Photography News | Issue 42 | absolutephoto.com
89 First tests
TokinaFírin20mmf/2 FEMF £799.99
Specs
Price £799.99
Format Full-frame Mount Sony E-mount, full-frame and APS-C Construction 13 elements in 11 groups Special lens elements 3x super low dispersion glass elements, 2x aspherical elements Coatings Multi-layer Filter size 62mm Aperture range F/2-22, aperture ring can be de-clicked Diaphragm 9 blades Internal focus Yes Manual focus Only manual focus Minimum focus 28cm Focus limiter No Maximummagnification 0.1x Distance scale Yes Depth-of-field scale Yes Image stabiliser Nothing in the lens, in-camera IS Tripod collar No Lens hood BH-622 supplied Weather-sealed No Dimensions 69x62mm Weight 490g Contact tokinalens.co.uk Full-frame Sony users keen to go ultra-wide with a 20mm or 21mm don’t have a massive choice with options being the Samyang 20mm f/1.8 at £430 and the Zeiss Loxia 21mm f/2.8 at £1299, and now this Tokina which sits in middle in terms of price. So the Tokina f/2 Fírin is very good value and it’s a fine performer capable of high- quality results wide open that get even better with stopping down. The Fírin series has potential so it will be interesting to see what optic emerges next in the series; but Tokina has had a fine start. Pros Optical quality, price, de-clicking option, rectangular hood provided Cons Focus barrel sticky on our sample Verdict
Tokina is a long established and very successful Japanese optics company, although as a supplier of third party camera lenses the brand is not as popular as Sigma or Tamron. Whatever the reason for that situation, there has never been any doubt about the quality of its products and this manual focus optic could be the sign of things to come. What does Fírin mean? According to the Tokina website it is a variation of an old Irish word fírinne and used in the context of meaning ‘that which is real’. Tokina is using the word to represent the promise to users that it will help them capture the truth in their images. Your guess will be as good as mine why a Japanese company picks an old Gaelic word for its new mirrorless camera lens series, but the 20mm f/2 is the first in the family. The optical landscape has changed a great deal in recent times and manual focus is in vogue.We’re seeing some really fascinating products, mostly fast aperture lenses, wides and telephotos. This Tokina lens jumps on that particular bandwagon and it is available in Sony E-mount only. It is fully compatible with the Sony A7 series so you get manual assist, in- camera five-axis image stabilisation and distance readout in the EVF. I tried the lens on a Sony A7. Despite its short focal length, the lens itself is quite long but balances well on the camera. On the lens itself the first thing to appreciate is the excellent printed depth-of-field scale. The focus has a long travel with nearly a half rotation to get from infinity down to the lens’s minimum 28cm focus distance. The infinity symbol focuses past the focusing index so if you are shooting a distant subject (the night sky?) at f/2 just make sure you check focus visually and don’t rely on the focusing scale. Very little travel is needed for infinity to 3m focusing and with the extensive depth-of-field of this ultrawide at f/4 you don’t even need to physically focus if you use the depth- of-field scale. At f/8 you get sharpness from infinity down to 80cm. On our sample, the action of the focusing barrel could have been better. It had a slightly stiff action that made it sticky in use. It was taut enough to move the lens in the camera mount when focusing and give a jerky image in the viewfinder. It didn’t make for good handling but this might be our Right The build and finish quality of the Tokina 20mm f/2 is good. It’s not Zeiss-level but then it’s not at that sort of price level either. The aperture ring is click-stopped in 0.3EV steps and can be de-clicked for video shooting. The only disappointment on our sample was the focusing ring that could have been smoother and that would have made the lens nicer to use.
early sample; obviously this is a point to check when you are in the shop. The same comment can’t be levelled at the front end aperture ring. It is positively click-stopped in 0.3EV steps with the option of aperture de- clicking available. Few lenses are provided with rectangular hoods so well done to Tokinaforprovidingoneforthislens. It firmly bayonets on and a visual check through the viewfinder showed that it is accurate too so only image-forming light reaches the front element. For the optical test I shot Raws using the A7 and these were processed through Lightroom using default sharpening. Ultra wide-angles are often best optically at the centre and less good at the edges even when stopped down to a smaller aperture. That was true with this Tokina although the edges were pretty good at all apertures and compared with the centre. Image quality was good at f/2 and fine detail was well recorded especially at the centre with the edges still decent. Small improvements at the centre and the edges were gained with stopping down and by the time f/5.6 was reached quality was impressive across the frame. For the optimum performance I’d suggest stopping down to f/8 or perhaps to f/11 if you need even more depth-of-field. Diffraction kicked in by f/16 and although it wasn’t too bad you can see the difference when comparing shots at f/11. There was noticeable vignetting at f/2 which lessened at f/2.8 and f/4 and had more or less gone by f/8. To sum up, this Tokina 20mm is perfectly usable for critical results at its wider apertures especially at the centre – and you still get ample depth- of-field – but if you have the light or the tripod to allow shooting at f/8 and f/11 you see this lens at its best. WC The optical landscape has changed a great deal in recent times and manual focus is in vogue
Original image
Above This set of images was taken using the Tokina 20mm f/2 fixed on a Sony A7 and mounted on a Gitzo Systematic tripod. There’s full compatibility on the A7 so you get a magnified image when the manual focus barrel is rotated. The self-timer was used to fire the shutter and the resulting Raws were processed in Lightroomwith default sharpening.
F/2
F/2.8
F/4
F/5.6
F/8
F/11
F/16
F/22
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