During my recent manatee excursion when Alex Mustard and Peter Rowlands joined me I heard Alex say that the Tokina 10-17 FE f3.5-4.5 is “the perfect manatee lens”.

Also, I heard from Ryan Canon of ReefPhoto & Video early last year that he tried out the Tokina on the manatee and it was “awesome”.  But since my budget was quite limited at the time and I was getting so much out of the Nikon 16mm/f2.8 that I’ve photoed literally hundreds and hundreds of manatee with in just about every type of light with much success, I hadn’t yet invested in the Tokina 10-17.

Unlike many others I have not had the opportunity to shoot wider than the Nikon 16mm and considering I use it on the Nikon d200 with the 1.5X crop factor that is not very wide.  But I really liked it for the type of manatee shots I wanted to get -- nice, tight, sharp photos that captured the manatee’s endearing personality and behaviors; (THIS manatee photograph was taken with the 16mm).  Other underwater photographers are talented at creating beautiful scenic shots with the manatee, sky - even split levels (1/2 underwater-1/2 above water). While I’ve tried these types of shots of the manatee and its habitat, the 16mm is not the best lens for many of the more “atmospheric” manatee photographs.  Where the 16mm shined for me and where I consider it still to be superior are for nice, close manatee face and body portraits.  The Nikon 16mm is so sharp - right to the corners of the photo and the lens defects are minimal.  But split levels are a little more challenging with the Nikon 16mm - not impossible as I did some - but just more of a challenge and the wider shots where I wanted to get more manatee in the frame without backing up too much clearly called for a wider lens.

Alex had offered to loan me his Tokina 10-17 when he arrived but I knew I’d probably fall in love with the lens (and I doubted Alex would part with it for long seeing that he was off to Socorro, Mexico next), so I just decided to pop for the Tokina and Subal lens gear.  Fortunately I already had the Subal 15mm extension ring and that made for a bit less of an expenditure.

Monday am, Jan 28th was the first time I used the Tokina and I must say from the start that I was like a kid in a candy store!  I could go WIDE......... with the manatee........ REALLY WIDE!!  Oh joy!  But I also noticed sometimes it was a little bit of “too much of a good thing” for me as I wasn’t used to shooting very wide and it isn’t always appropriate.  I think my composition, strobe positioning and sometimes even exposure suffered a bit in some shots where I tried to go “too wide”.  But after-all it was my first day down with a brand new lens and a potentially much wider lens than I’ve ever shot before so I cut myself some slack.  Viz was a challenge that day as we didn’t have any of the “gin clear” water that Three Sister’s Spring is sometimes known for.  But I thought the color of the spring water that mixed with incoming water at the higher water level (than predicted) was still really pretty even though there were more particles suspended and the water wasn’t as clear as we would have liked.

OK, is the Tokina harder to focus in low light than the Nikon 16mm (as you know if you have ever gone early and tried to photo manatee in less than clear conditions with less than enough light, low-light performance is a huge consideration)?  Now with the Nikon 16mm I found that the auto focus just wasn’t reliable in those conditions so I always locked the focus off, switched to manual and used the apertures that I found worked best.  For the Tokina as I’m not as familiar with it I used the auto-focus a lot and yes it was frustrating at times because it doesn’t focus fast in the lower light of certain times of day at the springs.  But I will say that the Tokina 10-17 FE doesn’t auto-focus any “slower” than the technically “faster lens/f2.8” Nikon 16mm - and that is my experience at any of the Tokina’s zoom levels.  But even at 10mm I missed some shots with the Tokina so I now need to learn the idiosyncrasies of that lens and locking it off to shoot in manual, what apertures work best for sharp manatees in low light, etc.  I pretty much had the Nikon 16mm taped but the Tokina is another situation and my settings I end up with for locking the focus will be a bit different.  Plus at the Tokina’s different zoom settings my preferred setting for locking the focus may change but it will be exciting and fun figuring it all out!!

Also I did notice immediately that the .NEF files taken with the Tokina aren’t as clean as with the Nikon 16mm.  Of course I knew about the chromatic aberration situation with the Tokina 10-17, but I found that a minor problem as it is so easy to correct in two short steps in the Raw converters.  But the Tokina’s “files” are definitely not as sharp, clean and “smooth” as the Nikon 16mm.  That said I figure it probably makes almost no difference as the image printed, viewed on a screen, etc - well you just don’t really “see” the difference in real world usages.  Maybe if the file was printed huge but I don’t think even then people would notice much difference and the advantages of the Tokina 10-17, being able to zoom during the dive, focusing right on the dome, etc etc...., far far outweigh the disadvantages of the Tokina lens in my first experiences with it.

Both the photographs posted above and below here were taken at 10mm on the Tokina 10-17.  Water conditions were a challenge as I stated but you don’t really see it much - the Tokina is beautiful at 10mm.  Plus I wouldn’t ever have been able to get the two manatee below in the same frame fully with the Nikon 16mm as I would have had to back up too much and in the less-than-perfect water conditions the photo just wouldn’t have been as good.  Remember, these creatures are over 10 ft long so to get two of them together, synchronized, in the same frame, shooting close to achieve good color, minimize water particles, etc., yes that is the beauty of the Tokina at 10mm.  And as a note even though these two photos were from my first ever experiences shooting at 10mm and the water wasn’t perfect, I still like these two shots very much and they will probably end up among my better manatee collection.  Anytime you can get a mom/baby manatee interacting and record their tender bond and anytime you can capture two manatee doing the same thing at the same time in the frame -- you have a recipe for a compelling manatee photograph, no matter what the conditions.  Since I have a lot of manatee photographs I’m quite discerning when it comes to the ones I keep now.

Again I know what I’m after.  I saw a program about shooting great white sharks once when I head David Doubilet say he was trying to capture, “Absolute shark-ness” or something to that effect.  That is similar to what I’m trying to capture with the manatee, the real-moment capture that shows the true and sweet curious nature and behavior of this fascinating marine mammal!  And the Tokina 10-17 FE is a new tool for me to help achieve this goal!

So is the Tokina 10-17 FE the “perfect manatee lens”?  The answer is in the photographs captured with it so I’ll leave it to everyone who likes my manatee photographs to judge.   But I must say it certainly is a “fun” lens to shoot a delightful subject with!!!! :-)

Best, Carol

Two Manatee - Synchronized

Tokina 10-17 @ 10mm/1/50@7.1/iso 250