1. Cheap but good solid construction.
2. Standard 77mm filter.
3. Regular nice shape even when extended unlike some other plasticy zooms that look like a fly's proboscis.
4. Felt like barrel surface is good with sweaty palms.
5. Small lens for a constant F2.8

1. Dark and bluish on the viewfinder. (Result of coatings?)
2.Get used to the zoom twist / rotation... it's opposite the rotation of the standard lens!

I have just concluded my own independent testing on this lens and here I will share my results so you will benefit from using this product. Numerous reviews have said soft and fuzzy and even unfocussed or blurred when wide open at F2.8.I will center on that aspect, as on other areas, this lens is OK and good.
Problem: Reports of fuzzy, blurred and out of focus images when wide open at F2.8 and in close distances.
Behavior: True and it happens almost 50% of the time, specially in Yellow color objects and Yellow focus points.
Reason: Very very SHALLOW depth of field. At about 2 feet distance, the DOF can be as shallow as a quarter of an inch! (12mm)! That means, the persons' eyelids may be in focus but his/her nose, ears, hair, neck will be out of focus and blurred!
Another SHOCKING Reason: The focus PLANE of the AF sensors of the camera are not in the same focus plane of the actual CCD or CMOS sensor! With a very shallow DOF, the image may come up as crisp on the ground glass and AF sensor but not so with the CCD / CMOS sensor! A slight hairline misallingment of the AF sensor VS CCD / CMOS sensor given a shallow DOF will result in wrong focus! After market lens manufacturers are not given these tolerances as they form part of the classified blueprints of a camera. Another reason why same brand camera / lens manufacturers have some advantage in lens design.
Some Helpfull SOLUTIONS:
1. On Nikons and Canons, the real focus is about 0.85 inches CLOSER to the camera. So just stepback that amount and click!
2. Instead of F2.8, try using F5.6 and this will increase the DOF 3 times! It will still render backgrounds with the intended bokeh, just slightly defined.
3. This fuzziness gradually goes away after about 3 to 4 feet, so try to capture subjects at that distance.
4. Use F2.8 aperture from 3 feet to infinity and F5.6 for closer to 3 feet.
I hope this will help with the focus and blurr problems!

Construction

No sharp on digital zoom result in no sharp on real photo or transfer to prinnt

If you buy this lens, make sure you can return it if you get one that is not sharp
i buy it 4 sony alpha 100 k lens construction are good and photo quality are mm 8 bcos no sharp

Build quality, Value for money compared to Brand name lenses!

None

I replaced my 28 - 80 kit lens with this one as i wanted the extra speed. I think this is an excellent lens, very sharp and contrasty and well worth the money i paid for it. Build quality is very good ( like all EX lenses) and autofocus is quick, it is constantly attached to my F100.

Customer Service

Not needed

None that I could find

Images were very soft THis is a heavy lens

Bought this used from HEH for my Nikon D70. This is a very large and heavy lens for the focal length...I guess due to the f/2.8 aperture. I found it to be way too soft for my liking. Returned it to KEH. Replaced it with, believe it or not, a new Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-f5.6 G lens for a fraction of the price. The Nikkor is much sharper...rivaling the sharpness of my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens. If you buy this lens, make sure you can return it if you get one that is not sharp.

Similar Products Used:

Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-f5.6 G

It is light weight because Tokina comes with a piece of metal and not plastic. Don't know if durability is a factor here. I did have a Sigma 24-70 before and found that if you try to manual focus the lens in low light when AF is not working as well the knob is very loose and hard to hold in place. The Sigma 28-70 EX F2.8 doesn't have this problem. Price is definitely much less than the similar lens from Nikon costing over $1000 in Canada. Read reviews from Popular Photography before stating that wide aperture below F5.6 as 4 or 2.8 should be avoided as there may be tendency to have slight flare. Took the lens on vacation recently and did not find this to be a major problem. Despite the added weight compared to 24-70 & 28-80 with aperture at F3.5-5.6 did not find holding the lens steady to be a problem

Compared to Sigma 24-70 & 28-80 with 1/2 life-size Macro the F2.8 lens looks bulky. And with larger diameter it cost more for filters. Instances when shooting into the sun, tried to use the lens hood to reduce flair. Found that the odd fan-shaped hood only did the job when pointing at the subject at certain angles... did not cover the entire diameter that at times holding 1 hand over the lens to block flare may be more effective.

