Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Tokina RMC 17mm f3.5 -- First Sample

Signs -- NEX-5 & Tokina RMC 17mm f3.5 FD. Click for larger.

This is one of the few lenses I picked up at the camera show.  Unfortunately, it's in Canon FD mount, which means it's really usable on M43 or NEX, if you shoot digital.  I know there are adapters with glasses inside for EOS, but these kinds of adapters never really interest me, having tried one before.

Back in the olden days, a 24mm lens is consider very wide, and 20mm is extremely wide; a 17mm is approaching fisheye territory.  But, nowadays, 20mm equivalent wide angle is so common, even on the APS-C format.  But, ultra wide angles were very expensive back then, even for third party lens marques.  It was (is) difficult to design ultra wide angles that have good distortion, sharp at corners, great colors, with good flare control.  So, inexpensive ultra wide angle were not really that good a performer.  I had a Sparitone 18mm f3.2 a few years back, and it was just a so so lens.  But, that didn't stop me from using it and got some memorable pictures from it.  This Tokina seems to be a lot better than the Sparitone.  Haven't taken enough pictures to assess its image quality, but the initial pictures look promising.  More pictures to come.

As a side note, I bought the LCD cover for the NEX-5.  A piece of plastic that costs $22!  Unbelievable.

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