Digital Home Thoughts: Tokina Launches 16-28mm f/2.8 lens for 35mm-sized Sensors

Did I mention I like Tokina lenses? Out of all the third-party lens makers Tokina is one of my favourites, dating back to their 28-70/2.6-2.8 zoom lens. In addition to being quite a good performer, the thing was built like a pro-grade Nikkor lens - not surprising since the founders were ex-Nikon engineers.

Today they've just announced the availability and pricing of the 16-28mm f/2.8 zoom in Nikon and Canon mounts. I heard about the product development announcement back in PMA 2010 (essentially an announcement of an announcement), and I was expecting a version of the 11-16/2.8 for 35mm sensors. It now appears to be a new optical formula, and comes with Tokina's take on the piezo-electric AF motor, called Silent Drive Motor (SD-M; I guess all the nice names have been taken).

There are two downsides to this lens. The first is that like the Nikkor 14-24/2.8, there is no way to attach filters. While digital photography has rendered a lot of filters obsolete, there are still a few useful filters that I still use, like neutral density filters and the occasional circular polariser. The second is that its announced list price, US$1400, is quite a bit more than the original 11-16/2.8, which was announced at US$800. It is not going to be quite the bargain that the 11-16/2.8 was. That said, if it's anything like the 11-16/2.8 optically, I think it's going to be a very worthy alternative to the even more expensive Nikkor 14-24/2.8. Canon users might still want to stick to their 16-35/2.8s though.