Nikon Snob Commits Cardinal Sin

I've been looking around at various options for an 80-200 f/2.8 zoom. Obviously, any of the Nikkors would be high on my list. The 70-200 VR, of course, is at the pinnacle of the "If I won the lottery today, what lens would I buy first" list. But, since I haven't the budget for any of them, I didn't count on owning an 80-200 f/2.8 any time soon. A few weeks ago, however, I found a deal that I just couldn't pass up. I found a manual-focus Tokina ATX-SD 80-200 f/2.8 with hood and a case for a price that was very much within my budget. Since Tokina lenses, for off-brand lenses anyway, seem to receive very high reviews, I decided to spring for it.

When I received the lens, however, I noticed some fungus growing around the spots that the seller had mentioned in the auction. We agreed on a fair settlement, and I kept the lens. After working through that arrangement, I found a screwdriver small enough to allow me to unscrew the front element. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I cleaned what I could off the back of the front element, and reassembled the lens. I hope the fungus never returns!

I wanted to re-shoot a picture I took awhile back, zoomed in a bit. So, I grabbed the Tokina and took this one:



Now, I haven't really had a chance to test it out completely -- after showering this morning, I snuck out between rain clouds and took a few shots with it. I wanted to do a quick comparison of the Tokina at 100mm with my Nikon 100mm f/2.8 Series E. While the conditions weren't exactly lab-controlled, as of right now, the images below are all straight out of the camera, without any sort of post-processing applied (other than cropping at 100% and JPG conversion). Here's the informal first results:

Tokina 80-200 ATX, 100mm @f/2.8



Same image, cropped to 100% near the window in the center of the frame:


Comments: Overall, rather soft. I focused the lens at infinity. The same shutter speed was selected on my camera, and while I'd mounted the camera on my tripod, the shutter speed was fast enough that I could've hand-held it.

Here's the same picture shot with my 100mm f/2.8 Series E lens:



And, again, a 100% crop of the window, to compare the details.



Comments: I'm still very, very, very impressed with the sharpness of my $59 Series E Nikon 100mm F/2.8! While the 50mm Nikkor F/1.4 AIS has taken over first place as my favorite lens, this 100mm is a very, very close second. I absolutely LOVE this lens.

Here's the same scene shot at F/8:

Tokina 80-200 ATX, 100mm @f/8



Nikon 100mm f/2.8 Series E



Comments:
Much closer comparison now. The Tokina seems to improve at this aperture a lot, which doesn't really surprise me. I'd read that this lens was indeed a little soft at f/2.8, and improves at the higher apertures. While this test isn't really a scientific one, and I'd like to do a bit more testing (I think I was zoomed in a little bit further than 100mm on the Tokina), I do think I'll be able to get some use out of this lens. It should tide me over until a Nikkor finds its way into my budget. But, I can see why prime lenses, even the cheaper-made ones like my Series E, are so much better quality at the same (or similar) focal length on a zoom.

Here's one more shot, tweaked pretty heavily for effect, that I made with the Tokina: