Name: Tokina 12-24mm F/4 ATX PRO DX II Autofocus Zoom Lens Built in Motor for Nikon SLR Cameras
Brand: Tokina
SKU: TN12242NKAF
Price: 449.00 USD
Availability: Discontinued
Rating: 4.5 (152 reviews)

Tokina 12-24mm F/4 ATX PRO DX II Autofocus Zoom Lens Built in Motor for Nikon SLR Cameras

Tokina 12-24mm

Tokina

Tokina AT-X 124 AF PRO DX II AF 12-24mm f/4 Nikon Lens

Adorama

Photography

Lenses

SLR Lenses

Tokina SLR Lenses

Tokina 12-24mm 

Top Rated Gear: Tokina 12-24mm F/4 ATX PRO DX II Autofocus Zoom Lens Built in Motor for Nikon SLR Cameras Lens Format: APS-C / DX, Lens Mount: Nikon F, Lens Series: Tokina DX, Lens Type: Wide Angle Zoom

I use this for mostly interior (real estate) photography.
Very pleased with build quality and sharpness, except there is a noticeable fall off of detail on the left side of my images. This is noticeable at all apertures, but a little less at f5.6- 11. Center & right side are excellent.
However in the way I use this lens that difference will never be noticed by anyone but me, being a pixel peeper.

Excellent lens

I bought this lens for a trip to Utah I hope to make soon. I took it to a local State Park to try it out and it looks very sharp and handles well, looking forward to trying some landscapes soon.

Good and sharp !!!

Having used 3rd party lenses before, I expected this one to feel and perform on the same level on my D7100, but I was quite surprised by the superior build quality and performance. 

Here are the few reasons why I didn't give it 5 stars:
1. Noticeable chromatic aberration. This is easily fixable in Lightroom, but Tokina really could've done a better job of reducing it in-lens.
2. Slight corner distortion on some wide angle shots. This is especially noticeable when a person's face is near the edge of the frame when a shot is taken at 12mm. Lightroom's distortion correction doesn't quite seem to fully fix it either.
3. Slightly limiting zoom range and max aperture. Obviously I know what I was getting when I bought it, but it would be really nice to have either a little more zoom on the long end or perhaps a 2.8-4 variable aperture.

Not perfect, but a great lens!

Purchased the wide angle lens for my wife and it is exactly what she needs for scenic shots.  Tech was very professional and assisted greatly in selection.

Exactly what tech recommended.

I bought this because I needed a UWA for my landscape work.  I looked at Tamron and Nikon but the Nikon lens was way out of my price point.  The toss up was between Tamron and Tokina.  I am NOT disappointed in the least.  Very good reproduction,crisp clear images and does what I need it to do.  I have had it less than two weeks and I do not know how I got along before I made this purchase.  I would recommend this lens to anyone that is looking for excellent product that is well made and performs perfectly and is reasonably priced.

Outstanding Lens

I use this lens typically for close in where one cannot "frame with your feet". Like any UWA pay attention to the diverging lines and the rectilinear design will work as expected. Been using Nikon for about 40 years now with some of thier best lenses. I find no fault with the Tokina glass I own (3 of them) and the build quality is every bit as good as Nikon, or better. The manual clutch works very good as well as the version of silent drive they use. Good job Tokina!

Typical Tokina

Works as good as a Canon equivalent but at half the price.

Great lens with "wide" avialable use

Great lens, used it for a family gathering indoors not bad in low light not great either. But with that said beautiful sharp crisp images.

Love this lens

The ability to capture the power of an object without distortion.

Best Wide Angle

Does everything it was meant to...even more in proper hands....

A Must Have

I have been using this lens on a Nikon D90 for about a month, have shot about 300 images with it. Overall it is a good lens, and fun to use for a guy like me who has been shooting fixed normal and telephoto primes for years. However it has a few issues which would make me hesitant to use it for any serious event.

-PROS-

The build quality is excellent. The lens does not pump in or out as it zooms, everything is in a tough fixed barrel.

The lens is extremely sharp, especially at the wide end.

Lens distortion is expected in a lens this wide; regardless, the Tokina seems to have it under reasonable control.

Excellent color and contrast rendition and fast focus.

The chromatic aberration (purple fringing) is there but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be based on other reviews. On a D90, which has correction algorithms for chromatic aberration, some can be seen along highly contrasting lines, particularly tree branches and leaves against the sky. It is very thin and not noticeable when viewing the image at a normal viewing size. It is worse in the corners of the frame, at wide focal lengths, and with wide apertures. By contrast, Nikon's both otherwise excellent 35mm f/1.8 and 18-55mm kit lens have worse aberration.

-CONS-

Exposure varies wildly across the zoom range. Shoot a perfectly exposed scene at 12mm, then shoot the same scene with the same exposure settings at 24mm and it is blown out. The inverse is true - a perfectly exposed scene at 24mm will be several stops too dark if you shoot the same scene with the same settings at 12mm. I prefer to shoot in manual exposure mode so this can be irritating, particularly if I need to take a photo in a hurry. This phenomenon is typical to see in zoom lenses of any focal length but is very pronounced in this lens' short range.

In about half of my photos taken in the 22-24mm range, the right edge of the frame appears markedly softer than the rest of the image. I don't know why this happens. It does not seem to matter what focus points I choose or where my focal plane lies.

Where the zoom ring falls on the lens is prone to being nudged while I hold the lens during shooting. I will probably learn to work around this as I use the lens more.

