After a coin toss (Heads, Zomb-E Series; Tails, Tokina), I took the Tokina out for another stroll around the neighborhood. Together, we stalked this squirrel for a couple of minutes, and then shot a bunch of trees and flowers, and a bit of spray paint…
I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like the Tokina won… This shot is not straight out of camera, but all I did was bump the Contrast up by .05 and add back the stop of exposure that I lost due to the -1EV that was erroneously set from whoknowswhen.
In the original, the whiskers on this rather mean looking squirrel are sharp and well defined, and the hair is well modeled, though things begin to fall apart at 100%, due to the 1600ISO that was leftover from shooting rotting flowers in the fountain (dark flowers in dirty water on an overcast day requires a high ISO with a 200mm lens, as you might imagine, and I’m bad about reseting things, as you likely know if you’ve been following my progress on this journey).
The saturation and contrast are acceptable, and the corner sharpness is decent on the D7000s APS-C sensor.
And just peep the bokeh. Nice and pleasing, methinks.
(I’m getting closer to a full review… but not yet. Question: do I need to shoot lens test charts for a decent lens review? Or will real-life shooting situations like this and (maybe) a brick wall work?)
Anyways, I give this round to the Tokina.*
D7000. Tokina AT-X 35-200mm f/3.5-4.5 @200. ISO1600 (see above), 1/4000th, f/4.5 (f/3.5 reported on the EXIF, but I guess the D7000 can’t see the shrinkage since it doesn’t realize that this is a zoom lens…), -1EV later corrected in post.
*And not only that, I managed to wander farther away from home than I ever have before (without a buddy, and without intending to go somewhere specific for some specific purpose). It’s still just baby steps: I went past the alley to the nearest residential street, down two blocks, up an unfamiliar block to the nearest major road, and back up that road—with all its cars, but only a scant few pedestrians—to here, and I didn’t get chased, or asked for money, or stared at (that I noticed), and the police didn’t stop me and ask me what I was doing, and I didn’t go to jail for not having an answer. So I will continue to battle this agoraphobia, because I’m sure that it’s *mostly* all in my head.
