My favorite stills lens is the Canon 24-70. I can shoot all day with this range on a Cann R5. Put that in a cinema zoom, and it would also be a go-to lens. The new Tokina 25-75 adds a little on the long end and takes 1mm off the wide. I like this a lot as I tend to need more on the long end.
Today Tokina has released the first footage shot with the new Tokina 25-75mm T2.9 Cinema lens. The footage was shot by Director of Photography, Bob Gundu.
“Using this lens is like having a bag full of high quality primes in a single lens that is the perfect size. This new Tokina zoom has that magical quality of great resolution without being soulless – a characteristic only found on really good zoom lenses”
Bob Gundu
Designed from the ground up by Tokina’s cinema division, the 25-75mm T2.9 is a modern cinema zoom lens design, with features usually reserved for higher-cost cinema zooms. It is a constant T2.9 throughout the range, with parfocal and excellent zoom tracking with minimal image shift. Lens breathing, distortion, and aberration are all highly controlled.
The lens fits between Tokina’s 11-20mm T2.9 and 50-135mm T2.9 cinema zooms. The 3x zoom range allows the lens to remain relatively compact by cinema zoom standards while attaining optical quality. These are not rehoused stills lenses. The 2kg weight and moderate size make it suitable for operation on professional gimbals, Steadicams, jibs, and other situations where a larger zoom lens would be inappropriate.
The 25-75mm T2.9 covers S35 sensors with a slightly larger coverage circle of 36mm. It’s a good match mid-range zoom for cameras like the RED Komodo, Sony FS series cameras, and ARRI Alexa, Alexa Mini, and Amira. It also covers several larger sensor models like the RED Helium 8K, RED Dragon 6K, RED Monstro in 6K, Sony FX9 in DCI 4K crop, or the ARRI Alexa LF and Mini LF when shooting in their UHD crop mode.
Specifications
The lens weighs in at 2kg and is 174mm long (PL Mount) with a 86mm filter thread and 95mm front diameter for common cinema accessories. It’s constructed of aluminum like the other Tokina Cinema lenses in the series. It features a nine-bladed iris for a smooth rendition of out-of-focus areas and has 0.8 MOD geared rings for focus, iris, and zoom. A nice feature is Tokina’s interchangeable lens mount system.
It’s available in PL, E-mount, MFT mount, and Nikon F mount options. Tokina also offers a 1.6x Expander in PL-to-PL or PL-to-E-mount that allows the lens to cover Vistavision-sized sensors, giving it the equivalent range of 40-120mm T4.
First shipments will begin in July 2021 and are now available to pre-order from authorized dealers for $4999 USD. You can learn more about the Tokina Cinema lens range at the Tokina Cinema USA website.
