I recently purchased a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 Pro DX Digital Lens. I have been very impressed with the solid construction and excellent images. However, I have found one use for which it’s not going to work, infrared photography. Unfortunately, this lens shows a significant hot spot in the dead center of the image. The image posted is after all my usual post-processing for false-color infrared. I did attempt some repair (which I have not posted), but my photoshop-fu was not up to the task. The retouch tool in Aperture left a pretty obvious scar, even on a relatively simple background like this one. Maybe in black and white there is more hope, but dead-center like that is going to be tough. The present example is behind a 560nm IR pass filter. I found a similar hotspot using my 720nm IR pass filter as well.
Amazingly enough, the good old $100 Nikon 18-55mm AF-S DX VR shows no significant hotspots at all, at least to my eye. It is what I have been using all along to this point, and it looks like I will continue to use it for infrared photography.
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