Tokina ATX Pro 16-50mm f2.8 (DX)

After the past two day's mega strolling, I was going to do little, or nothing much today.

But the secondhand lens that was waiting for me at my local Argos (Ebay buy and collect - a recommended service) that I had purchased just two day's before.

See how good it is in LARGE

And as I have my week long bus ticket right now, HAD  to go somewhere and I thought, Upavon, why not?

Up to now, this pretty and historic village on the edge of Salisbury Plain has been a bus stop on the bus to Pewsey, Marlborough and Swindon and it still takes an hour to get this far!

As its name implies, the River Avon is in its infancy here, a pretty narrow river, burbling through meadows. St Mary's Church, was my first test for the lens, the dark interior in this wonderfully solid ancient church really testing the wide open aperture and slow handheld shutter speeds. Tokina lenses have a supposedly weak point with chromatic abberrations, where harsh against the light shots at wide apertures go odd colours. This was a worry, as this sort of subject would be staple diet for this lens. But nothing bad to report, in reality. No stabilisation, in fact, no cutting edge technology at all, Tokina discontinued this particular model some time ago. But they are solidly built, in Japan, hence the deserved 'Pro' tag.

After sandwiches in the pretty churchyard, it was out and up through beautifully and charming rustic old thatched cottages, views up to a White Horse hill figure glinting in the Marlborough Downs some distance away.

Anyway, it was up to MOD's firing ranges high up on Salisbury Plain and within the big mass of nothingness, the red flags flying, big guns occasionally booming, with clouds of smoke seen from afar. I always quite like this cheek-by-jowl mixture of ancient byways with active military going on's, the rippling textures in the landscape, the views and of course, the relative lack of anybody or anything else.

I HAD to have this poppy shot as my Blip. I purposefully didn't take my usual 'standard' 10-24mm Nikkor. The clouds were immense and awesome, so pretty, so adding to every landscape shot I took. It was on farmland on the way up to the firing ranges.

This Tokina lens replaces my two year old Tamron SP 17-50mm f2.8; this quest for professional results from extremely amateur money continues! The little Tamron was a remarkable performer, but not a nice lens to use - too light, plasticky and a horrible sticky zoom and an even worse auto to manual override. But, for £200 NEW, one just couldn't complain....

But I did and still, Nikon's 17-55mm f2.8 is over a £1000. A reasonable used one is still £500; abused examples can be had for £400, if you look hard enough.

So, my Tokina is 150g lighter than the Nikon, uniquely wider at 16mm, rather than 17mm. And I paid £249, and in great, unmarked condition. The Tamron seems like something fished out of a cornflake packet, in comparison, the well balanced and solid and smooth Tokina a pleasure to use.

As you can see, the performance is there too. Interesting times, live music challenges, the other main subject for this lens, tomorrow night, as part of the Salisbury Arts Festival.

HUGE thanks, as ever, to ALL, for everything on yesterday's Isle of Purbeck blip