The new Pentax 50 is basically the same lens. If you're curious about it, check out the Pentax Forums to see photos and reviews of the lens. The user reports are very positive. I prefer the rendering to the Sigma art 50 personally, but there are a few shortcomings with the lens.
I purchased it last week. Very sharp lens right out of the box. I still have to test it more but focus is snappy and af hit all the spots I tested.
BSPhotog wrote:
You can go buy this lens now, but no hands on reviews seem to be out yet. Anyone have the itch to get a heavier, longer, unproven Sigma Art 50?
I could not resist looking up this lens. I found this on Tokina's website, and they lost me after the second sentence:
In modern society the word "opera" is commonly used to indicate stage art works that combine drama, music and dance. In Italian it means work or work of art. As an omitted art genre definition opera comes from "opera musicale" that means a piece of music work. In Latin opera comes from "opus" that is still used in contemporary language meaning "great literary, artistic or intellectual work" (e.g. "magnum opus", "opera magna"). We chose the name opera for our new premium full-frame DSLR lens series with the idea that it will help the photographer in creating real "works of art".
I think somebody in marketing is trying waaayyyyy too hard. I personally just wanna take a pretty picture and get paid for it
It blows my mind that they never learned from the runaway success of the 11-16mm DX. Make unique lenses, people will buy them. Tokina has just been throwing darts at a board recently. Their only huge success is their incredible Vista Cinema lens line.
Well, I dont think their 11-16/2.8 was a success because it was "unique". It was a success because it was a great lens, without real competition in its optical performance at that time, and pretty cheap on top of that.
Their 100mm f2.8 macro was a success for the same reason.
And what "unique" lenses do you propose Tokina should do, exactly, anyway ?
Sauseschritt wrote:
Well, I dont think their 11-16/2.8 was a success because it was "unique". It was a success because it was a great lens, without real competition in its optical performance at that time, and pretty cheap on top of that.
Their 100mm f2.8 macro was a success for the same reason.
And what "unique" lenses do you propose Tokina should do, exactly, anyway ?
A very fast 35-90 mm zoom, a set of pancake lenses for the new mirrorless mounts. A new macro to build on the love of the 100mm you mentioned. Lenses that don't directly compete against 5 other lenses.
Geoff CB wrote:
A very fast 35-90 mm zoom, a set of pancake lenses for the new mirrorless mounts. A new macro to build on the love of the 100mm you mentioned. Lenses that don't directly compete against 5 other lenses.
I could get behind some actual pancake AF lenses for DSLR or mirrorless f/2.8-5.6 would be just fine. Turns out small lenses aren't in vogue right now, unfortunately.
As far as I know, neither Canon nor Nikon have published their new mirrorless lens mount protocols, just like they never published their SLR mount protocols. Reverse engineering those new mirrorless protocols will take time, even for the likes as Tamron, but especially for a small company such as Tokina. Sigma so far hasnt even managed to make the SLR mounts work too well (at least not for Nikon, I dont know about Canon) and is much bigger than Tokina, and Tamron apparently recently got screwed over with the new Nikon F to Z adapter, so no this isnt a trivial issue at all, both Canon and Nikon dont like competition and obviously working at making their lens mount protocols especially hard to decode.
Also, yes - lenses like that would be out of competition for a while. That wont last though. After all, Canon and Nikon will keep releasing new lenses for their R and Z mirrorless.
There isnt really a shortage of compact lenses, for any mount I know. Okay, unlike Canon Nikon actually doesnt have too many such lenses themselves, and the tiny Voigtländer lenses Cosina produced for Nikon and Canon are mostly out of production now. Either way its perfectly possible to stay more or less compact with any system, inside the limitations that thats physically even possible.
I dont view those large lenses as much of a trend, either. So far I havent seen any such lens thats actually tempting.
I have Tokina Opera 50mm F1.4 for Canon. I tested this lens with Canon, but not impressive. When I use this in Sony A7RII with Sigma MC-11 adapter, it is shined, and image is brilliant and incredibly sharp at 42MB image size. I will use this for Sony A7R II. In the Canon 6D, its great merit and trait, sharpness and gorgeous color rendition, and remarkable contrast, is buried , but alive with Sony A7RII. Its strength is very reliable focusing not like Sigma series that I used a lot in the past. Sigma, MF is more useful than AF. I really never trust in Sigma AF. But Tokina is better than Sigma clearly. Both are very sharp at MF, but I like Tokina because it is the same as Pentax 50mm. It is designed for portrait at low F and landscape at high F number. At low F edge is not sharp like Sigma, but at high F even edge is excellent. This remarkable lens produce stunning images with outstanding sharpness.
BSPhotog wrote:
You can go buy this lens now, but no hands on reviews seem to be out yet. Anyone have the itch to get a heavier, longer, unproven Sigma Art 50?
I use the rebranded lens on my Pentax K-1ii (HD Pentax-D FA* 50mm F1.4 SDM AW). It's extremely center sharp at f/1.4 and across the frame at f/5.6. Colors/contrast is really remarkable and the bokeh is 'fluffy' (can't think of another word to describe it).
Focusing, it's smooth and quiet but I wouldn't describe it as 'snappy'.
For me, the biggest drawback is the weight. I thought that I could get along with weight and size of the lens, but I find myself using the FA 31mm more often and am considering the FA 43mm to replace the 50mm.
I totally agree to kriskunisch. Actually Pentax HD 50mm is best for landscape.
Tokina is exactly same as the Pentax 50mm. I highly recommend Sigma for its sharpness, specially in MF, but Tokina is almost same sharpness in MF without distinction.