Unfortunately there was no Tokina dealer locally in Canada when I got the lens 2 years ago. Wanted to compare it with the Tokina does have 28-70 & 28-80 both with F2.8

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 24-70 & 28-80 with 1/2 life-size Macro.

lightwight, F2.8, smaller than others and the min. Focus. Good value for the price

Body gets scratched easily, slow AF

I bought this lens after having bad experiences with 2 Pentax SMC Lenses (with Powerzoom) for my MZ(ZX)-5N. I had the choice between the Tokina PRO II and the SIGMA EX, which was 100$ cheaper, so I took the sigma. The Lens is sharp and the F2.8 help a lot in bad light situation. I took the lens on all my journey and it made a good job, especially if you go to the beach and direct into the jungle you are happy with a powerfull lens and you dont have to switch all the times the film. (Or what would you take for the beach and jungle at the same time ...?) The AF is slow, but I hadn't had any faster AF for my Pentax, so it's ok. The thing I don't like is that the plasitc body of the lens gets easily scratched and the lens looks rather bad after some months of using it. I had to say that the new Sigma EX DX is better build than the old one. Three main advantage over the tokina: lighter, smaller and the min focus (0.4 vs. 0.7) At the time now, I would go for the tokina, the lens last much longer, better build,.... cheers gabriel

Customer Service

not used

Similar Products Used:

Tokina AT-X 28-70/2.8

Very good stoped down

build quility

I bought 3 lenses for my Sigma SD9. The 50mm macro EX, 28mm F1,8 macro EX and the 28-70 EX. I bought the fixed lenses to get the best quality I could possible get from the camera but I was very surprised how the 3 compare. When all three are comparing at F8 and F11 then there is almost no difference between them. Sometimes the 28mm fixed lens showed a little more sharpness but wide open then the zoom always showed a better image. When the lenses were stopped all the way down they all showed images which were almost useless (except the 28mm), at least I wouldn’t use them. I thought the zoom lens would be worse but either the 28-70 F2,8 is that good or the primes are not that good. Sure it isn’t as well build as the Canon 24-70mm F2,8 but I would never have bought it even if I would have bought the Canon 1ds (well maybe if I can afford the 1ds then I would afford the 24-70mm lens from canon). I am very happy with this zoom lens and very happy with the Sigma sd9. Now I think that maybe I didn’t have to buy the prime lenses since the zoom works so well, but it is always good to have a macro. If I would recommend three lenses for the Sigma SD9 then they would be the 20-40mm F2,8, 50mm macro F2.8 (just as good to buy the 105 or 180mm macro), 28-70 F2,8 (the 24-70 dose not get as a good review) and the 70-200m F2.8.

Customer Service

Never

Cheap introduction to faster lenses.

Painfully slow and noisy autofocus.

I bought this lens a while back because I wanted to get to use a faster lens than I originally got (the Sigma 28-300). Although it can open up to f2.8 the lens is fairly lacking in a few ways. While it's fine for shooting static things the autofocus is painfully slow, which makes it almost impossible to do anything meaningful with a moving subject. In fairness, the Canon lens which overcomes all the issues is four times the price, so you get what you pay for. I plan to get the Canon version, and accept that I'm going to have to get my wallet out in a big way...

Customer Service

Never used

Very sharp pictures Sturdy & weather resistant Excellent value for money if you can't afford an 'L' lens.

For my personal needs, 70mm not quite enough.

This may sound odd considering I no longer own this lens but I found this to be an excellent piece of equipment. I consider myself an advanced amateur and mainly do travel photography, so need to be able to cover a variety of situations. This was my stock lens during a 5 week trip to China/Hong Kong last year and it didn't miss a beat. While I often shoot between apertures of f3.5-5.6, I found the shots I took at f2.8 to be as sharp as any other. I have not yet used a 'L' lens but I had absolutely no complaints with it's performance(in a variety of sometimes testing conditions)or the results. On a number of occasions the weather was less than ideal and I was caught in the odd rain shower from time to time. It kept going in all conditions and is definately a fairly robust piece for someone of my calibre, suffering no ill effects from the weathere, or the odd ding here and there. If like me, money is an issue (a mortgage does that to ones finances) this is a an affordable and excellent alternative to an 'L' lens. My only reason for trading in this lens was that I found the range of 70mm to be a little less than I would have liked. As someone who likes to get candid shots, I found that on certain occasions this range was not quite enough and an oppotunity would be gone before you could change lenses.And you don't always have the space or oppotunity to get closer. This is my only reason for changing to the Canon 28-135mm IS f3.5-5.6 as otherwise I was very happy with this lens. If either Sigma or Canon came out with a quality 28-105mm f2.8, I would be very happy. Please note that the stated price is in New Zealand Dollars

Customer Service

Not Used

Similar Products Used:

Canon 28-80 f3.5-5.6(beginners lens) Canon 28-135 IS f3.5-5.6 Canon 75-300 mk 11 Canon 75-300 IS 4-5.6

Great colors, and despite the weight, it feels really good in your hand and the zoom & focus rings are well-sized and placed.

With my Minolta 600si (Alpha-507 here in Japan--brilliant camera), when the camera/lens combo is telling me the image is in focus, it's actually a tad off. I've checked and the problem is not in my finder, as it is fine with my other lenses. Using MF solves the problem.

Overall, it's good. The colors especially turn out really, really well.

Customer Service

No knowledge.

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 70-200 f/2.8