Tokina 11-16 don't focus to infinity - DIY or send away? (solved?)

Lemaildetom

Lemaildetom

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thomas
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My tokina does not focus as far as infinity...

From what I've read there is a little twick to make it focus further explain in this blog:
http://www.christianschmeer.com/blog/Tokina-11-16mm-f-2.8-Infinity-Focus-Adjustment

I'm almost certain that this will solve my problem but not so sure in doing it myself but maybe I shouldn't be scared it look pretty straightforward? Otherwise where could I send the lens for a cheap repair? If it's cheap enough I might prefer to send it away instead of risking it. It look damn easy for someone use with small screw and fiddly bits.
 
No one?

Any good place to get the lens "adjusted"? Because I am on Orkney I would need a service that work through the post too.
 
I DIY most/all of my things, but I also have lots of experience, skill and knowledge.

If you are confident enough the job is very simply but would just take time to pin point the right infinity point (it is a good idea not to go beyond infinity most of the time.

If you are reluctant, I would assume you do not have the knowledge and skill. There is nothing wrong with trying, but the Tokina 11-16 isn't particularly cheap so I wouldn't look at it as a good first-attempt.

Most important thing: if it is under any kind of warranty do not touch at at all.
 
Mild Hi-Jack, I have one of these in canon mount, and recently went to iceland, saw the northern lights (yay!) and think my lens has the same issue. This is manual focus, set at infinity. Does it look 'wrong'? Mostly the pylons in the far right I'm thinking of.

Northern Lights by mike.redgrave, on Flickr
 
I think yes. Same symptoms, the stars are not perfectly sharp even at the center.
I'm still thinking of sending my lens away for repair but haven't had time to look into it.
Still a good picture though!
 
Thank you! It's not my favourite from the evening but it is one that demonstrates my point! I bought from HDEW in November, I may have to get in touch to see what they say.
 
miker said:
Mild Hi-Jack, I have one of these in canon mount, and recently went to iceland, saw the northern lights (yay!) and think my lens has the same issue. This is manual focus, set at infinity. Does it look 'wrong'? Mostly the pylons in the far right I'm thinking of.

Northern Lights by mike.redgrave, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Focus is even before the bottom of the frame. I am surprised you managed to go this far until noticing.
 
daugirdas said:
Focus is even before the bottom of the frame. I am surprised you managed to go this far until noticing.
Click to expand...

I hadn't had it for long before going away, and work commitments meant I had even less time to use it!
 
daugirdas said:
Focus is even before the bottom of the frame. I am surprised you managed to go this far until noticing.
Click to expand...

Are you sure of that? I wouldn't be so sure. It's the same on mine, but at f/2.8 focused at almost infinity I wouldn't expect the foreground to be sharp. IMO at f/2.8 if the lens was focus a distance even shorter that the first plan the stars would only be a very large blurb.
 
Lemaildetom said:
Are you sure of that? I wouldn't be so sure. It's the same on mine, but at f/2.8 focused at almost infinity I wouldn't expect the foreground to be sharp. IMO at f/2.8 if the lens was focus a distance even shorter that the first plan the stars would only be a very large blurb.
Click to expand...

Look at the image at 100%. The one by miker is left open for the cheapskates to nick, so looking at it only the foreground is getting sharpish, but not quite there. So naturally the really sharp bit is even closer and out frame. It is really not focused to infinity regardless of mislabelled markings on the ring. Shocking, I know...
 
Not convinced but you might be right...

Anyway I'm not sure what to do about it. I've try to have quotes but I only have one quote for 85£ the rest of the service repair all say we don't do tokina because we can't get the parts... Which if I'm right there is no need for parts... Anyone knows the good technician that can help me?
 
I've send 8 email and got 7 refusal saying we don't do Tokina! And 1 saying yes, I know this is a common problem most likely something is lose inside the lens... So not sure where to go from there. I would like to get a quote before deciding to repair it/break it myself. I've mail Tokina themselves but hadn't had an answer yet.

