Why does no-one make a Nikon-fit DX 55-135mm f/2.8 (70-200mm equivalent) ?

Naboo32

Naboo32

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Andy
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Nikon, Sigma, Tamron and Tokina, all seem to have shied away from building such a lens - why is that :shrug:?

The FX 70-200mm f/2.8 lens options are all pretty big and expensive. Surely a more compact version of this, for crop sensors, would be a big seller (at least a few years ago, before the advent of FX sensors) :|.

So, why do (some of) these companies only offer small, variable aperture lenses in these focal lengths (e.g. 55-200mm f/4 - f/5.6) :thinking:. I want a fast DX zoom, dammit! I don't want to lug my FX 70-200mm with me when I'm holiday, when I have D90 that would happily wear something smaller.

I am missing something obvious here? Does anyone know why such a lens has never been offered :shrug:. I'm really curious to know.

Thanks for reading.

Andy
 
jpw said:
Tokina's 50-135mm f2.8 & Sigma's 50-150mm f2.8 :shrug:
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John, you're a star :thumbs:!

Neither of lenses are shown in the current list of lenses on the Tamron or Sigma websites, which is how I missed them, but now I have something to go and investigate :naughty:.

Of course, if it turns out that they are both rubbish, I have a new problem :lol:, but hey .... one step at a time.


If anyone here as any hands-on experience with either of these, I'd love to hear about it :).

Thanks again.
 
Probably because the market doesnt need a fast dx 2.8 lens like that? Remember that Nikons only 2.8 lens, the 17-55 is around £1k, compared to £1500 for the 70-200. A 55-135 type lens would probably sit between that. Not many togs will pay out that for a lens.
 
cambsno said:
Probably because the market doesnt need a fast dx 2.8 lens like that? Remember that Nikons only 2.8 lens, the 17-55 is around £1k, compared to £1500 for the 70-200. A 55-135 type lens would probably sit between that. Not many togs will pay out that for a lens.
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Well, 'the market' has survived this long without Nikon producing one, so I guess you're right and we're never going to see one now :shrug:.

But, all is not lost :naughty:. The Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8 gets very good reviews and if it's anything like as good as their 11-16mm f/2.8, it'll be plenty good enough for me. The only trouble is finding one in Europe :(.
 
I was surprised to find there isn't a Nikon one when I was considering changing from Olympus to Nikon, one of my main lenses was the 35-100mm (70-200mm effective) which I found to be a versatile focal length. I found it handy starting at 35mm rather than the 50mm on the 50-200mm as the latter just seemed too narrow which meant similarly the 70-200mm on DX would be longer than I wanted. That's one of the main reasons I ended up with a D700.

John
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I was surprised to find there isn't a Nikon one when I was considering changing from Olympus to Nikon, one of my main lenses was the 35-100mm (70-200mm effective) which I found to be a versatile focal length. I found it handy starting at 35mm rather than the 50mm on the 50-200mm as the latter just seemed too narrow which meant similarly the 70-200mm on DX would be longer than I wanted. That's one of the main reasons I ended up with a D700.

John
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Well, if it drove you toward a D700 - it wasn't all bad :D!

For my D700, I have a trio of f/2.8 zooms (17-35, 28-75, 70-200), but my DX f/2.8 zooms only go from 11-16 then 17-50, before I have to switch to the 55-200 (f/4-5.6). I'm really not being a gear snob here, but I need f/2.8 up to 200mm (35mm eq.), both for bokeh and for shutter speeds.

So, if I can bag one of these Tokinas (even if I have to import one from Hong Kong), then I will finally have a complete set of fast DX lenses to compliment my fast FX trio. When it comes to travelling, the high weight and high value of a D700 and a trio zooms is fairly off-putting to me (well, at least for city trips where I have to carry the stuff with me all day).

It looks like the Tokina is going to come in at around £500 (after import tax & VAT), which is fine with me if it's as good as most people claim it is ;). I'd still like to hear from anyone who owns one, but when I did a search here earlier, I just found three threads asking the same question, with no replies :(. Must be a rare beast!?
 
I was going to suggest the Tokina as well.

I cannot comment on it directly, but it is genetically a very close relation of the Pentax 50-135, which is a really excellent lens.
 
Apparently Tokina and Pentax are now owned by the same parent company, and do co-operate with each other on lens designs.

I have to admit, I am very impressed with Tokina lenses I have used of late - they seem to make some real winners, the 11-16/2.8 has amazing sharpness and detail, all the way to the corners! Quite something.
 
