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Tokina announces shoe-mounted red dot finder for long telephoto lenses

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Well, this is an interesting one. Tokina has announced a new SZ Super Tele Finder Lens. Essentially, it mounts to your camera’s hotshoe and puts a red dot on your subject to help you more easily track it with long telephoto and super-telephoto lenses. It doesn’t actually project a dot onto the subject but provides a wider viewfinder, with a dot in the centre of it that lets you get a wider view of the scene.

Having a wider viewfinder when using telephoto and super-telephoto lenses with an extremely tiny field of view makes it easier to keep track of moving subjects. It lets you adapt to the twist and turns nature often takes as it moves. Having the dot there just helps to ensure your positioning vs what the camera’s seeing through the lens. But is this one really worth it?

Tokina’s SZ Pro 300mm, 600mm and 900mm reflex lenses finally coming to stores in February

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In November, Tokina announced three new reflex lenses in the SZ Pro lineup. They had focal lengths and apertures of 300mm f/7.1, 600mm f/8 and 900mm f/11. What makes these so special compared to all of the reflex lenses Tokina’s released in the past? Well, these are the first designed specifically for APS-C mirrorless camera systems. This means no more adapters and they can also make the lenses smaller.

At the time of the initial announcement, the lenses were available via Indiegogo, where they raised a pretty meagre $16,100. But Tokina has announced that they’re going on general sale on February 3rd. There are only three mount options available at the moment, including Sony E, Fuji X and Canon EF-M. I’m still hoping that we’ll see Nikon Z and Canon RF versions at some point.

Tokina’s new SZ Pro 300mm, 600mm and 900mm lenses are now available to back on Indiegogo

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Tokina has now fully unveiled the new 300mm f/7.1, 600mm f/8 and 900mm f/11 lenses announced a couple of weeks ago. The trio of lenses is now available to back on Indiegogo and the specs and prices don’t look too bad. The lenses are a somewhat new take on the old mirror reflex lens format, designed specifically for APS-C mirrorless allowing them to be extremely small for their long focal lengths.

They’re not available in a wide range of mounts, and I hope more will be coming in the future, but for now, it’s Sony E, Fuji X and Canon EF-M. That last one is an odd choice given that EF-M is essentially a dead system now. Given that they’re manual focus lenses, hopefully, we’ll see it coming for Canon RF and Nikon Z at some point (and maybe even Micro Four Thirds).

Kenko Tokina has announced three weird looking 300mm, 600mm and 900mm super telephoto lenses are on the way

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Kenko Tokina Japan has announced three new manual focus lenses for APS-C mirrorless cameras. The three lenses are all super telephoto, being extremely long in terms of focal length all quite short in physical length. This design is due to the fact that they’re reflex lenses. Essentially, they contain mirrors to house a longer focal length inside a shorter barrel. But even for reflex lenses, they look pretty odd.

The three lenses have focal lengths of 300mm, 600mm and 900mm, and they’re coming to Indiegogo. They’re what Tokina calls its “SZ Pro Reflex” line, and the reflex design allows them to be very small indeed with the 900mm focal length lens said to be only 168mm in length.

Photos leak of upcoming Tokina 11-18mm f/2.8 AF APS-C Sony E mount lens

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It looks like Tokina’s getting ready to announce a new 11-18mm f/2.8 lens for Sony APS-C E mount cameras. No specs have been released or leaked yet other than the clues in the name of the lens. So, it features an 11-18mm focal length with a maximum f/2.8 constant aperture and it’s designed for Sony’s APS-C E mount cameras.

We can also see from the photos that it’s a pretty compact lens and that there’s a micro USB port on the rear lens mount. Sony Alpha Rumours believes the filter size may be 67mm, which looks about right. Whatever its specs, while Tokina has made plenty of ultra-wide-angle autofocus zoom lenses for APS-C DSLRs in the past, this will be their first for Sony APS-C E mount cameras.

Tokina goes wide aperture with its new SZ 33mm f/1.2 APS-C lens for Fuji X and Sony E mount

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Tokina has announced the new Tokina SZ 33mm f/1.2 lens for Fujifilm X and Sony E mount APS-C cameras. The manual focus offers a field of view similar to that of a 50mm lens on a full-frame body with a wide and bright f/1.2 aperture for shallow depth of field and low light shooting conditions. As well as manual focus, the lens also features a manual aperture ring to help keep it down to a budget-friendly price.

Tokina bills the lens as being ideal for landscapes, street photography, portraits and nighttime photography, and is a third of a stop faster than the Tokina ATX-M 33mm f/1.4 it replaces in the lineup. Despite trying to keep the price as low as possible, though, it’s a little bit more expensive than its predecessor.

This is all the gear announced or released during CP+ 2022

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While the in-person event was cancelled again this year, CP+ still went ahead as an online event. As a result, we got a smaller than usual flurry of gear announcements, but there were quite a few good ones – particularly if you’re a Micro Four Thirds or Fuji shooter. As has become usual with events that have gone online, many of the announcements came before CP+ was scheduled to start.

It’s not surprising that some releases come a little early, given that there’s no in-person event, as it allows each company to essentially have its own day to shine without being overshadowed by its competitors. And the first two in this list are a perfect example of that!

Tokina has released a 2x T-mount teleconverter for its 400mm f/8 Reflex lens

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Tokina has today announced its new SZ 2x Extender (TA-020), a T-mount 2x teleconverter for the Tokina SZX Super Tele 400mm f/8 Reflex MF lens released in July 2020. The SZ 2x Extender sits in between the lens and the mount adapter for your camera system – Canon EF, Fujifilm X, Micro 4/3, Nikon F, Nikon Z, or Sony E – and while it’s being marketed specifically with Tokina’s 400mm f/8 – they’ve even launched a new kit bundle that includes the two together – it should hypothetically work with just about any T-mount lens.

The Tokina SZ 2x Extender essentially turns your 400mm f/8 Reflex MF lens into an 800mm lens, but at the cost of aperture. You’ll lose two stops of light – as you do with all 2x teleconverters for any camera system. So, instead of metering f/8, it’ll now meter f/16. 2x teleconverters often play hell with autofocus systems that can’t meter lenses with a maximum aperture this small, but as it’s a manual focus lens, that’s not really much of an issue.

Tokina SZ 8mm f/2.8 wants to be a lens that’s always with you

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Tokina has just announced an SZ 8mm F2.8 FISH-EYE lens. It’s designed for mirrorless cameras and it comes in two mount variants: Fuji X and Sony E.

This lens is compact and lightweight, fast, and can focus pretty close. Because of all this, it wants to be a lens that you’ll always have in your bag.

Tokina announces 500mm f/8 lens that fits the palm of your hand

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After the 400mm f/8 lens launched in 2020, Tokina has decided to go even further and zoom in even more. The company has announced a 500mm f/8 reflex lens, a super-telephoto lens that fits the palm of your hand. It’s compact and very lightweight, and it’s likely going to be cheap, but it still has some drawbacks. So let’s dive in and see what you can expect.

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