Tokina Reflex 300mm F6.3 MF Macro - Review

[Inkheart]

Hello,

I'd like to share with you my review of this fine lens.

Build quality:

With it's all metal construction and a very smooth focus ring the lens feels very solid and well built.

The focusing is not too tight and not too loose and allows for very precise adjustments.

The lens comes with a nice plastic lens hood which is padded on the inside with some material (I assume to reduce reflections).

When you lock the hood on the lens, it is a tiny bit loose, but it's not an issue.

Overall the build quality is really great.

Optical performance/handling:

I wouldn't say the optical quality is good or bad, I would rather say it's "difficult" or tricky.

What I mean by it is that you can get some really good results, sharp pictures with great colours and nice background, but it depends a lot on what you're shooting and how you are shooting it.

You need to keep in mind that:

- the pictures can have (but not always) low contrast, which is on the other hand easily manageable in post-processing.

- you will get doughnut-shaped bokeh (which a lot of people don't like, but in my opinion sometimes looks really nice and unique).

- the out of focus background can be very busy if there is a lot of small detail, but most of the time I did not have this problem.

- the focusing can be very difficult, especially with moving subjects, tripod is highly suggested (although most of the pics below were taken handheld).

- you cannot change the aperture which is stuck at f/6.3.

But the great things about this lens are that:

- so far the pictures are pretty much free from purple fringing, chromatic abberation and flare.

- the lens works really nicely as a macro lens.

- it's really small and lightweight considering it is equivalent to 600mm.

- it looks great on my silver E-M5

Final thoughts:

What I like about this lens is that it's fun too shoot with and it renders colours really nicely - they are a bit muted, but very pleasing.

Even though my impressions are overall positive, I would say that the lens is overpriced for what it is, but if you can get it second hand at around 110$, like I did, it's worth a try.

Below you can see some pictures taken with this lens paired with the E-M5:



































Thank you.

--
Inkheart

 

[Fredrik Glckner]

I've found that by half pressing the shutter on the E-M5 II, the IBIS will kick in and make manual focus easier. However, this appears to make the focus peaking feature turn off/on all the time, which is not too helpful. A video demonstration of this process here:

Long lenses coming

I a few days time, two more long lenses will be announced. On January 5-6th, Oympus and Panasonic will launch their new premium telephoto le...

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[Brian Wadie]

those are pretty neat examples, I used a Tamron 500 f8 mirror on my EM-5 for quite a while and as you say, they can be different / difficult to handle but that also gave some good results. It was much more bulky than this Tokina though, it seems to fit the EM-5 rather well

 

[gear1box]

Ink --

Hmmm; results and conclusions are comparable to my experience with a slightly different reflex lens. I have been toying with the Samyang (Bower) 500mm f6.3 *with* the metabones 0.7x speedbooster. That is an effective 35mm FOV of 700mm, compared with FOV-equiv of 600mm on the Tamron. It is a stop faster (f4.5) which is always helpful on teles, and physically larger of course.

The contrast, as you say, is poor; thank goodness for DXO's clarity function. Dof is remarkably thin, even many hundreds of yards away. Sharpness can be acceptable when you get the focus right, but good golly is that tricky too (as you say). Brian Caldwell's metabones site assures me that the MTF is improved and i guess i believe them, but still is, er, less than a crisp image.

On my EM5 it set the focal length to 300mm (instead of 350mm, which isn't a selection). The IBIS helps somewhat, but not anywhere near so much as other lenses. That may be due to the FL mis-match. I find myself having to dial up the ISO to keep the shutter speed in the stratosphere. Sigh.

In truth i don't often have much call for a f4.5 700mm lens. So i guess that it is a toy, but if i ever needed a long tele i would use it. It seems better than cropping my next longest m4/3 lens, the venerable 40-150 f4-5.6.

The folks at Celestron will sell you a 2000mm f10 reflex, which would be a 2800mm FOV-equiv f7 with the metabones. With their "Edge HD" models they claim to have licked the corner-coma issues pandemic to reflex lenses. They may have; i will never find out. Celestron will also sell you 40lb tripods required to mount such things . . . and you will need them.

-- gary ray
Semi-professional in early 1970s; just a putzer since then. interests: historical sites, virginia, motorcycle racing. A nikon user more by habit than choice; still, nikon seems to work well for me.

 

[baxters]

Nice macro shots. Thanks for the review.

For me, the nice thing about the 300 reflex is that it fits in a coat pocket or a small bag. Like any long lens, it will take work to hold steady, and probably added work to so some PP later. Unlike my other long lens, this is a lens I might actually have with me, although it is way down on my priority list.

I also appreciate the EXIF data, even though it's a constant 300mm and f6,3m but at least I don't have to add it myself.




Handheld from a kneeling position. EM5 IBIS at work.




Tripod in back yard. Here, my 70-300 zoom would do better.




Camera on my knee, sitting in chair.

 

[Inkheart]

I've found that by half pressing the shutter on the E-M5 II, the IBIS will kick in and make manual focus easier. However, this appears to make the focus peaking feature turn off/on all the time, which is not too helpful.

The original E-M5 also has this option.

You can have the IBIS on all the time, after half press, or after full press.

I use the last option all the time, mainly to extend battery life, but the after half press option is really helpful here.

Unfortunately I don't have focus peaking on my E-M5, and it is a shame if you cannot use it together with IBIS active after half pressing (although that sounds strange).

