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At a recent trade show in Tokyo (Photo Imaging Expo 2006) Tokina announced
plans to release four new lenses in the fall of 2006. They are:
A 10-17/3.5-4.5 DX fisheye zoom
A 16-50/2.8 DX
A 17-135/3/5-5.6 DX
A 50-135/2.8 DX
Note that these are all "DX" lenses, meaning that they are designed for
coverage of APS-C sized digital sensors and are not compatible with full frame
cameras (film or digital) without significant vignetting.
The original press release is in Japanese ( http://www.tokina.co.jp/news/pie2006news.html)
so I'm depending on a machine translation into English for the few details that
were given. It seems that these lenses may be the result of a new collaboration
between Pentax and Tokina. Since Pentax already has a 10-17 fisheye zoom for
their APS-C DSLRs, this seems reasonable!
There is no word on price, or on exactly when or in which countries these
lenses will be released or which camera mounts will be supported, though I'd
assume that Canon, Nikon and Pentax will be, and possibly Konica-Minolta/Sony.
However the press release does indicate that Tokina hopes to release them
sometime in the Fall of 2006.
The 10-17/3.5-4.5 DX fisheye zoom is pretty unusual, though as I
mentioned above, Pentax already have such a lens available. At 10mm it should
have a diagonal field of view of 180 degrees (like a 15 or 16mm fisheye does on a
full frame camera).
The 16-50/2.8 DX falls into the same category as the Canon EF-S
17-55/2.8, the Tamron 17-50/2.8 and the Sigma 18-50/2.8. They are all approximate
analogs of a 28-80/2.8 lens on a full frame camera.
The 17-135mm F3.5-5.6 DX is a little more conventional and
corresponds to a 28-200mm zoom for a full frame camera. Sigma have a similar
lens, the 18-125/3.5-5.6 but this Tokina lens covers a slightly wider zoom
range.
The Tokina 50-135mm F2.8 DX corresponds to 80-216mm in terms of
35mm equivalent angular coverage on a Canon APS-C DSLR, which I guess makes it
somewhat similar to the 70-200/2.8 and 80-200/2.8 full frame lenses in terms of
photographic applications From the image it looks like it has a built-in rotating
tripod collar. There are currently no other similar lenses from other
manufacturers with this zoom range and speed, so it's a pretty interesting
offering
If these lenses measure up to the same quality we've seen in Tokina's 12-24mm f/4, I think these will make great 3rd party offerings! The fast apertures in the DX format will bring back the extra-blurry backgrounds there on full size 35mm :-D.
The 16-50 and the 50-135 look very intriguing.
I read somewhere that speculation is that the fisheye and the f/2.8's will land around the $500 mark.
2>Ikelite housing for 5D: ?985
>Ikelite 8" dome port for 10-17 ?225
>Ikelite "The mother" flash ?975
Total: ?2100
Total when flooded: ?4600 (plus funeral following suicide) Then wife would kill me for buying, and then burn my corpse for flooding it! so thats out of the question, but tantalizingly close!
3>Hasselblad xpan with 45mm lens (2nd hand): ?1000
>Hasselblad xpan 90mm lens: ?400
Total: ?1400
Use Underwater video housing, I already have!
So there you have it, anyone got some thoughts as to what to buy?
The most recent word I could find from an updated Tokina October 2006 press release is that the Tokina 16-50 lens will be released in February 2007 - at least in Japan (with Nikon and Canon mounts).
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.tokina.co.jp/news/4961607atx165news.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D16-50%2Bsite:http://www.tokina.co.jp%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DWZPA,WZPA:2005-39,WZPA:en
The Nikon 17-55, disappointingly, is really an 18 (well, around 17.7) to 55 which results in about a 27mm equivalent at the wide end. If the Tokina is really a 16-50, then it will be equivalent to 24mm which is significantly wider. The 24-xxx lenses in Nikon's full frame lineup are their most popular lenses so it has seem strange that Nikon APS zooms have started at 27-28mm equivalent at the wide end. Just goes to show that even Nikon is occasionally asleep at the controls.
