Canon 55-250 vs. Tokina 80-400

Hi there,

I was wondering if anybody has any experience with these two lenses??
Or maybe the canon 70-300 IS with tokina 80-400 because I know
the canon 70-300 is very similar to the 55-250. I just bought myself
a canon 55-250, but I'm still considering returning it in favour for
tokina 80-400 because of the extra 150mm reach. So I'd like to know
if the 80-400 is as sharp as 55-250?? I just did a comparison yesterday
between the 70-200 f/4L with the 55-250 and surprisingly the 55-250
is pretty close!! and it's got very good IS!!


Any response and comment is appreciated!
Thank you!

Keep your 55-250 IS for now. The Tokina is good but a little soft at 400 and the AF is kinda slow (for sports and BIF.)

enrixan wrote in post #7921425
Hi there,
I just did a comparison yesterday
between the 70-200 f/4L with the 55-250 and surprisingly the 55-250
is pretty close!! and it's got very good IS!!
Any response and comment is appreciated!
Thank you!

that's why I'm keeping my 55-250 !

Thanks for the advice!

The canon 55-250 is a great budget zoom. Probably the best. I also found it compares fairly well to the L. Great little lens.

Same dilema a few years ago. Tested the 70-300 IS against the 80-400 and the 70-300 with TC was sharper than the Toki. Shame as the Toki is a compact little lens.

Thanks Neily! It's good to hear from a real owner. I've been reading some reviews and owners of the tokina. They say that it's very sharp for a compact 80-400 but there's no comparison between that and other lenses. I think tokina lenses aren't very sharp. I have a tokina 12-24 and i need to drop the aperture down to 5.6 to get sharp portrait

enrixan wrote in post #7925234
Thanks Neily! It's good to hear from a real owner. I've been reading some reviews and owners of the tokina. They say that it's very sharp for a compact 80-400 but there's no comparison between that and other lenses. I think tokina lenses aren't very sharp. I have a tokina 12-24 and i need to drop the aperture down to 5.6 to get sharp portrait

Depends which tokina your talking about. The 11-16 is amazingly sharp. My 12-24 was also very sharp but not at the level the 11-16. Perhaps you got a soft copy?

Jeff81 wrote in post #7925276
Depends which tokina your talking about. The 11-16 is amazingly sharp. My 12-24 was also very sharp but not at the level the 11-16. Perhaps you got a soft copy?

Well my 12-24 seemed to front focus.. like 3 mm to the front. It used to be worse, but I took it to tokina to be recalibrated. It's better now, but it's still not very sharp. Ya, I heard the 11-16 is very sharp.