About Tokina 12-24mm f/4 purchase?

Some one offered me Tokina 12-24mm f/4 first version for $250. Wondering if this is still considered a good lens and able to work well with 18mp/20mp sensors. I use Sigma 30mm 1.4 for taking my family pictures and learning photography. I am thinking of getting something else to complement 30mm and play with different FL. My other alternative is getting 18-55mm stm for $125.
Thanks

12-24 is pretyy wide, i would prefer 18-55 just to cover a broader range. but thats just my opinion

The tokina 12-24 f4 is a very nice lens. Some people don't like the clutch mechanism.

If you'd like the range it's a great lens.

I have it. Love it.

I really liked it. Had the 12-24 DX ii for my rebel. It was a great lens: stopped down from 6.3 on it delivered beautiful focus across the frame, the wide field of view forced me to get in to the shot more than my other midrange lenses, AF was fast and quiet, and I thought the clutch was a very elegant way to adjust when I wanted to move to manual focus.

I only sold it because I changed out bodies, and it took me about 5 seconds to make an offer on a 17-40 to replace it.

khwaja wrote in post #16650119
Some one offered me Tokina 12-24mm f/4 first version for $250. Wondering if this is still considered a good lens and able to work well with 18mp/20mp sensors. I use Sigma 30mm 1.4 for taking my family pictures and learning photography. I am thinking of getting something else to complement 30mm and play with different FL. My other alternative is getting 18-55mm stm for $125.
Thanks

Heya,

It's a decent lens. Very wide, so that's a nice option and doesn't compete with your current focal length. The only downside is the F4. I say downside loosely. At $250, it's hardly a downside, that's a great aperture at that price point. I only bring it up because you have an F1.4 lens, so when you switch to an F4 lens, you're going to feel that change big time. Depth of field is different. When branching out into a new lens, I would look for all the features I could to get something that will serve as much purpose as possible. A wide to mid range zoom with F2.8 would be something I would look for, instead of something with just static F4. But that's just me, from my experience. Also, price plays a big role. On a budget, it's going to be hard to have constant F2.8 in a zoom no matter what. F4 is the compromise.

Ask yourself if you need that wide of a lens? 12mm is very wide. Ultrawide. Do you plan on doing landscape, or just want to experiment with wider fields of view? If you stop down this lens to F8~F11, it will do landscape very well and have a great depth of field. At F4, it can function fairly good as a walk around lens for nearly anything on a crop sensor, as it goes from ultrawide to fairly normal fields of view comparable to your eye. I think you'll learn a lot more about photography from your 30mm F1.4 lens though.

The 18-55 is a good lens. But it has overlap with your 30mm. And frankly the 55mm end of that zoom may not be much of interest when you have that 30mm prime. There's overlap, and it doesn't give you distinct advantage anywhere. The only advantage to this lens is the 18mm side, and the versatility of the focal range. It doesn't offer any advantage in the form of sharpness, aperture, etc.

The 12-24mm F4 is an interesting lens and will open up the world of ultrawide for a very reasonable price. $250 is a great price for this. Applications range from landscape to walkaround. Personally I would treat it more as a landscape lens, because really, your 30mm F1.4 Sigma is superior in sharpness and aperture and is a better walk around lens and better for portraits and all that.

Very best,

For that price, I'd pick it up for sure.

No brainer at that price, imho.

Thanks for all the feedback. Tokina is definitely something different for me in terms of wide focal length and build. I might not need UW for my needs other than to experiment and feel. Both of them will give me 18-24mm and probably comparable in terms picture quality. Difference is cost, IS, stm for videos and UW vs normal. I took few quick pictures with the lens using my camera.
This is at 12mm with f4.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/khwaja76/122260​55404/

Need to shoot differently with a UWA. You could stAnd one or two feet from hat beetle and still end up with a wide field of view. If not shooting landscape, I always thought UWAs shined getting close to a subject, or at least putting something in the foreground. It's a totally different experience in shooting, and quite frankly, I think wide angles are one of the hardest to shoot with.

$250.00? Not a brainer. It's a great little lens. And no, 12mm is not too wide for landscapes or taking photos of the Auroras, or taking pictures of your family members sitting at the table across form you.

If you have a dog, tell it to sit on the ground and to look at the camera as you get the lens a few inches away from it's nose when you take the photo.

Something like this and a lot more:

If you are remotely thinking about selling it on again, think again. I just had an awful time trying to sell the very popular Tokina 11-16 2.8. A lens everyone raves about, until you go to sell it. I had to sell it for lower than half the price I paid for it, and it was still under warranty.

The Tokina is a great lens with a useful focal range. But it is an ultra-wide and therefore somewhat less versatile than the 18-55.

The thing with ultra-wide lenses is that you need to shoot in a different way to get the full benefit of them. If you frame your photographs as you would with a longer lens, you'll get boring images. You need to be more creative.

It also depends a lot on what you shoot. The Tokina's range isn't ideal for people photography, but you can use the distortion creatively to get some interesting shots. It's not terribly flattering as a focal length for portraits.

I enjoy mine, but it's the least-used lens in my bag. I keep it for creative animal photography and the occasional travel or landscape shot. And I second Paulstw's comment about selling it on. There are an awful lot of wide-angle lenses on the used market, and they're not easy to sell. Last year I briefly considered selling my Tokina, but it generated virtually no interest when I advertised it at $300. I regularly see the much more expensive Tokina 11-16 lens for sale on our local Craiglist and Kijiji for around $450. I would say $250 for the less popular 12-24 is a fair price, but not a steal. If you think you'll be keeping it, buy it. But if you're thinking of buying it and then selling it on for a profit, you might want to think again. You'd probably get your money back, but it wouldn't be easy.

Thanks for all the feedback. I will check with seller and see if price can be reduced to $200 once I have funds.
Thanks

Seller is very firm on $250. How important is IS for videos?. Tamron 17-50 non VC is going for similar price. It might be more handy for me than UW lens.