Review Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1: 2.8

According provided by Tokina AT-X AF lens SD 80-200mm 1:2.8 (for Nikon) many thanks to Mad Nikolai.

Review of Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1: 2.8

Tokina AT-XAF SD 80-200mm 1:2.8 – fast telephoto for film cameras with 2.5x zoom. I received a version for Nikon cameras for review. Like other third-party photographic equipment manufacturers, Tokina produced this lens for other systems - Canon, Pentax and Sony.

Tokina AT-XAF SD 80-200mm 1:2.8 is the predecessor of the more famous version Tokina AT-X PRO (828) 80-200mm 1: 2.8.

View of Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1:2.8 with lens hood on

The Tokina 80-200 / 2.8 lens is made primarily of metal, with a huge (77 mm) front lens and a weight of 1400 grams. The focus ring and zoom are rubberized and pleasant to the touch. On the lens case there is a non-removable tripod foot, which rotates 360 degrees around the axis of the lens and is fixed with a washer-clamp. The washer can be completely unscrewed and is easy to lose. Also, on the case you can find two white marks-strips, which, when compared with the white mark-point of the clamp on the tripod foot, make it possible to quickly turn the lens into a landscape or portrait position.

The lens came to me for a review in a solid case, with a hood. The hood can be worn back and forth with complete loss of access to the focus ring, but, in principle, you can focus by rotating the hood, and with it the front of the lens, which is responsible for focusing.

Side view of Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1: 2.8

But the Tokina 80-200 / 2.8’s auto focus speed failed. If the lens misses, then re-sharpening requires a lot of time. There is no focus mode switch; switching to automatic mode and vice versa is carried out by means of a switch on the camera. There is no focus distance limiter. The focus ring rotates 100 degrees, while the entire front of the lens spins and drives forward... During focusing, when reaching the extreme positions, the Tokina 80-200 / 2.8 lenses knock perceptibly, which is generally the norm for such lenses.

On the body there is a scale for focusing distance in meters and feet, the MDF is as much as 1.8 meters. The lens has an internal zoom - when the focal length is changed, the lens does not change its size. When the focal length is changed, as well as when focusing, the rear lens remains stationary, which completely deprives the lens of the 'vacuum cleaner effect' and, therefore, reduces the possibility of contamination of the interior of the camera. Also, the lens can be considered parfocal - when zooming, the focus practically does not go astray.

Rear view of Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1: 2.8

It's important: auto focus with this lens is available only when using him on cameras with built-in motor focusing.

Exact list Nikon DSLR cameras with a built-in focus motor, on which this lens will focus automatically:

• D1, D1h, D1x, D2x, D2xs, D2h, D2hs
• D3, D3x, D3s, D4, D4s, D5, D6
• Df
• D50, D70, D70s, D80, D90
• D7000, D7100, D7200,D7500
• D100, D200, D300, D300s,D500
• D600, D610, D750, D780
• D700, D800,D800E, D810, D810a, D850
• Fujifilm FinePix S1 Pro, S2 Pro, S3 ProS3 Pro UVIR, S5 ProIS Pro
• Kodak DCS PRO 14n, DCS Pro SLR/n

Exact list Nikon DSLR cameras without a built-in focus motor, on which this lens will not focus automatically:

• D40, D40x, D60
• D3000, D3100, D3200, D3300, D3400, D3500
• D5000, D5100, D5200, D5300, D5500, D5600
• all digital mirrorless cameras Nikon ZDX, Nikon ZFX with Nikon FTZ/FTZ II adapter

Only auto focus and sound confirmation of focus will not work with these cameras, all other important functions, such as automatic exposure metering and automatic iris control, will work well.

You will find a lot of useful information on the types of cameras and lenses Nikon here.

Diaphragm consists of 9 petals, closes over the entire range of focal lengths to F / 32. The lens has aperture control ring (in the photo the ring is easy to recognize by a number of numbers: from F / 2.8 to F / 32). To control the value aperture of any modern Nikon cameraneed to install ring aperture to F / 32 and fix it with a special button, which is located on the lens housing to the right of the numbers. If this is not done, the 'fEE' error will appear on the camera display. This ring is needed to control the aperture on some film cameras (described in more detail in the section Non-G Nikon Lenses).

For Nikon cameras, the lens is an analog FX, AF, Non-d lens. Please note that the Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1: 2.8 is actually does not transmit focus distance values into the camera, which may give errors in exposure when shooting with flash in TTL auto modes. IN EXIF images taken with the lens, the focus distance is always indicated 34 meters, which is a kind of stub.

Enlightenment of the front lens Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1: 2.8

When using the lens on cropped cameras'Nikon DX' EGF will be 120-300 mm. At open apertures, the lens allows without problems take off. For FX cameras, the range of 80-200 mm is very convenient for a huge number of photo tasks. In particular, such fast telephoto lenses are excellent portrait lenses.

Two similar lenses with back-to-front hoods when focusing on MDF. You can see the review of the second lens - Tamron SP AF LD 70-210mm 1: 2.8 67DN

On F / 2.8, the Tokina 80-200 / 2.8 is not particularly strong, as the 'classic' Tokin software 'appears, and the sharpness' floats' over the entire range of focal lengths. However, if you cover the aperture at least to F / 3.5, then the sharpness increases markedly. Nevertheless, no one forbade me to shoot on F / 2.8, while I got wonderful volumetric photos, where the sharpness was not very important. Tokina 80-200 / 2.8 is interesting for its good pattern, it is only a pity that the lens suffers greatly from chromatic aberration.

The copy from my review was constantly 'falling off' (as they say, when the camera stops 'seeing' or 'understanding' the lens during shooting). To bring the functionality back to normal, I had to remove the lens and put it back on the camera several times. Most likely this is an obvious drawback of my instance and directly when working with Nikon D700. When I shot on Nikon D80 и D7000 There were no problems.

Here link to the archive with the originals - 210 MB, 23 photos, photo parameters in the archive and in the gallery are indicated here.

It looks like Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1: 2.8 on a film camera

Catalog of modern Tokina lenses can look at this link.

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Tokina AT-X AF SD 80-200mm 1: 2.8 is a solid lens, but slow focusing and not the best sharpness at F / 2.8 make you look for other alternatives to the native flagships of the 70 (80) -200 (210) class. But on the secondary market such a lens can be found for only 300-400 USD.

Material prepared Arkady Shapoval.