Tokina 10-17 vs. Nikkor 10.5, with Seacam Superdome and Fisheye ports Options

[StephenFrink]

I just spent an hour doing pool tests with Mike Mesgleski. He brought his Seacam D200 housing with both 10.5 Nikkor and Tokina 10-17. We tested at all apertures from F-4 through F11 with both lenses, tested with Seacam Fisheye port and Superdome, and with PVL20 port extension and without.

I'll spare you (and me) all the thumbnail analysis, but am willing to send a CD to anyone anal enough to want to look at all these pictures at 100% maganification. Here's the synopsis of important comparisons:

1. Fisheye port and Superdome with 10.5 Nikkor - corners are pretty bad until F-8. Superdome is a tiny bit wider in coverage, Fisheye port ever-so-slightly sharper. Not much difference in the port performance, but still surprisingly bad at apertures wider than F-8. Tried both ports with PVL20 (the smallest Seacam makes) but it vignettes badly.

2. Tokina 10-17 versus Nikkor 10.5 - Tokina is significantly sharper at wider apertures but unfortunately also exhibits very significant color fringing. See this the 100% crop, shot a 1/2000 second so what you're seeing is not motion but fringing. The 200% crop really reveals the issue. Look at the black vertical line that goes blue, and the blue halo at the right side of the white edge of the slate.

100%


200%


The lens is apparently pretty sharp, and quite versatile, but there's no free lunch. It has other optical flaws that may or may not be revealed in most underwater scenes.

3. Ideal port configuration for Tokina 10-17 - There is little difference between the fisheye port and the fisheye port + PVL20. Both are pretty good, but there is a little vignetting from dome shade with PVL20. Use Fisheye port with no port extension. The Superdome + PVL20 is better than the Superdome alone, and is easily the best of all port configurations tested for Tokina 10-17. However, there will be a bit of vignetting from the port sunshade. To use PVL20 you'd have to trim the shade a little. Tokina 10-17, superdome, no port extension is quite nice; and probably the easiest/best solution for all but the most anal pixel-peepers. Those will want to modify their sunshade and go with the PVL20.

There has been some discussion that the Tokina 10-17 was good enough for cropped sensor cameras that it might drive shooters away from full frame to the cropped sensor cameras for which this lens was designed. My test did not lead me to this conclusion.

Thanks to Mike Mesgleski for contributing the hardware for the test, and for actually taking the shots. I was just the slate-holder.