AWESOME!!! You are going to love that Tokina!
It will be interesting to see how you are 'compelled' to use it, and by that I mean I am compelled to use it as a landscape lens where I get everything in nice and neat and ...... sometimes kinda boring.
Like this.
Now playing... a Moving Picture entitled... by
Marlton Mom, on Flickr
I feel like I need to push myself out of my comfort zone with using this lens as a 'landscape' lens and work more towards using it's distortion ability in creative ways. I want that distortion in my photograph to make a statement, like in this shot of the Ferris Wheel:
OC Rides Aug 2011 naked Ferris wheel by
Marlton Mom, on Flickr
Here I was hoping to emphasize heights. The Tokina really did a much better job with accomplishing this than my brain was anticipating.
It's funny because I go out with the intent of shooting for the creative distortion capabilities and I have to resist spending all my time on the 'landscape' type of shots.
I think I am having trouble seeing/thinking the distorted shot in my head so I think I am missing a lot of opportunities. One of the things that I am really working on with the Tokina is to
"See through the lens". I've noticed that my brain is still trying to bring order to what I see visually....... and the Tokina is capturing much more distortion than I am anticipating being able to see with my eyes. So I gotta work with this lens and bring my brain and the Tokina, with it's distortion capability, in harmony with my creative objectives.
So this Tokina is an bipolar mistress. I wonder if you are going to find that you have a tendency to shoot one way, 'landscape' or 'distortion'.
With all this in mind I would urge you to get CLOSE, ridiculously CLOSE if you are going for the distortion, Also go down LOW and shoot UP (or vice versa) and take advantage of the curvie-ness. I have live view on my Nikon D90 and it's a godsend for assisting in composition when you are twisting and turning and getting down low and using the eye piece is out of the question unless you are heavily involved with yoga.
Scott's link to Justin Miller's tips is/are essential for using this lens so kudos to those guys for laying it out in an easily accessible and easily understood format.
Best of luck and GO CRAZY with using this lens. You are going to have a blast!
Marlton Mom