I've got the Tokina 50-135. She's a beaut, she really is. Best thing is I picked it up used, in mint condition, from MPB. Part exchanged another lens for it too, so it was a lot less than £500 for me! Would highly recommend it, but believe they've stopped making it now so you'll have to search around. Someone sold one on here not too long ago
 
neilos100 said:
Fotosense have some at £560...... http://www.fotosense.co.uk/tokina-at-x-535-pro-dx-af-16-50mm-f-2-8-nikon-fit.html

Neil
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Thanks for that link, Neil :thumbs:.

I have a couple of places to phone on Monday now. As well as Fotosense, I want to speak to Purely Gadgets, who are showing 15 of these in stock at £389 :suspect:. A quick Google search revealed that they are notorious for advertising things that they don't actually have in stock, presumably so that they can fill their bank accounts with 100's of 1,000s of pounds of people's money, which they hang onto for a couple of weeks and then refund again. Keeping those kind of sums (or higher) at a constant level in one's account is a great way to earn thousands of £s of interest for doing nothing at all (great scam :bang:).

That said, I found a few examples where people did actually what they wanted from them (unless those posts were made by PG staff :p)!? Internet shopping is such a risky business these days (*sigh* :().

I do wonder why Tokina discontinued this lens. I don't really believe that there's not enough demand for such a useful specification of lens, but obviously 'the market' disagrees with me :shrug:. So, I can't imagine that they're busy developing a super-dooper new vibration reduction equipped replacement now - seems that DX sensored cameras have probably had their heyday :|.
 
Naboo32 said:
I have a couple of places to phone on Monday now. As well as Fotosense, I want to speak to Purely Gadgets, who are showing 15 of these in stock at £389 :suspect:....
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So, for anyone who's interested in this little saga :naughty:, despite all of the pessimistic rhetoric that I posted above :D, I phoned Purely Gadgets today and had a lengthy chat with one of their sales staff. He assured me that not only did they have the Tokina AT-X 535 (Nikon mount) in stock at the advertised price, but that the stock was in one of two UK warehouses and available for immediate dispatch. Furthermore, because of negative feedback that they've had in the past (when bad weather caused delivery problems and stock shortages, he said), they now offer a 14 day money back guarantee on unused items and (in line with my statutory rights), I can easily return the lens for a refund or an exchange if it has any fault at all (like focus calibration, perhaps).

Naturally, I went ahead and ordered one and was quoted 3-7 working days for it to arrive in Germany (I think that he said it would be "within 3 working days" for delivery to a UK address :thinking:). I was told to expect a confirmation email by the end of today (when the warehouse have confirmed the stock pick, I assume) and there will be a parcel tracking number in that email.

So, it will be really interesting to see how this sale progresses. I didn't get the feeling that I was being lied to at all and as I enquired before placing my order, there was no 'making excuses' or 'covering up' involved. I told them at the start of the conversation about all of the bad things that I'd read about their company on the Internet and said that I was initially sceptical about dealing with them, as well as mentioning that I would be keeping my photographic chums informed of how it all went (via this thread :)). The guy wasn't phased at all and assured me that everything would go as advertised.

In the meantime, I wouldn't encourage anyone else to leap in and start ordering from them on the strength of this post alone. Let's wait and see how my order goes first ;).

Will update this post if/once the lens arrives :thumbs:.
 
NikonSimon said:
So you've got it then! Thoughts?

P.s. Thanks for the PM re: using a TC with the lens. Very interesting
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Hi Simon,

Yes, I have it here with me at work, attached to the D90 and just waiting for 4pm, when I can scuttle off into the setting sun and point it at things :naughty:.

Physically, the lens is everything that I had expected. It feels very solid and certainly not 'heavy', when compared to the full-frame Nikon equivalent.

Even my dealings with Purely Gadgets, although a little shady :suspect:, turned out just great in the end. I paid less for this BNIB example than some used ones appear to have sold for on ebay and I had it within 9 days of ordering it, which is pretty standard for UK to Germany economy deliveries.

The true test will come when I see how accurately it focuses at various distances and of course, just how sharp it is at various apertures. I think that I can already see that, at f/2.8 and 135mm, the images don't 'pop' in quite the way that they can often do with the Nikon 70-200. Still, that's hardly a fair comparison :shrug:.

Will post again after the weekend, when I have some images to show (hopefully ;)).
 
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