 

[Inkheart]

Ink --



On my EM5 it set the focal length to 300mm (instead of 350mm, which isn't a selection). The IBIS helps somewhat, but not anywhere near so much as other lenses. That may be due to the FL mis-match. I find myself having to dial up the ISO to keep the shutter speed in the stratosphere. Sigh.

On my E-M5 the IBIS is really helpful, but I think it doesn't always work with the same effectiveness.

I am able to take a sharp picture with shutter speed as slow as 1/5th of a sec handheld, but then sometimes I can take 5 pictures in a row of the same thing with sutter around 1/80th or faster and all the images are moved. It might be user error, but I think it's more likely the fact that it's the first generation of the 5 axis IBIS, which still has some room for improvement left.

In truth i don't often have much call for a f4.5 700mm lens. So i guess that it is a toy, but if i ever needed a long tele i would use it. It seems better than cropping my next longest m4/3 lens, the venerable 40-150 f4-5.6.

I did some small comparison between Tokina 300mm and Tamron 14-150mm, and if I really nail the focus and the image is not shaken then yes, there is an advantage of Tokina over cropped Tamron. But again it is not easy to really focus precisely, especially handheld.

But just for the sake of the discussion, here are two crops, one from the Tokina and the other from Tamron, taken from the same distance and cropped to the same size. You can clearly see that you do get quite closer and get much more detail with Tokina:




Crop from Tamron at 150mm




Crop from Tokina at 300mm

The folks at Celestron will sell you a 2000mm f10 reflex, which would be a 2800mm FOV-equiv f7 with the metabones. With their "Edge HD" models they claim to have licked the corner-coma issues pandemic to reflex lenses. They may have; i will never find out. Celestron will also sell you 40lb tripods required to mount such things . . . and you will need them.

Yeah, f10 is way too small for me, I wouldn't even go with f8. F6.3 is like the top aperture for me to still feel fairly comfortable to have some handheld shooting. I go higher than f6.3 only if I have a lot of light (or on tripod) and need a lot of dof.

Cheers!

--
Inkheart

 

[Hen3ry]

It does look wonderful on the camera and the small size and lightness are great pluses. I tried it in the hop. I would go for it but … no, sorry, I must have AF. The old eyes …

 

[caver101]

It does look wonderful on the camera and the small size and lightness are great pluses. I tried it in the hop. I would go for it but … no, sorry, I must have AF. The old eyes …

I used to think I needed AF, but my current camera (Lumix GM5) has 'focus peaking', which highlights what is in focus is a very visible manner (no eye strain!). I'm expecting my Tokina 300m to arrive in next few days; will be interesting to see how well that works with it. Thanks for all the interesting comments and photos above!

Mike

 

[Hitherto]

For its low price it'd be hard to question why it wouldn't be in your bag if you needed it.

 

[jeffharris]

For its low price it'd be hard to question why it wouldn't be in your bag if you needed it.

I bought one a B&H for $199, just because…

Used it a bunch of times, but only at long distances. It's kind of a PITA to use with not so great results. Haven't tried it for close-ups. Looks like a fab cat lens.

 

[caver101]

For its low price it'd be hard to question why it wouldn't be in your bag if you needed it.

I bought one a B&H for $199, just because…

Used it a bunch of times, but only at long distances. It's kind of a PITA to use with not so great results. Haven't tried it for close-ups. Looks like a fab cat lens.

I did get one; very glad my 'main' camera has focus peaking: tried it on my old one and it was hard to focus. In any case, needs to be used on tripod and with care (true of any 300mm [600mm equivalent] lens of course).

Posted 'best test pix' with the Tokina and the Panasonic 100-300 zoom here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenilworthwalker/ (the two pictures of a rather boring house with burglar alarm). The Panasonic lens wins, but not by much. And it's 75% heavier and around twice the price...

Mike

 

[OliverHasanOlympus]

Posted 'best test pix' with the Tokina and the Panasonic 100-300 zoom here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenilworthwalker/ (the two pictures of a rather boring house with burglar alarm). The Panasonic lens wins, but not by much. And it's 75% heavier and around twice the price...

I don't really know what to look for, but to my unschooled eyes, the Tokina shot is more drab. In particular, the bricks and the foreground twigs are less red.

 

[caver101]

Yes, I agree. Also the non-mirror lenses is a little sharper. Not a huge difference, but a big difference in price.

 

[night sailor]

I have an old Sigma 600mm on a Nikon F mount with a simple adapter. Contrast is poor, and even worse with an old Tokina 2:1 teleconverter. But the magnification is fantastic. I tried it recently on a breezy day and my ancient tripod trembled and even slight movement put it out of focus. Depress the shutter? Shutters! I used a timer and it still shook. It was a challenge and great fun. I may consider a Nikon metabones adapter.

I'm going to try it on some astral photography. While a very sturdy tripod mount would work, a concrete pier, or a mount held down with bags full of shot--perfectly solid is needed for astral photography, IMHO. Focus should not be a problem with a rock solid mount. Cold clear nights of winter are coming up.

As for this lens? I'd like to pick one up. I've some nice images with subtle donut bokeh, and others to glaring--that I did not like at all. That one above with the two foreground donuts.

I have a ultra-light kit of three lenses, a 20mm 1.7 pancake, a 12-32mm 3.5-5.6 zoom, and a small 35-100mm 4-5.6 zoom--it's a very light travel kit. Every lens is small. I love it. Still I often wish I had one long lens. This Tokina 300mm lens with all it's weaknesses, would be a valuable addition to my ultra-light kit.