RMC Tokina 4/25-50 on NEX-3

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I picked this up in mint condition for a fiver, in FD mount as I figured it would be an ideal short zoom on my NEX. Typical Tokina build quality - extremely solid feel, two-touch design, quite compact, my other Tokina of this age (3.5/17) is superb so I hoped this would be a good companion to that lens.

That's the good, to my eyes it has low contrast, quite a lot of CA and washed out colours. It's quite sharp but the low contrast and CA make it useless to me imho, no replacement for 28, 35 and 50mm primes as I was hoping.

25mm end, f8, quite sharp but loads of CA and low contrast:

25mm end, f22, again, sharp but low contrast, CA is less evident:

25mm end, f22, looks not bad, had to tweak the brightness/contrast as I underexposed a bit:

25mm end, f4, again not bad:

So all in all, I'm quite disappointed, lens feels very solid and is great to use but the low contrast and CA spoil it, sharpness is fine, could be a useable lens is only used stopped down to at least f11 but considering I have 28, 35 and 50mm primes of much greater IQ, I doubt I will use this lens again, might sell it.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I tried some panoramas with this Tokina and they came out very flat with washed out colours and low contrast, this one looks okay after extensive PP to adjust the contrast but this scene would have a lot more beauty if shot with one of my great lenses like the Hexanon 3.5/28, this was at the 25mm end at f22:

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I also tried some HDRs, they work okay because the low contrast can be easily overcome but this still isn't a lens that I want to use much as I have primes that are so much better. Is this sort of IQ typical of older MF zooms? If so, it's primes all the way for me!

martyn_bannister · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 1151

As you say Ian, the RMC lenses by this maker are normally rated quite highly, but not this example. Is it because it's a zoom? Ah well, at least you didn't break the bank buying it Smile

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Yes, I have several Tokinas and they are pretty good, this one, while sharp is not that good. My Tokina made Hoya 24 and 28mm lenses are way better than this. I have Tokina SD 28-70 and 70-210 to try out tomorrow, paid 6ukp each in mint condition with cases, hope they are better than this one.

Shame as this Tokina zoom matches my Tokina 17mm and the two would have made a nice shooting set for the landscape work I do.

Reminds me while I much prefer primes.

I'm being ruthless with lenses now, going through all the ones I have and keeping only the really good ones like the Pentacons and Hexanons, have tons of good primes now, but out of the plethora of zooms I have collected, I haven't found any really good ones yet, but I have around a dozen more to test!

martyn_bannister · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 1151

I have a Hoya which surprised me, but most of mine are no-name zooms and so are pretty rubbish. Except for the Tammy SP 35-80mm and 28-80mm ones of course Smile

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I would like to find a good zoom in a short length range, handy to have for my NEX in those times when I don't want to carry a few lenses, might have to go for a Minolta 4/35-70, the one that's also a Leica.

revers · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:50 pm Post subject:

I have only one Tokina branded lens, a RMC 35-105/3.5-4.3 close focus. I took it on vacation as a walk-about & am very pleased with it. Some examples:

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4.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Nice iq on those samples Ron, I don't see the CA and lack of contrast my Tokina 25-50 suffers from. Apart from the CA and contrast, it's a good lens but I'm being ruthless when going through all my lenses I haven't really tried out properly yet and getting rid of anything that isn't really good.

By really good I mean they are as good as my best lenses such as Hexanon 3.5/28, Hexanon 1.7/50, Hexanon 3.2/135, Pentacon 2.8/135, Pentacon 3.5/30, Pentacon 1.8/50, Hoya 2.8/28, Canon FL 2.5/35, those are all excellent, I am starting to bought I will find zoom lenses of that quality without spending a fair bit of money.

I still have a Tamron 103A 80-210, Tokina SD 28-70, Tokina SD 70-210, Hoya 70-210, Hoya 70-150 and a couple of others to try out. I do have a Rolleinar 4/80-200 that is very nice (Tokina made) and I just sold a Viv S1 70-210 v2 (Tokina) so I'm not looking for any more zooms in that range, it's the shorter lengths I'm interested in and the 25-50 Tokina interested me as it's pretty wide at the wide end and pretty compact.

Perhaps I will just have to continue to carry several lenses with me everywhere in order to avoid sacrificing IQ as I won't find zooms as good as I want.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Another shot at the 25mm end, f22, first is a normal single exposure, no PP, second is a HDR made from 3 exposures.

It's a real shame this lens lacks contrast as stopped down it produces nice sharp images and the CA is pretty low, it's just the lack of contrast and resultant flatness that kills it for me.

attilio · Joined: 26 Apr 2017 Posts: 5

I recently bouth a Tokina 25-50 f/4 in Nikon mount as faulty (the aperture mechanism was gone: I took the missing parts from a P/K copy that had oily blades). The first images i took looked washed and totally lacking contrast . Then I found out that the first lens of teh rear group (teh one closer to the sensor) was really dirty. Luckily, this particular element is very easy to get out from teh group and clean (simple dish wash did it). The lens now performs surprisingly better even at f/4, and it outperforms my tokna 24mm f/2.8 at f/4 both in terms of sharpness, contrast and aberrations in teh corners, even tough the 24mm is almost mint ans is totally clean inside. So, I would say that this lens is a surprisingly good performer, and a good cleaning of teh interior lenses may further improve its performance.