Tokina 80-400mm F4.5-5.6 AT-X 840 AF-II A-mount lens review by 5thElefant

5thElefant#7798 date: Aug-9-2010
sharpness: 3.5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 4 flare control: 2 overall: 3.9	tested on: film camera: APS-C: 6MP; 10MP; 12MP; 14MP; 16MP; 20MP; 24MP full frame: 12MP; 24MP; 36MP; 42MP; 61MP
ownership:	I own this lens
compared to:	Beercan Tamron 70-200 f2.8 Minolta 100-300xi
price paid:	220GBP
positive:	Compact Range Colours
negative:	Soft at the long end
comment:	Starts off fairly sharp wide open at shorter focal lengths. As you get over 200mm it starts to soften up until you get to 400 where it's soft. Stopping down helps. F8 is really pretty good up to 300 and more. 400 needs at least F11 to be vaguely sharp. As a sharpness rating something like 4 under 200, 3.5 for 200-300+ and 2.5 for 400. But... some sharpening in PP works wonders. Colours are really nice. A huge lens hood helps with flare (but get the sub in the frame and flare appears). Despite the softness at the long end its lack of size and weight makes it as portable as a 75-300 and as a 75-300 (OK an 80-300) it's not bad at all, and of course you get a very usable 300-400 as a bonus. Note: just like my other 2 Tokina lenses it has the same lens ID so uses the same -11 micro adjustment that the other two share. But, doesn't need it, so some manual fiddling is needed.