hey everyone this is Bob from EpicAperture.com and this is the review of
the Tokina 11 to 20 f 2.8 DX lens and before I go into how it feels like or
how it looks or anything like that I'd like to share with you my experience
using it almost over a year and the projects I was able to pull off with
this lens in this Tokina 11 to 20 F 2.8 lens review let's get into it
all right now I'd like to look at this lens as an all rounder lens the reason
for me to say that is because for me it worked really great for pictures and
videos as well you might notice that this review is going to be video centric
because I used this lens a lot for video purposes and actually the primary reason
why I bought this lens was to shoot my youtube videos at that point in time I
had a tight space to do my YouTube videos and this lens worked really great
for that purpose but then I found myself taking pictures of landscapes and using
this lens for HDR photography and I'll show you that as well
but before that I will show you some video clips I used this lens for my
wedding videography projects I'll show that first and I'll come back talk to
you
all right so there you are so like you saw, the wide-angle nature of this
lens kinda renders a really sleek look to the slow motions on the wedding
videos and the wide constant aperture of f2.8 definitely gives a nice shallow
depth of field and also helped me with the low-light conditions when it was
really dark with this crop since their bodies it doesn't work really good and
dark lit situations it kind of adds a lot of noise when you have to bump up
the ISO so the constant aperture of 2.8 definitely helped me with the low-light
conditions when I was using this for wedding videography also as you saw like
when you use a gimbal for stabilization like the videos turns out really good
with the wide-angle lens with this Tokina 11 to 20 F 2.8 and if you wonder
what gimbal I use, I use the Zhiyun crane 2 and but the other thing I'd like to
throw out there is that it is heavy like I really felt the weight especially when
you do that for like six to eight hours a day my forearm almost goes numb at the
end of the day and it almost takes a day to recover from that but this works
really good for making videos now I've seen some people in their review videos
complaining about the mechanical or the focus ring like I concur as well like it
could have been better if this was some kind of a button like some other
like other popular lenses have maybe they have their own reasons for making
it this way but it doesn't feel really good if you have to toggle between an
auto focus and manual focus often but personally for me it has never been an
issue because almost all the time for the video production purposes I leave it
on auto focus and I'll focus on the subject first and I'll maintain the
distance when I move with the gimbal for the wedding videos I do so it has never
been a problem for me but it could have been better if it was a button alright
next up is the thread size that I want to mention really quickly about this
Tokina 11-20 f2.8 has the third size of 82
millimeters don't get confused with the focal length people sometimes get
confused with the focal length of the lens for some reason the focal length is
11-20mm but the thread size here it is 82 which is this
diameter here I use the variable ND filter almost all the time when I shoot
outdoors for videos and for long exposure photography and if you're like
me if you're planning to buy any kinds of filters this is what you'll have to
look for this filter the variable in the filter here is 82 millimeters as well so
that would go perfectly onto your lens or you might have to if you already have
some kind of filter see if you can find like the thread adapters and you might
have to look and find if that's available for you all right next up is
the sharpness the sharpness of Tokina 11 to 20 F 2.8 has been working really
great for me like I've already mentioned the majority of work I do with this lens
is for wedding videography when it is wide at 11 millimeters it is definitely
not sharp it is soft towards the edges I mean but it is tack sharp in the center
so what I do is I take advantage of that now when I am at that white head between
11 and 14 millimeters what I do is I'll focus I'll frame my subject in the
middle of the frame and I'll keep that keep the subject in the center and move
with the subject and that kinda renders a dreamy effect like especially when it
is slow motion it kind of blurs out and it kind of stretches out towards the
edges so I take advantage of that but for pictures like it is definitely
softer towards the side from almost from 11 to 14 15 millimeters but if you zoom
in all the way to between 16 to 20 I don't think that's much of a problem
because it is tack sharp all around and if there is any like you can fix it in
post like in Lightroom and software's like
that but yeah otherwise and other thing is like I've seen some chromatic
aberrations and pictures when again when it is wide at between 11 to 14
millimeters maybe 15 as well but it is there for sure so yeah
this Tokina 11-20 f/2.8 DX lens has been working really great for me for
videos and pictures as well as you've already seen if you have any questions
in particular about this lens please leave it in the comment section below
and don't forget to subscribe and also check out my instagram page @ EpicAperture I post pictures for different lenses and camera bodies there as well
and different gear i add to my collection
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here so that you don't miss any upcoming videos and i'll see you next video bye