Based on the high quality optical design of the AT-X 124 PRO DX (12-24 mm f/4) lens, the AT-X 116 PRO DX has a slightly shorter zoom range to maintain optical quality at wide apertures and has an internal silent focusing motor to allow the lens to AF on Nikon bodies that do not have an AF drive gear and motor.

One Touch Focus Clutch: Tokina’s One-touch Focus Clutch mechanism allows the photographer to switch between AF and MF simply by snapping the focus ring forward for AF and back toward the camera to focus manually. There is no need to change the AF-MF switch on Nikon cameras and there is no second AF/MF switch on the lens for Canon, everything is accomplished by the focus ring.

Tokina Optical Technology: Aspherical Optics – a standard lens is made up of a combination of spherical lens elements. Individual “lenses” within the lens are commonly referred to as “elements”. A spherical element has an even curve to the surface of the glass. However, there can be problems with such elements; light entering the centre of the lens and light entering at the edge may not be perfectly focused at the same point. This is called spherical aberration. More enhanced computer assisted optical designs are creating lenses with more spherical elements. More spherical elements within a lens means a higher risk of spherical aberration having a negative impact on optical quality.

Wide-angle zoom lenses and wide-angle lenses with large apertures are especially at risk for spherical aberration.

To eliminate spherical aberration, Tokina employs aspherical all-glass elements in many of its optical designs to correct this problem. The aspherical shaped surface of the lens element focuses light rays entering both the centre and edge of the element correctly at the film plane for an accurately focused image. In addition to correcting spherical aberration, these elements fully correct light quantity and distortion at the edge of the image and provide excellent results when used in combination with a floating element design.

Through a close collaboration with Hoya Corporation, one of the world’s largest optical glass manufacturer, Tokina has succeeded in producing high quality precision moulded glass elements with a bigger aspherical shape than any other lens manufacturer. This technique is unparalleled in its technological sophistication and precision.

F&R Aspherical: This lens, the AT-X116 PRO DX encompasses Tokina’s new F&R aspherical moulded glass elements. These give outstanding performance with very even illumination in the corners and correction of spherical aberration across the image area.

SD Super Low Dispersion: When standard optical glass is used in telephoto lenses, a phenomenon called chromatic aberration can occur. Chromatic aberration is the inherent tendency for glass to disperse (separate) a ray of light into the colours of the rainbow. The rainbow effect created by a glass prism is the most dramatic demonstration of chromatic aberration. In lenses, it is much less pronounced, but still creates slightly out of focus colours, akin to an “optical noise” that has a negative impact on the quality of the picture. To eliminate chromatic aberration, Tokina employs special glass material having super- low dispersion (SD) properties.

Lenses in the Tokina line-up with the SD mark incorporate these Super-Low Dispersion glass elements, minimising the secondary spectrum or optical noise caused by chromatic aberration.

HLD: Tokina’s wide-angle and standard zoom lenses feature a higher quality of optical glass known as Tokina HLD (High-refraction, Low Dispersion) glass. Having higher refractive index and lower dispersion properties, HLD glass is far less likely than standard optical glass to create lateral chromatic aberration, which is often a problem with conventionally designed wide-angle lenses.

Multi-Coating: Reflections off the surface of lens elements are the enemy to any photographer and to every lens manufacturer. They are reduced or eliminated by bonding multiple layers of a transparent anti-reflection chemical to the surface of the glass. Tokina has developed and enhanced a coating technique for its optics so that they will maintain faithful colour reproduction and render clean, sharp images.

Mechanical Technology – Floating Element System: When designing a lens, Tokina calibrated its astigmatism at the points between minimum focus distance and infinity so that it will give the better image results at each settings. However, when there are large differences between the focus limits, effect calibration is not possible. A floating element system incorporates optical elements that move in proportion to the focus setting of the lens. This allows astigmatism to be corrected. Many Tokina lenses employ floating element systems to provide optimum correction of astigmatism from minimum focus distance to infinity.

Internal Focus System: The two most used methods of focusing a lens are either the complete straight forward movement of lens elements (used mainly with single focal length lenses) or the rotation of the entire lens barrel group (used mainly with zoom lenses). The internal focusing system used by Tokina move each element group within the lens, but does not change the overall length of the lens. This is especially useful with telephoto designs.

The internal focusing system has a number of advantages including: faster focusing, improved handling due to fewer movements near the centre of gravity, more compact lens designs, superior use of filters because the barrel with the filter thread does not rotate.

Focus Clutch Mechanism: Tokina AT-X PRO series lenses feature the patented “Focus Clutch” Mechanism for switching the lens between auto focus and manual focus modes.

The manual focusing ring can move (be snapped) back and forth between an AF and MF position. When the focusing ring is forward in the AF position, it is not engaged to any of the internal focus gearing and will turn freely. Without the added weight of the metal ring the camera can auto focus the lens more quickly and smoothly.

For manual focus, simply rotate the focus ring the way to one side or the other on the focus travel, either infinity or it’s closest focusing distance, then pull back (towards the mount plate) on the manual focus ring. While pulling back, rotate the ring from one side of the focus travel to the other. When the gears align, the focus ring will snap back into the MF position and the lens can be focused manually.

To return the manual focus ring to auto focus mode, simply snap the ring forward from any point.