January 21, 2022 was officially announced Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF lens.
Tokina SZ 500mm F8 Reflex MF
Basic properties
- Lens for full frame cameras
- Addition to the existing one Tokina SZX 400mm F8 Reflex MF
- Supports Nikon F, Canon EF mirror mounts and Fujifilm X, Sony E, Micro 4/3 mirrorless mounts (coming also for Canon RF, Nikon Z), as well as the T-mount interchangeable shank system
- Type: mirror-lens
- The first modern lens from the line Tokina SZ. The revival of the SZ line from the 80s and 90s. The main features of this line are lightness and compactness
- S - Satisfaction, Z – Zest
- Manual focus only, focus ring rotates 270 °
- Relative aperture: 1: 8 without adjustment
- Optical design: 7 elements in 7 groups
- Focal Length: 500mm
- MDF: 1.7 meters
- Maximum magnification ratio: 1:2.86
- Filter Diameter: 72 mm
- Weight: 310 gram
- Price: about $300, current prices for new Tokina lenses can be see here
Appearance
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Material prepared Arkady Shapoval. Training/Consultations | Youtube | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Telegram
This lens is noticeably lighter than the new Rubinar 500mm / 8 version, much more interesting in terms of MDF.
And much cheaper - Rubinar is now sold in Germany for 529 €, and in Russia - for 34600 rubles ($ 450).
Optically, this Tokina is a bit more complicated: 7 components versus 6 for Rubinar.
Just because it has more "groups" doesn't mean it's better (although it makes sense). By the way, this one, so to speak - “Tokins”, has only 9 elements. Rubinar has 4 groups (or 5, depending on the model) and 7 elements.
> Announcement: Tokina SZ 500mm F8 Feflex MF
reflex
There are three more nuances. According to information from prophotos.ru, the mirror coating of Tokina is silver (and Rubinars have aluminum).
Moreover, on the Rubinar it is applied to the front surface of the main mirror, while on the Tokina it is applied to the back (better for protection against oxidation, but worse for the risk of reflections).
And Tokina has an additional thread for 30,5 mm filters (rare) in the tail of the lens.
Yeah, with silver (if they didn’t lie), Rubinar was ahead of them here. But the vignetting will be more than Rubinar, because 30,5 is very small.
Previously, Tokina used 35,5 mm filters - exactly like Rubinar !!!
It is clear that the photos shown in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qcrwc3zV-M), can be pinched and otherwise damaged, but they are not impressive in sharpness.
For the price and the thing ... Kaka video, a man supposedly shoots a penguin in the summer on a rock in the winter ... :)
A picturesque motivating commercial dedicated to the re-release of the Tokina 500mm F / 8 Reflex MF SZ EVIL on the Tokina Global youtube channel.
To be honest, I kayfonul, and reviewed more than once!)))
And the fact that the video was filmed, for the most part, on a drone, and the pictures from the lens are rare and quickly flicker, so these are trifles :-))
I don’t quite understand why this lens was created / produced? For serious uncles, he is not interesting, but amateurs do not understand.
p.s. This is my opinion.
Mirror-lens lenses (ZLO) today are niche optics, which are produced mainly by three companies (Samyang, Tokina and LZOS). Plus a large secondary market.
But Canon began to patent new lenses of this scheme.
https://petapixel.com/2021/05/15/canon-might-be-planning-super-cheap-super-telephoto-lenses/
Looks like Samyang is making Tokina now. I hope at least the design of the mechanics and the build quality will be better with such a name drawn on the product.
EVIL (catadioptrics) were also produced by Sigma, Tamron, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Minolta, Olympus, B&L, CZ, Leica.
CZ and Leica are the coolest in MTF and the most expensive.
There were several other American firms Perkin-Elmer and others.
Moreover, CZ and Leica (and some others) opt. scheme like Rubinar!
Sergei
23.01.2022 in 08: 29
I don’t quite understand why this lens was created / produced? For serious uncles, he is not interesting, but amateurs do not understand.
p.s. This is my opinion.
The main purpose is to shoot objects at long and ultra-long distances with minimal XA and SHA. With the advent of affordable color film from Fuji and Kodak in the early to mid 70s, and compact 35mm cameras with exposure metering, it allowed building the potential of amateur photographers around the world. In the USSR, a narrow stratum of people had access to color film from Fuji and Kodak.
In the USSR, they continued to shoot at Zenith, Kiev, Zorkiy and b / w film Photo-65.
Google digitized photographs on color film of the 70-80s shot on a catadioptric and you will immediately understand everything.
Look for FRGashnye pictures of the time.
Also find the original color photograph of the Apollo 11 trinity and understand what was the gap in photographic materials and optics between the USSR and the rest of the world.
For further study of the gap in photographic materials and optics between the USSR and the rest of the world, google marine photographs taken in various parts of the world by sailors from different countries and complete the study with an analysis of the demobilization albums of the Navy and the Navy.
Good luck.
EVIL has every right to exist if these lenses are super-compact, used on cameras with a stub and with a bold low-noise pixel.
Not quite successful bokeh can be corrected by computational photography, although special utilities for amateur photographers are not yet on the market.
Autofocus in EVIL has already been introduced through the efforts of Sony / Minolta.
The era of widespread evil was crippled by the entry into the market of low-dispersion optical glasses at an affordable price.
Therefore, EVIL has moved into the category of niche optics, and will be present there for a long time to come.
>> Google digitized photographs on color film of the 70-80s shot on a catadioptric and you will immediately understand everything.
– There is no colored (usually blue) border on catadioptrics.
>> Also find the original color photograph of the Apollo 11 trinity and understand what the gap in photographic materials and optics was between the USSR and the rest of the world.
- The USSR in optics went head to head with the West. (Wait a minute, don't throw tomatoes at me :-) ) I was even ahead, in the sense that Helios-44 or Helios-81, or even super-duper 123rd, so cheap, with such picture quality, they didn’t sell anywhere in the decaying west .
Sometimes I try different Western lenses of those years - the same quality as the Soviet 1 in 1.
But modern Western lenses - yes, they are beautiful!
>> find the original color photograph of the Apollo 11 Trinity
- and you find WHAT it was photographed, first!
Lens and camera in a single copy? So you WILL NOT SELL!
And if you had these millions of dollars, ahahah, then they would have brought you from abroad somehow.
Now you can shout: “ALL IS LOST!”
As for the quality of Helios, you are just asking for tomatoes :)
Well-assembled, not with crooked hands, Helios are good (I realized this later). And for those characteristics, they are the sharpest and most advanced for their price, slightly inferior to the most expensive such Western peers, with the same pattern.
I used Jupiters, I like them more according to the drawing. But, for example, Helios-123 - for me it is so very good and much sharper and faster.
It would be nice if Arkady (the author) added to those. characteristics graph:
Diameter for rear filters: 30,5x0,5
And another graph:
Light filters included: no
(if I understood correctly).