I posted my first review

[mdmc]

Of the tokina 12-24mm zoom. Twice!
I took some pics of a newspaper taped to the wall from1-1.5 ft away and based my first review on that. then I took some more practicle photos of my house.
I thought I dinged it pretty hard on barrel distortion based on the news paper pics,
as it dosent look bad at all to me in the pics of the house.
So ive been agonizing over this all day. here are the comparison pics, one showing te news paper at close range and two showing real world pics. I think it looks bad in the news paper pics, but not very noticeable in the house pics.
What do you think?
Thanks,
Mark.
Edit.
All at 12mm.
Mark.

[Trevor Ash]

It's noticeable. The newspaper pic is a little exaggerated because you have the camera tilted down slightly vs. the wall but I can still get a good feel for the barrel distortion. It's always it's most extreme on the edges of photos.

I spent a lot of time looking at the barrel distortion of my 20-35 zoom because I was calibrating it for barrel distortion. I was using it for pano's and that info helps to get a better seam. It was probably the same as the lens you're showing here. I wouldn't consider your lens bad at all. I'd consider it normal for such a wide lens.

[mdmc]

Thanks for posting Trevor,
I just didn't want to down a good lens in a review if it didn't deserve it. For all I know this is as good as a prime lense this wide. Ive never used a lense wider than 28mm.
Sharpness! now thats a different story! this lense never seems to get as sharp as a 50 f1.8 at 1.8!
Again, it seems to equal the 18-70 zoom.
Mark.