box you can tell that this is a solid piece of equipment. It is definitely not a "fantastic plastic". Its got some heft to it, though it is not so heavy that it is uncomfortable on the camera. (I have a Canon 40d.) In playing around I found it to be a very sharp lens. It also has tremendous depth of field making it great for getting group shots and including background. Ive read some complaints that 11-16mm isnt much of a zoom. Its not. However, when its that wide I look at the zoom just to give me a little play around the edges and keep my group more towards the center of the photo. If 16mm is way wide, Id go with the 24-70mm and if 11mm isnt wide enough Im just going to have to back up. This is my first Tokina lens and I was a bit nervous, but not now. Im very happy with the purchase. If you buy it, I hope it works out as well for you and thank you for taking the time to read my review. Additional Review 8/22/14: When I originally wrote this review I had owned the Tokina for a little over a month, now it has been more than a year. I am still as happy with it as I was when I bought it. I wanted to add that this is a bit of a niche lens. Im now using a Canon 70d and if Im out and Im only taking one lens this isnt it. However, when I pack a bag, the tokina is always in it. when Im looking for that really wide shot, this is the lens and it has never disappointed me. Id also like to point out that this is not a fisheye lens. There is a little distortion at the edges, but to me Ive always been amazed that there is not more on a lens this wide so I certainly am not upset by it. Thanks again for reading my review and I hope if you buy this lens that it gives you some great shots as well!

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The only reason this gets 4 stars instead of 5 is that even though the listing says this is the USA version and that it was supposed to come with a three-year warranty, in reality this is a gray market lens and the warranty is only for two years -- and its void in the U.S. as this is from a third party seller fulfilled by Amazon, NOT FROM AN AUTHORIZED TOKINA DEALER. So, buyer beware. That said, this is an incredibly good, versatile lens. It comes with a lens hood (youll want to do an internet search to watch a demonstration on how to take off the lens hood, as it is tricky, but like me you can just leave it on all the time). Things youll also want to know: its rough going onto the camera but seems fine once its on; it has no image stabilization, but it does have auto-focus (to switch auto-focus on and off, you just pull or push the focus ring at the end of the lens); aberrations are very apparent when you are zoomed all the way out, but are not very noticeable at other focal lengths; this lens can have excessive lens flare as well as discoloration in sunny/bright light conditions; the lowest aperture you can go with this lens is 2.8. The color is beautiful, the focus is beautiful. It is very useful for astrophotography (you just have to set the focus to infinity, which is really easy because it has its very own setting on the lens) as well as architectural interiors, closeup photos and I have been using it a lot lately for landscape photography. As with any wide-angle lens, you must know that there can be quite a bit of lens distortion in the images, but you can learn to use this to your advantage. It is a very excellent, versatile lens.

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Absolutely awesome lens for star photography and wide landscape shots! HOWEVER, after a year of continuous the lens mount starts coming loose. After sending the lens to Tokina, they claim it is an out of warranty issue and that the lens as sustained impact damage. The lens was never dropped and didnt have a single scratch on it. Needless to say, the repair costs were too high to repair, so I bought another one. One more year later, the same exact issue is occurring. Ill be switching to the Canon variant.

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After shooting with this lens for about a year, I can say it is my favorite lens of all time. Some stunning shots can come from otherwise mundane subjects with the perspective this lens provides. It is truly useful! Let it teach you how to use it and it will outperform any other lens in your bag. It lives on my Canon body as it has become my "go to" lens more than half the time. Ive shot Canon, Pentax, Ricoh, Tamron, Sigma, Fuji, Olympus, Zeiss, and others but this is the first Tokina lens Ive used and I am a life long fan now. Get one!!

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I LOVE this lens! For the cost this lens is absolutely a MUST HAVE. I use this lens on my Canon T6I and Canon 80D. I have used it for paid Real Estate shoots and also hobby landscape photography! Ill attach some shot I have taken with it. The F2.8 is great for astrophotography and also great for shooting interiors of homes via HDR making it much easier to have little to now artificial lighting. (Allowing me to use more natural lighting when possible). Thanks Tonika for making an excellent lens!

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Delivers exactly what its supposed to--super wide angle on a crop sensor, with wide aperture, with really clear and sharp optics, very well constructed, with a lens hood, for $500ish price range. I picked it up after going over tons of "wide angle" lenses for my aps-c sensor camera. The three big ones are the Canon EF-S 10-22mm, the Rokinon 14mm and this Tokina 11-16mm. End of the day, the Tokina is the faster glass, at 2.8 at a wide angle of 11mm. Set her to infinity, point at the sky or landscape (or hyperfocal focus) and youre ready to shoot without even worrying. Why get this lens? For sky shots and landscapes. It also works really well in doors, if you want to take photos of the entire room and everyone in it, at close quarters. Its f2.8 lets you really do well in low light without a flash if you wish. Otherwise, it really excels for nighttime sky photography. This is why I chose it over the Canon and Rokinon. The f2.8 gives you more light gathering ability when doing exposures of stars and clusters (like Milky Way). More light for the given time, means more image. It was a simple choice when I compared the stop ranges. Everything else is either twice the price, or has an aperture of 3.5 or higher. Just not wide enough for my taste when shooting the night sky.

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So Ive had a lot of time to get used to this lens. Ive had it for about a year and a half now, and I can honestly say it has really grown on me. My first big lens purchase was a Tamron 24-70mm F 2.8 VC lens which cost me upwards of $1,000 used. For the time I had the lens, I totally loved it, but using it on a Canon EOS Rebel T3i definitely was tough because of the crop factor that came along with owning a full-frame lens on a crop sensor body. Nevertheless, I got great pictures with that lens, but since this is more of a hobby for me, I really couldnt justify a $1,000 dollar lens being a college student. After selling it, I decided to look for a wide angle lens, as I do a lot of landscape photography for fun. I also do a lot of video work, so this seemed like a nice lens for all of the above. When I first got the lens, I wasnt too sure what to think of it. It was definitely nice, dont get me wrong, but I just really wasnt used to the wide angle aspect yet. After using it for a while, though, I fell in love with it. It is great for a little bit of night time photography, and landscape pictures as well. Using it has gotten me some great pictures that I do not feel I could have gotten with really any other lens. Im trying to think of some cons of this lens, but for the price it is really hard to say anything bad about it. It is by no means an expensive lens, but it is not necessarily a cheap lens either. By not getting a name brand like Canon, you are saving yourself some money right there, which normally means losing a little bit of quality as well. I do not feel as though I received a product lacking quality at all though. The lens is sharp for the price, and the auto focus works well too. I really cannot think of anything bad to say about this lens. Sure, if you pay a lot more money youre going to get a better lens, but for around $400, this lens is truly amazing. I have attached some pictures I took recently with it. They are all the same scene, because I just got a new computer and havent moved any of the pictures from the old one over to this one, so these are all I have... but you get the idea. Overall 5/5 stars for a great lens

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Its nice, for the price, crazy chromatic abberation and lens flares though. Bought as a spare to use on a bcam for some hotel commercials l was shooting. I really couldnt use to much of the footage with the amount of lens flares I got but thats for paid gigs. I had to work around alot with this lens but if you want something wide, cheap and dont care about the image issues this isnt a bad option. Great for people just starting out or looking for a cheap but decent wide angle

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