Tokina 80-400mm F4.5-5.6 AT-X 840 AF-II A-mount lens review by 5thElefant
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sharpness: 3.5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 4 flare control: 2 overall: 3.9 | tested on:
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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. |
rating summary

- total reviews: 6
- sharpness: 4.00
- color: 4.33
- build: 5.00
- distortion: 4.50
- flare control: 4.00
- overall: 4.37