Today I had the pleasure of visiting one of the most magnificent buildings in Washington D.C.: The United States Capitol Building. Apart from all the history and curious facts, this was an excellent opportunity to test my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens in low-light conditions. Overall, it performed really decently, with ISO sensitivity of 400 and shutter speeds as slow as 1/10. Thanks to the the small f-stop of 2.8, this lens can do wonderful things in very low-light rooms.
I personally have never thought a fast ultra-wide lens would be that important. Take the excellent Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L, for instance. I couldn’t imagine why someone would take the much more expensive 16-35mm f/2.8L. But now, thinking more thoroughly, I get the picture: it makes sense for APS-C/DX cameras. These small DX sensors can’t perform well with high ISOs, so the faster the lens, the better. That’s not necessarily true for FX, where you can use higher ISOs and get decent noise results.
So, the lens performs well in both low and normal light conditions. Sweet! I really think now that I made the right choice choosing this one instead of the Nikon AF-S 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G lens. That one may be the best (and only) choice for D40/D60/Dxxxx owners, but for D90 and D300s, this is the one to get!
You can see my Tokina 11.16mm f/2.8 photos taken at the U.S. Capitol on Flickr.