Tried zoom lens, yet not sure

[btgc]

Want to share my "about wide" story. 28mm I got together with camera appears being unreliable, so I went for Tokina 25-50/4. It's not critically larger by 50mm lens and allows to focus at 50mm then go wider. Range makes it nice walk-around candidate. Actually, my first zooms lens with distinct FOV and focus rings. Well, missing DOF scale on barrel isn't good. Yes, it's darker but that wide I usually go at daylight, and distant nightscapes should be easy to scale-focus.

Now I'm not so sure if 24mm fixed lens weren't route to go....No, I definitely will use it for some time and learn it before giving up on zoom.

Have flickred some pics from first roll.

 

[Spyderman]

Well, I'm a Zuiko-holic (i.e. Olympus SLR user) and I've long been looking for a 28-48 Zuiko. It seemed all go for quite high prices, so I took a chance on the same Tokina RMC 25-50/4 and got it at the starting price. I'm still waiting for it to arrive, so I'd love to hear your thoughts about the image quality. Especially contrast, as I'l probably use it mostly for shooting slide film, and (to me) sharpness isn't as important as contrast.

 

[btgc]

First, congrats on your purchase, I bet up to standard eur25 price. And now I see one going for minimal - that's life 🙂
Tokina had lens hood for this lens, although never seen on ebay together with lens. And hood is a must for it as I see, so I'm going to purchase some wide-angle screw-in piece.
So far I've put through only one roll of expired film so don't have much experience with it. Also I have to learn metering with wide lens, it needs more careful approach than 50mm.

I guess that for good price it's worth trying. Just think for hood option. I will give update when new pics come. And will look forward your opinion.

 

[Spyderman]

The starting bid was €29 😀 Still much cheaper than the Olympus Zuiko 28-48.

And here (LINK) is a test of some lenses including the Tokina.

It seems to follow the pattern of other Tokina lenses: a bit soft wide open, and improves a lot stopped down one stop (to f5.6).

BTW: this guy on Flickr has a few pictures from the lens (high res. scans from Ektachrome).

 

[btgc]

Ondrej, second link (to flickr) were my guide before purchase. I'm not experienced with lenses, pics seem somewhere between, though definitely not worse than what my Albinar 28mm would do. But right, it also doesn't cost fortune. Pretty much this is experiment for me. Front element isn't recessed into barrel and I think that lens hood should improve contrast to some extent - actually, I really hope it will.

And yeah, there's no much info on this lens around Net.

 

[shadowfox]

I have a longer zoom Tokina RMC (70-210mm) which I use regularly on my E-300 (makes a very compact super 150-420mm zoom 🙂 )

The sharpness and contrast is superb. 'nuff said.

 

[btgc]

Ondrej, how are you satisfied with your Tokina? I also wanted to ask how moves focal length ring - I don't have other zooms of such type to compare - on mine it moves very easy, almost no resistance, no dampening. I have to be careful to not change focal length when taking pics. How's on your copy ?

P.S. This is sample at 25mm on expired 400H; overcast, rainy day; slight USM.