Upon looking over at what this year's PMA came to show us, humble consumers, I came across the fact that lens manufacturer Tokina is finally set to produce an ultra-wide angle zoom lens for the full-frame class, namely a 16-28mm F2.8 that you can see to your left, in the form of a mock-up, present at the one of the company's US distributors' stand at the PMA show.

With absolutely no information on it whatsoever, I can but conclude and relate to its technical properties (that are also likely to change) basing on the markings engraved on the Tokina SD 16-28mm F2.8 (IF) FX AT-X PRO.

As we humans are used to read from left to right, the first thing that came to my attention was the SD mark, which is the company's specific tag for Super Low Dispersion, letting us know that the lens will incorporate one or more super-low dispersion glass elements that can reduce the number of total elements needed, thus allowing for an overall more lightweight, compact lens body and also faster focusing.

Next up is the focal range, namely 16-28mm, which informs on the field of view that results upon mounting the lens on various cameras. You can all relate to what the FOV will be for these focal lengths, and even the equivalent when mounting it on a crop camera, so I won't bother you with that. The F2.8 is the aperture size, which makes this a fast zoom-lens in common acceptance. IF is Tokina's tag for Internal Focusing, so we know the lens has an internal focusing mechanism, and allows for use of polarization and gradient filters as the front element doesn't rotate on focusing.

Last but not least is the FX that the Nikon crews out there are mostly familiar with, well, the ones that have full frame cameras. Also, I could mention that, just like many other Tokina lenses, this will also lack manual focus over-ride or full-time manual focus, because, as you can see, the switch between manual and auto-focus is the same pull-push barrel system. Pricing and availability are unknown, of course.


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