I recently picked up a Tokina 80-200 f4 Ai lens in an auction. As I currently have very limited time to test it out, I was hoping to find someone out there who could tell me if this is a decent lens or a dog. If the latter, I will probably not mess with it and sell it. Thank you.

-- Bob Thomas (bthommes@sutton.esu9.k12.ne.us), May 23, 2000

Answers

Tokina model "names," in approximate order from higher grades to lower grades: ATX, SMZ, SZX, SZ, SL, EMZ, ELZ, ELF. Sometimes M = "macro" and L = "non-macro," but not always. "RMC" was a level of multicoating. Tokina's names for low-dispersion glass are HLD and SD. The only way to tell if a lens is a dog or not, is to test it personally.

-- John Kuraoka (kuraoka@home.com), May 25, 2000.

For Tokina, I should only consider the ATX lenses.

-- Ivan Verschoote (ivan.verschoote@rug.ac.be), May 26, 2000.

Shoot one roll of e-6 at various focal legnth and aperture combinations. Ask the lab to process the film UNCUT - so it come back as one long strip and not 36 pics in individual mounts (most pro labs will do this and most pro labs will run your film in 1-3 hours depending on their workload) I would think about shooting a plain white wall evenly lit with something like newspapers inned all over it to check sharpness across the image and possible vignetting. I once had a Tokina zoom that was awful at 28mm but good at 70mm or so, awful wide op0en but better at f11 or so. Once I tested it I knew how to avoid using it for best results.

My best advice to you is probably to sell that P.O.S and buy 85mm, 135mm and 200mm primes.

-- a dale (adale66@excite.com), May 26, 2000.