Tokina 11-16 Problems

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

The last couple of time I have had the 11-16 out I have noticed that I have some photos that are not in focus. Today I tried to be extra careful to make sure that things were right but when I got home to checked I had several that were not in focus. The first few I thought could be that I was in very low light but then I when out into the bright sun and some of them were out of focus too.

Anyone else had this problem?

 

[pforsell]

I would begin the elimination process from the camera.

Have you checked the obvious (and cheaper) things, for example that the camera isn't at the moment in 'release priority' instead of 'focus priority' ? Check your focusing mode (AF-S or AF-C) and custom settings a1 and a2 (in most cameras).

The other thing that comes to mind is oxidized lens contacts. That can cause intermittent problems that are hard to reproduce.

If the camera is working properly and set up correctly, it *should* refuse to take a shot that's badly out of focus.

I'm not saying the culprit cannot be the lens, but I would begin by inspecting the camera first, since the AF logic and AF verification all happen in the camera. If the lens doesn't focus, the camera shouldn't fire.

Electric failure in the lens or contact loss makes the camera think the lens is full manual of course, and then it will fire every time, in focus or not.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

Obviously I don't know if this is your issue but I've had lenses in the past that would not focus properly unless the center focus point was being used and that focus point ONLY. 'Bout drove me nuts until I got it figured out. There was no solution, really; I returned or sold the problematic glass.
....

 

[Fred Kingston_RIP]

What do you see happening in the viewfinder? Do you see the green dot?

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

I would begin the elimination process from the camera.

Have you checked the obvious (and cheaper) things, for example that the camera isn't at the moment in 'release priority' instead of 'focus priority' ? Check your focusing mode (AF-S or AF-C) and custom settings a1 and a2 (in most cameras).

The other thing that comes to mind is oxidized lens contacts. That can cause intermittent problems that are hard to reproduce.

If the camera is working properly and set up correctly, it *should* refuse to take a shot that's badly out of focus.

I'm not saying the culprit cannot be the lens, but I would begin by inspecting the camera first, since the AF logic and AF verification all happen in the camera. If the lens doesn't focus, the camera shouldn't fire.

Electric failure in the lens or contact loss makes the camera think the lens is full manual of course, and then it will fire every time, in focus or not.

The lens does focus properly some of the time. that is what is frustrating. Also works great on all other lenses.

Obviously I don't know if this is your issue but I've had lenses in the past that would not focus properly unless the center focus point was being used and that focus point ONLY. 'Bout drove me nuts until I got it figured out. There was no solution, really; I returned or sold the problematic glass.
....

I used single point focus almost all the time and yesterday was no different. I also use back button focus so that never changes. Also the 24-120 works perfect. Going to have to pull it out later today and see what I can find.

What do you see happening in the viewfinder? Do you see the green dot?

The 11-16 is such a wide angle that it pretty much look like it is in focus all the time. Also yesterday I was shooting in a dark place so added another level of difficulty

 

[pforsell]

The lens does focus properly some of the time. that is what is frustrating. Also works great on all other lenses.

If cleaning the contacts doesn't help, then the lens might have electrical problems. What about the misfocused images, what the EXIF shows? Is the aperture reading correct of is it f/0 perhaps? That would indicate a contact loss which would mean the camera thought it was using a full manual lens.

Can you create a "FEE" error if you gently wiggle/twist the lens while it's mounted?

Does this lens have the "Tokinaism" push/pull AF/MF clutch? What if the contacts in there are oxidized? How about trying to clean those contacts by doing 20 times AF/MF switching? If all fails, it needs to be seen by a technician, I believe.