One of the answer i got is pretty funny:
"It's a common problem due to tokina lens not set up correctly to suit all canons same fault occurs even with nikon fit version only thing you can do is print a focus chart of the net and then adjust back focus on the 70d this will however make the other end of the focus go out of place and also you will need adjust back focus again when you fit other lens as camera will be offset to tokina. If you look on net there's many people with this problem. I personally but it down to the poor build quality of tokina. Sell it and get a proper lens that will work 1st time get a sigma"

I didn't answer it has I think it's full of rubbish. I do have an old sigma 10-20 but I really would like the tokina to be working for it's f/2.8 or I might sell it on ebay and buy a Samyang 10mm f/2.8...
 
I thought i will let you know what went on with my "repair" of the lens because it might be usefull to someone, the tokina 11-16 not focusing to infinity seems to be a recurrent problem.

First i can show you what the lens was producing before the "adjustement", sorry the picture is awful and was shot by full moon... but it was just a quick shot from my back garden to illustrate the problem.


_MG_3458 by Lemaildetom on Talk Photography​

And there are a couple of crop from the picture to show that the stars are clearly out of focus:

_MG_3458-2 by Lemaildetom on Talk Photography​

And:

_MG_3458-3 by Lemaildetom on Talk Photography​

This was a big problem for me because i mainly bought this lens for taking picture of the stars and northern light so it was no use to me...

I followed the repair which is explained there:
http://www.christianschmeer.com/blog/Tokina-11-16mm-f-2.8-Infinity-Focus-Adjustment
A few comment on that:
-there is some black tape that needed removing to access the screw and I add to replace it with electrical tape because i didn't add anything like it.
-it was really hard to move it, i almost gave up after forcing for 15 minutes but it finally moved (hurray!)
-i moved it as far as it can go which seems to have done the job

Here are test shot from monday night which show a clear improvement maybe it's actually very good what do you think? (i mean about the sharpness not the picture itself...)
The full image:

_MG_3592 by Lemaildetom on Talk Photography​


A crop of the center (approx 1/16th of the image):


_MG_3592-2 by Lemaildetom on Talk Photography​

And a crop of the top right corner (approx 1/16th of the image):

_MG_3592-3 by Lemaildetom on Talk Photography​

Conclusion:
Moving the screw as far as they can go seems to have clearly improve the focus to infinity.The stars are now pretty sharp!
I wouldn't recommend doing the DIY approach to anyone who doesn't feel confident, it seem that (maybe) the element that need to be moved is held on with some glue and that why it is really hard to move. I went for the DIY because i bought the lens used on ebay and couldn't send it back. Then contacted some lens repair people but all seems to refuse to touch tokina lens... So it was a last resource job either ditch the lens or sell it on ebay as faulty (i'm too honnest to sell it as working if it's not working well for me...)

There is some trail effect in the corner but i guess this is me being to picky and it's probably related to sharpness in the corner more that to anything else. I have stop the tokina down to f/4 but the corner still look the same. The picture was taken at 11mm and 15sec which i think it's on the safe side of trails problem. Do you think it is normal for such a lens to show this kind of effect in the corner? Am i just starting to be too much of a pixel peeper?
 
Anyone? I'd like to know if the corner are normal for such a lens. I have been thinking of buying a Samyang 10mm f/2.8. But if this kind of effect is expected for such lenses there is no reason to buy another one.
 
Hi Thomas,
I think you'll find the corners of any lens will give this trailing effect (even telescopes). It's got some technical name which I can't at the moment remember but if you search an astrophotography site you should find it (I think it's something to do with field flattening). So long as your centre is sharp and your exposure isn't too long (earth's rotation and all that) formula is 600/ focal length* crop factor in seconds.
 
Thanks that's what I though too but I wasn't so sure about it.

I just find this link which show similar exemple http://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/2013/05/nikon-d7100-cropped-sensor-for-night-photography/

And also this from another users which explain his misadventure in this blog.
http://www.astrosurf.com/comolli/strum35.htm
I'm glad after all mine seems pretty good now and it was a pretty cheap option at 200£ second hand on ebay. It has just been a bit of a bad start with this lens but hopefully it's on the right way now!
 
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