It’s been a long time since I’ve used a Tokina lens. I actually owned multiple Tokina wide angle zooms back in my time as a photographer before I became a reviewer. Tokina has released relatively few lenses in the mirrorless era, and I hadn’t ever really built a relationship with the company, so I actually have not done any Tokina reviews. But late in 2024 they reached out to me about the possibility of reviewing their upcoming wide angle zoom for Fuji X-mount – the Tokina ATX-M 11-18mm F2.8 – and I readily agreed to do so out of interest to see the state of their development. The E-mount version of this lens was their first wide angle zoom for mirrorless cameras, and they’ve made a few minor tweaks to the formula here to produce an even more useful zoom lens. There are some strong competitors in this segment, so does the ATX-M 11-18mm stand out in any way? Find out by watching the video review, reading the text review, or just enjoy the wintry photos in the gallery below!

Thanks to Tokina for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera. You can visit the product page for the ATX-M 11-18mm here.

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A few of the basics first. This is an APS-C lens designed for mirrorless cameras only, and this review is of the Fuji X-mount version of the lens. The APS-C crop factor of Fuji’s XF cameras is 1.5, giving the ATX 11-18mm a full frame equivalent zoom range of 16.5-27mm; not dissimilar to Tamron’s 17-28mm F2.8 full frame zoom, which I reviewed here. It’s not a big range, obviously, but it does cover a lot of the key wide angle framing options, going from this at 11mm:

…to this at 18mm:

The ATX-M 11-18mm has a constant maximum aperture of F2.8, making it useful in a variety of lighting conditions.

Some of the chief competitors among other third party brands include:

Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 DN (my review here). The Sigma has a slightly larger zoom range (1 extra millimeter on the wide end), but also has more vignette and distortion.
The Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD (my review here). The Tamron also has a slightly longer zoom range, with an extra 2mm on the long end. It has the highest MSRP ($899 USD) of the three, though it looks like Tamron may have permanently dropped the price to $659.

I quite like both of those lenses, and while Tokina isn’t quite as well known as either of those brands, the ATX-M 11-18mm does provide a credible alternative to them, with very nice image quality and great Kenko optical glass colors.

And, while the initial MSRP for the lens is $699 USD, the E-mount version is currently retailing for considerably less and undercuts both the Tamron and Sigma in price. If that sounds potentially interesting, check out my reviews linked above…or just enjoy the photos here.

Tokina 11-18mm F2.8 Build and Handling

Images taken with the Tokina ATX-M 11-18mm F2.8 X

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GEAR USED:

Purchase Tokina ATX-M 11-18mm F2.8 X at B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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