Capturing the beauty of fall with tokina 11-16 f2.8

This is late November now and we have had already a few sessions of snow here in the Chicago area. We just received a significant snowstorm this week as well, taking away all the changing colours of the fall season. We were still fortunate enough to savour the changing landscape and its beauty in the Naperville area.

I am sharing some shots from the same. 

These shots were mostly taken handheld, over my Canon 80d and Tokina 11-16 f2.8 lens. The day I took these shots, the light was tricky and overcast. It was quite windy as well, however, the wide aperture of this lens helped capture sharp images, and get an excellent perspective.

This is also the shoot, where I have started to notice issues with my Tokina 11-16 f 2.8 lens, where it has been giving me lens connection error, and I am working on identifying the exact scenario.

 If you are interested to know what my diagnosis has been, pls check it out at the bottom of this post. Meanwhile, Enjoy these shots, and if you require the EXIF information on any of these shots, please let me know in the comments section.

Issues Noticed with my Tokina 11- 16 f2.8

1. I bought this lens 'lightly' used in 2010. has served me extremely well without any issues whatsoever until now.
2. issues noticed:
1. lens started giving me connection error everytime I tried to go above F4. It would show the Error message, then on half-pressing the shutter button, the camera would reset.
2. I also tried the same thing by increasing the aperture to f5.6, f8 and continued getting the same issue.
3. I also noticed that while doing so, the view from the viewfinder was getting darker. this was a shocker as if the camera viewfinder is not able to get light in. More than electronic, this felt like a mechanical and optical issue.
4. I removed the lens, tried to clean the contact points and move the focus rings and went from 11 mm to 16mm and then back to 11 mm. this took care of the darkness issue. The lens started working at f4.
5. shortly after the same issue happened when I went to F5.6.
3. Afterwards, I changed over to my prime lens and gave my Tokina lens rest for the day. On Returning home, I cleaned the contact points thoroughly and since then it has been giving me issues intermittently. If anyone has faced this issue, let me know how did you resolve this.