-CONCLUSION-

A well-built, sturdy-feeling wide angle lens at a bargain price. Image quality is mostly excellent except for the occasional softness issues I noted, which are a little disappointing. The exposure varying so dramatically along the zoom range means I don't feel comfortable using this lens in an environment where lighting conditions are changing or my subject is moving. I am most comfortable with this lens under more controlled conditions, where I have time to test exposures on subjects that are stationary - not typical of what I shoot. However, I see this being my premier waterfall-shooting lens when the weather improves around here.

Good, Decent Wide Angle Lens

Perfect Addtional Lens for my Camera!

It's so nice to finally have a real wide angle for my DX body.  I love the focus speed and handling of the lens.  I really like the hard stop focus too, I always find myself missing that on Nikon AFS lenses.  The f4 aperture is plenty for my uses, especially at this angle of view, I'm even able to shoot at 1/20th and get sharp images.  The only complaint is that the af/m clutch mechanism takes some getting used to.  The distortion is very low and easily corrected if you need to do so.  My first Tokina and 3rd party lens, I must say I'm very impressed.

Best DX Wide Angle

This Objective has very nice pastel colors,also has far the best performance at this price category.Will be your best friend taking photos of buildings ,landscapes, or inside the buildings, a little distortion can be expected if capturing people very close.This wide angle 12-24 mm gives the "I am there" feeling for your pictures.The 3 year warranty speaks for itself.Have fun!!

Beautiful pastels

This lens adds extra wide angle to my bag of tricks and does it very well. I use it for night photography, day photography, anytime I want extra wide angle capability. I have been extremely happy with its output. It is heavy and not a particularly fast lens, but if you are used to shooting with a tripod as I am, not really a problem. If you need faster you will want to check out the Tokina 11-16mm lens.

The comparable Nikkor lens is a lot more expensive and as others have said, not really worth the extra by comparison.

Love this lens!

Sharp glass

Very useful focal range, sharp, well built. I debated between this lens and the tokina 11-16. I made the right choice. This lens is sharper than the 18-105, and hardly comes off my camera.

Wide than your normal kit zoom! :-)

Out of the box Tack Sharp corner to corner edge to edge and center tested with Digital focusing Targets. Works Great so far with the D7000 no complaints. Very nice addition to the Kit. Did buy ProOptic 77mm filter kit with the lens and a metal lens cap better than the snapon cap.

Great Lens

The Tokina 12-24 is my work horse with my Nikon D7000.  I have had a Tokina 12-24 since they first came out.  It is an absolutely great lens.

Absolutely Excellent

I have had the Tokina 12-24mm for sometime and I've been very impressed with the quality of images and the quality of the lens construction

Excellent Lens

Excellent for land scapes that need an extra wide angle.  Very solid construction.

Solid built great lens

Great lens for outdoor video: No creep, tight, damped and rubberized focus/zoom rings (perfect for follow-focus) and silent glass movement. Focusing from minimum to infinity will not deform or zoom the image.

The focus range is the perfect match for those using EF "standard zoom" range (24-70/28-135/28-105), it will cover the wide end that you miss due to APS-C crop factor.

Be aware of: 
High CAs and purple fringing on maximum aperture. The sweet spot is f8, where you'll get the best sharpness and minimum aberration. 
The provided lens hood will cast a shadow on the pop-up flash (you can take it off naturally or use an external, but be aware of the minimum wide coverage).
The lens is heavy and it's center of gravity is very forward, near the focus ring. When hanging on your neck, the camera will tend to face down instead of staying horizontally aligned. Cheap tripods will struggle to hold this thing straight. 
Sometimes the MF/AF switch will get a little cranky when AF focus to infinity and you want to switch to MF.

Despite all that, I still highly recommend this glass. The price/performance ratio is unbeatable.

Love at first sight

This lens is ideal for landscape photography.  As the focal length is upto 24, this lens can be used for group photos also.  This is only of the altime lens

Very good lens

I use my 12-24 almost entirely for shots of graffiti in alleys. Most alleys are fairly narrow and allow me to get the whole graf piece with ease. I have read that it doesnt have a "super sharp" glass, For my use, I dont need the sharpest lens. It works great and is sharp enough. I carry it in a backpack and has worked every single time no matter how many times I have bumped and banged it. Reliable, sharp enough and solid.

My AlleyCat

This lens is great for shooting interior architecture and regular homes.  I use it for my Real Estate business as well as outdoor landscapes.
Its a great lens.  No negative comments.  This is the first Tokina lens I have purchased, and would definitely purchase another.

Incredible Lens

Great lens, not too heavy not too light. I enjoy using it at 12mm to get the wide angle perspective. My only issue with it is that in very low light the auto focus is not very accurate. I use it with my D7000 and with a SB-700 even the infrared light from the SB-700 the auto focus when used at 12mm can be inaccurate if shooting from more than 2 feet away.

Great Lens for the Price

Well made and very sharp. the AF motor is louder than I expected

sharp but noisy

Well made and VERY sharp. The built-in motor works great with the Nikon D5100.
My only complaint is that the noise of the motor is quite loud.

sharp

While I was satisfied with my Tokina 12-24, I found that I like the 11-18 better, especially since it has a faster wide open f/stop capability.

12-124 vs 11-18

I purchased this lens after reading many glowing reviews and have not been disappointed.  It has lived up to all expectations.

Tokina 12-24mm F/4 ATX PRO DX II Autofocus Zoom Lens Built in Motor for Nikon SLR Cameras

Recommended Alternatives

Tokina opera 16-28mm f/2.8 FX Lens for Nikon F