There’s one lens in my bag that continues to both frustrate and flirt with me in equal quantities. Just when i think I’ve had enough of it and think about selling it, it goes and serenades me again by producing some great photographs. In some ways it’s the lens i hate to love and love to hate.
I’ll usually go periods of six months or more without using it then when I get bored of the instant bokeh and kitsch portrait shots of my 50mm I dig it out again and play continuously with it for the next month or so. The lens I am taking about is the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8.
I think the reason I keep coming back to this lens is that it is the most challenging I have in my bag. It’s not easy to take good shots with the Tokina, you really have to work for them. The incredibly wide focal length means you really need to compose scenes well. You can’t just point this lens at the horizon and expect a grade A landscape shot. But you can stick it in some crazy, unusual places and get some great pictures…
image creditIt lends itself to leading lines, to cramped places, to making the ordinary look distorted and interesting. Compared to all the other lenses I’ve used it offers a much more unique perspective on the world, making the boring appear interesting and helping the photographer to tell a unique story. The above shot of a staircase in the Vatican museum is a perfect example of the Tokina doing what it does best – tearing the viewers eyes through the perspective of a scene.
