Tokina 28-70mm f/2.8 AT-X AF Nikon Fit Lens

Description

The Tokina 28-70mm f/2.8 AT-X AF Nikon Fit Lens is the most affordable of the classic large aperture standard zooms. It is a lens with a long history. It all started int the late 80s with a french manufacturer – Angenieux. They were and still are quite renowned for movie camera lenses but at the time they also had a side business with highly renowned but pricey manual and auto-focus SLR lenses. They offered a couple of very interesting designs like a AF 180mm f/2.3 APO and especially the AF 28-70mm f/2.6 which they marketed as “the fastest standard zoom in the world”. Eventually Angenieux had to recognized that they were simply too small and therefore not cost-efficient enough to survive in this competitive market so they ceased their corresponding operations.

It is an open secret that they licensed the design of the 28-70mm f/2.6 to Tokina. They released the lens again as (a marginally modified) AF 28-70mm f/2.6-2.8 AT-X Pro (II) which was an immediate success thanks to high quality combined with a very affordable price. After coming up with the newly designed Tokina AF 28-80mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro they released the current AF 28-70mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro SV in parallel with a clear budget scope. It is unknown how many of the original genes survived in this lens but some reviews indicated a lower quality in this last incarnation.
As usual we´ll have a look at the performance on an APS-C DSLR where its field of view is equivalent to 45-112mm which isn´t really overly attractive it is certainly no standard zoom here anymore.

Item specifics – Tokina 28-70mm f/2.8 AT-X AF Nikon Fit Lens