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Tokina Cinema Lenses
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  • Wow, that sounds really good :-)

    (I just hope they lower the price a bit, $1000 for rehousing a $600 lens is a bit harsh.)

  • Yea, I really like the idea of this. But I don't like the price-gouging just because it's a "cinema" lens all the sudden. $800 seems more than reasonable for something with LESS intricate and electronic parts.

  • The Tokina rep said, "List, less than $2000" Are they serious? This is a $500 lens used on Ebay all day long. That is just unbelievable. Sure you'll have the guys shooting with Reds and cameras of that level waste the money just to look cool but I think they just out priced the majority of the people that would buy this lens. I'm floored that he can sit up there with a straight face and say that. You could sense some apprehension in his voice when he said the price. He knew it was crazy stupid. It doesn't even look like they lengthened the focus throw in it.

  • It's my opinion and I don't care if it's made of titanium (joke). That is still taking advantage of the market. That's ok, it will backfire on them for sure. I use two Tokina lens, 11-16 and 12-24 with a nikon mount so I get a declicked iris ring already. I know how to read a EV meter so no need for the markings and strapped a gear ring on the front. Bam, cine lens, $500. When you say high quality, is that plastic or metal cause the focus ring on the front of both of those lenses looks exactly the same as mine. Sorry, I'm just not buying it. If you want to compare to Duclose, which I think is overpriced too, he rehouses them with metal, I do believe extends the focus throw and installs a PL mount. These guys take shit out of the lens, put two gears on and charge $1000 more! Once again, fuck you Tokina! And I say this with the best of intentions because I really do love my two lenses and use them alot.

  • @vicharris, all I can say is MARGINS, MARGINS, MARGINS. You have to remember that the Cine lens won't sell at the same quantity as their Photo versions. That plays a large part in the pricing. You have to account for the fact that it's a niche market. This is what happens just about everywhere in the Pro Video Market. Sure I wish we could get high quality Cine Lenses from every company for cheap, but build quality and number of units sold will have a part to play. A company like Samyang is playing in a different arena in a way. They cut costs in a lot of ways that don't effect the IQ, but it's a less robust product than high end Cine Lenses. The Cine 11-16mm Tokina may be just a bit in between the Samyangs and other high end Cine lenses and viewed in that light their pricing may make sense.

  • We'll see. While they may seem expensive, maybe they offer Cine like qualities that lack in other cheap "cine" lenses like the samyangs. It's important to remember that simply throwing on a gear ring doesn't make any cheap lens into an instant "cine" lens. Things like NOT breathing so heavy that it looks like small earthquakes everytime you touch the lens are very important to making a lens a "cine" quality lens. Optics are only part of the equation and it seems everybody can get close enough with those. Anyway, for 3k$ you can start getting into real cine lenses with proven usability and durability, so we'll see.

  • It's the same lens @svart. The rep already said that in the interview. They didn't change any glass at all. That's my point. They already did the hard part. All they did was put a gear ring on the focus ring, put some more numbers on the whole thing but the main thing is the addition of the iris control. This lens already comes declicked so they didn't even do that, they just added a ring with a gear. S you are paying more than double the cost for a focus gear and a iris control, which people already have if they have the Nikon mount version. This is why I got so upset when that rep stood up there and said the price. Like I said, he doesn't want to say what it is. Listen to him again. Even the interview guy has to take it in for a sec. I know I sound like a complete asshole here but I'm not critiquing the quality of these lenses at all. I think the 12-24 is one hell of a lens for the price and is a wonderful outdoor zoom option for us GH users, not to mention how good we all know the 11-16 is. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong and this lineup sells like hotcakes but I have a feeling we'll see a price drop within a year of these coming out if not less.

    As for the breathing problems, I don't think that's going to be a big concern since the focus throw on these lenses is so short. It's going to be just hell for you or a focus puller to try and rack with these and hit the marks. It ramps up so quick and then hits infinity. These aren't the deep rack focus babies! :)

  • Oh my bad, I forgot to mention they put a red ring around the front, so yeah...there's that too :)

  • Well, I've got red anodized RedStan clamps for my Kowa anamorphic, so don't go doing no braggin' about lenses with little red rings around me, no sir ;-)

  • @jasonp There is no reason in the world that this lens should cost over 1000$. None, anywhere. I'm looking for some but there just aren't any anywhere at all.

  • Less than $2,000??? Well, now I feel significantly better buying the $575 11-16mm DX I off Adorama... If they only made it for $700 I would have felt like a jack*ss.

