Tokina AT-X PRO FX SD 17-35 mm f/4 (IF) review - Vignetting

Have you rated your lenses yet?

Tokina AT-X PRO FX SD 17-35 mm f/4 (IF)

16 September 2013

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

On a small APS-C/DX sensor the Tokina 17-35 mm corrects the vignetting in a splendid way; it’s enough you glance at the thumbnails below to see it clearly.

Tokina AT-X PRO FX SD 17-35 mm f/4 (IF) - Vignetting

The measurements show an interesting thing, though. The vignetting correction is so good that the level of that aberration doesn’t depend almost at all on the aperture used. At the shortest focal length, no matter whether you employ f/4.0, f/5.6 or f/8.0, the brightness loss in the corners always amounts to about 11-12% (-0.35 EV). In the middle of the focal range the situation is similar. At every aperture the vignetting is just 9% (-0.28 EV). Only at 35 mm we managed to notice the influence of the relative aperture – by f/4.0 the vignetting got to 15% (-0.47 EV), it decreased to 11% (-0.33 EV) by f/5.6 and by f/8.0 it was just 10% (-0.31 EV).

Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Let’s check now how the Tokina 17-35 mm f/4.0 performs on full frame in this category.

Here the biggest and, in fact, the only problems can be found at the wide angle. By f/4.0 the vignetting amounts to 46% (-1.77 EV) and we can consider such a level to be high. The stopping down helps to reduce that aberration but it not especially effective. By f/5.6 the light fall-off is 32% (-1.11 EV) and by f/8.0 it reaches 27 % (-0.90 EV). By f/11 aperture and higher the vignetting gets to 22% (-0.74 EV).

The middle of the range and 35 mm focal length fare exceedingly well, even on full frame. At 24 mm and by f/4.0 the vignetting is just 18% (-0.57 EV). After employing f/5.6 it decreases to 16% (-0.51 EV) and stays on that level for higher apertures as well. The maximum focal length is similar – by f/4.0 the vignetting amounts to 15% (0.47 EV) and it decreases to 11% (-0.33 EV) by f/5.6. Further stopping down makes it drop to 10% (-0.31 EV).