New Tokina lenses for EF-M

jackwelch wrote:

DrMaemo wrote:

Tokina has posted images at the Indiegogo page for these lenses.

I expect many will not find the images that Tokina has posted to be pleasing, especially the image of the eagle with the painterly circles or the images with soft focus and dreamy look.

I see quite a lot of variety in the types of images that the trio of these lenses can produce.

These lenses seem to address a gap for aps-c cameras, which is the very long focal length. For aps-c cameras, a mirror lens may be the only way to achieve such long focal lengths.

I find it great that a camera lens company is willing to fill this gap for aps-c cameras, even though it may mean that image sharpness will not meet the expectation of many photographers.

What has me interested in these mirror lenses is the combination of the small size, the very long focal lengths, and the creativity that might be accomplished with these lenses.

Note: Compared to the Canon RF 600mm f/8 and RF 800mm f/11, the Tokina lenses are smaller, equal or longer focal length, less expensive and available for Canon M cameras.

Note: The absence of image stabilization in the Tokina mirror lenses may be unavoidable for this type of lens, and mean these lenses are not useful for slow shutter speed (or long exposure) situations.

Note: I find myself moving away from pixel peeping and more about composition and emotion.

However, caution is warranted because mirror lenses are not inexpensive and produce images that appeal to a specific type of photographer.

I look forward to learning what settings will work best with these lenses.

Cheers!

All great points but when you have played with long reach you know image stabilization and auto focus is important too.

But I'm happy Tokina still produces these. More options is better than less options.

True. If Canon M camera had (or will have) IBIS, the decision to purchase one of these very long focal length mirror lenses could be more compelling.

Note: The lack of IBIS in the Canon M system is the one feature I envy over other camera bodies, (including at similar price point).

I thought the video below, about a high quality mirror lens, is informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk2JnvGUeRk

In this video, the youtuber does a pretty good job of demonstrating a quality mirror lens can achieve sharp focus. He also makes an observation that the depth of field of a 500mm f/8 mirror lens is very narrow for small subjects (e.g., birds).

Thus, it may be that a narrow depth of field of the Tokina 600mm and 900mm lenses will contribute to the challenging of obtaining sharp focus. However, this may be overcome by skill or knowledge of the photographer.

My curiosity of these lenses is still there, mostly because there isn't an alternative for the Canon M cameras.

Notes: The few images that show the 900mm indicate a tripod (or monopod?) would be needed.