  • How many of these Cine Lenses do you think they're actually gonna make? That does have an impact on what a company charges for a product. I can't say that I love the price but then I can understand that with the relatively small number of units they're likely to have made, this will not make it a worthwhile endeavor unless they charge a lot more. Every market has their scale. There simply aren't enough customers for the Cine Version to allow them to keep the costs low. Large production runs will allow a company to find a lower price point than if you make a special short run of a particular model. Also usually on the Cine versions these companies try to pay more attention to build quality on each unit. At least that's how I see it.

  • All I need is a declicked manual aperture. No need for a fancy house. Give me the cheap

  • @cls105 If you use the nikon version it is already declicked when used with and adapter like Kipon or Novaflex! :) I have a feeling this is targeted at all the poor saps that have to use the Canon mount version and don't have the ability to adjust their iris manually.

  • Looks like Tokina is swinging for the fences with that 16-28. $5500! Wow. So that's a 700% price increase on that lens and a 280% increase in the 11-16. Hmmm

  • lot of bucks - but Olivia is priceless cute [SCNR]

  • Well, they say in that last video that the focus throws are different than their stills versions, so that immediately says that they are different mechanically as the helicals must be different. The glass is still probably the same though.

  • They'd still make coin if they sold the 11-16 for around $850-900. Heck, I'd consider buying it if it were in that neighborhood.

  • Yep, I'd pay $1000, maybe $1200 for a cine version but $2000 is way too much. It's not like you're going to pull huge rack focus' with this lens anyways so I'm not sure how much the improved focus throw would really help out. I have the Rokinon 14mm cine version and it's focus throw is about twice as far as the Tokina, maybe further and I've never really seen that pay off as much as one would think. Since it's so wide, unless you have an almost 360 degree focus throw, I'm not sure it's still worth it. I cine version of the 12-24 would be nice as well. For exterior day filming, when there's no time to swap lenses, that lens has become my go to one now!

  • A quote from One River Media.

    OneRiver Media PRO 2 weeks ago I agree that the pricing of these seems quite odd. I'm really excited to see lens companies join the way of converting their photo still lens line into cine style lenses. But the prices on the Tokina cine line is making me scratch my head. A lot. In order to stay competitive, they need to follow the lead of Rokinon/Samyang in this market. Tokina would sell a BOAT LOAD of the 11-16 cine if it's priced similar to the original still lens variant. But at $2k, there's no way the same market of people will buy it. They will make sales on it, but not in large quantity like the budget HDSRL crowd (where there are vast and many) would offer. Likewise, the populous HDSLR crowd will not buy a $5500 cine zoom lens. Not a chance. What's odd to me too is that he said the focus twist had 120° of rotation like it was a big deal... that's nothing! Our Rokinon 14mm cine lens has around 270° which is much more cine style. And that lens is only a few hundred bucks. Still scratching my head.

    So I'm not one of the only ones saying this. So that added focus throw is useless too. Something tells me we're going to see a huge price drop in these lenses quickly :)

  • I have produced/shot $200k^ commercials (for that we rent Zeiss/Angie/Cooke etc.) If I shot more of them, I wouldn't buy Tokinas for that use. I'd invest with the big boys. I don't think they're on par with those other lenses. Like it has been said, they are $600-800 lenses that have been slightly modified. I think most people's issue is with basically a little re-housing for triple the $. For the record, I love my 2 duclos Zeiss ZF mods, I remember I was wowed by the Tokina they had listed, until I saw the price.

  • It is very different for a small specialize hand made company like duclos and a big company like Tokina. I think they will find that the market they are targeting is very different. Until now thay have been cheap mass market alternative to the Nikon and Canon lens. When they use to sell in the thousand, I think they will see themselves in the awkward situation of selling in the tens.

  • Why would the "budget HDSLR crowd" need, demand, or even consider themselves the target group of properly cine housed lenses is something I still fail to understand...

    Indeed. Smelling a lot of entitlement in here. These are expensive but not obscenely so when compared to quality stills lenses that even amateurs buy because they think they "need" it. They're downright cheap compared to average-ish ENG lenses used for news gathering and community college RTV classes.

  • Right now, they're the only game in town that has cine style zooms under $10K AFAIK.

    Oops, forgot about this nice one that I used with the F3- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/839881-REG/Sony_SCL_P11X15_SCL_P11X15_11_16mm_T3_0_Wide.html

  • @BurnetRhoades Are you speaking of us who are not happy with the price points of these lenses?