The Sports Photo Guy

I added some sample photos from the Tokina 11-16/f2.8 to demonstrate distortion.  Click thru to see the verdict…

The ubiquitous “brick wall test” - 11mm, 1/250 @ f16

As seen in the above “test,” there is clear barrel distortion.  Thankfully, it looks pretty benign and is pretty well corrected with a +4 “remove distortion” setting in PhotoShop’s Lens Correction filter.  In real life, however, there are seldom such cases when distortion is clearly visible, even in shooting architecture:

Real world test, 11mm - 1/250 @ f16

Distortion is much less noticeable, even with strong linear elements in the frame.  As one might expect, the appearance at 16mm is even less noticeable.

Real world test, 16mm - 1/250 @ f16

This ultrawide is thus ideal for architecture, combining sharpness, excellent color rendition, a fast constant f2.8 aperture, and modest distortion.

Buy the Tokina 11-16/f2.8 ATX Pro DX Aspherical for Nikon
Buy the Tokina 11-16/f2.8 ATX Pro DX Aspherical for Canon