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Tokina AT-X 100-300mm f/4 SD . . . better than I expected
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
TrueLoveOne wrote:
Lloydy wrote:
My 80-200 has the haze, but that's why it cost me �5. It's in great condition otherwise so the haze is a great shame. I bought it about 5 years ago and I don't think the haze has got any worse in that time.
The lens still takes good pictures, but I haven't really tested it against the sun and always use a hood. It's almost certainly lost some contrast but PP fixes that.


They do still take good pictures, i did not know, mine has haze as well, just opened a topic about it here:
http://forum.mflenses.com/tokina-at-x-sd-2-8-80-200-hazy-element-t74276.html


Yes they do still take good pictures, the haze affects contrast and little else.

I've just relied on your topic, with pictures, to keep 80-200 in one post.


PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2022 8:57 pm    Post subject: Tokina ATX 4/100-300 vs MinAF 4.5-5.6/75-300 (big beercan) Reply with quote
The AT-X 4/100-300mm was a kind of cult lens in the early days of DSLRs. Back then, everybody and his grandma suddenly felt the urgent need to posses a 3000$ camera with a tiny (APS-C) 6MP sensor - and of course buying an additional new good tele lens for such a beast was posing quite a challenge. I myself was using fast Minolta APO lenses back then, and they were sufficient for my own needs.

During the following years - starting around 2010 - I got several Tokina AT-X lenses (their best), but I was never really satisfied since my "ordinary" Minolta lenses simply were better than Tokina's premium line. I tried lenses such as the AT-X 28-135mm, the AT-X 2.8/35-70mm, the AT-X 2.8/80-200mm and others, but not the AT-X 4/100-300mm. Nevertheless I always was curious to see how this relatively fast tele zoom would perform on 24MP FF cameras.

A few days ago I got a very nice looking sample of the AT-X 4/100-300mm, and I started playing around with it. As with all AT-X lenses I know, the lens barrel is very well made. Focusing is smooth, there's no zoom creep (it's a one ring zoom), MFD is 2m (most 300mm primes back then had 4m or even 5m MFD), and the engravings are well made. Nothing to complain here!

When it comes to performance however, neither at f=100mm nor at f=300mm the AT-X 100-300mm can match with good (contemporary!) primes - not even stopped down to f11! Around f=200mm however its perfomance is convincing and on par with many 4/200mm primes.

That said, most vintage (MF) 5.6/100-300mm zooms are pretty weak performers; usually with a relatively low contrast. Often their resolution is satisfying only in the image center; borders and corners are much weaker than with primes. Comparing to those early 100-300mm zooms, the AT-X certainly is a decent performer.

At the dawn of the AF age Minolta was calculating a few excellent zooms ("beercan series"), among them the AF 4-4.5/28-135mm, the humble AF 4/35-70mm and the excellent AF 2.8/80-200mm APO. These days, most people don't remember that the "big beercan" AF 4.5-5.6/75-300mm was a very expensive lens - almost as expensive as the AF 1.4/85mm and the AF 1.4/35mm, and more expensive than the AF 2/28 or the AF 2/100mm. In fact it was nearly three time more expensive as the AF 4/70-210mm, one of the best tele zooms available back then! In short - if the AT-X 4/100-300mm would beat the Minolta AF 4.5-5.6/100-300mm, it would be a winner.

Here are the results at f=300mm (CLICK TWICE AT THE IMAGE TO GET THE FULL RESOLUTION):



For landscapes, the "big beercan" Minolta AF 4.5-5.6/75-300mm remains a sleeper (here in Switzerland it rarely goes for more than CHF / USD / EUR 50.--). The AT-X 4/100-300mm has an excellent quality in the image center (no lateral CAs at all!), and it should be well suited for candid portraits from a distance, for sports, for animals (on APS-C), and probably also for concerts when reach is a issue.

Results at f=100mm and f=200mm will follow tomorrow Wink

S

Last edited by stevemark on Sat May 07, 2022 9:04 pm; edited 2 times in total


PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2022 9:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Unless you show us more than the far corners, you're just wasting everyone's time.


PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I once owned a couple of AT-X lenses (24-40mm/2.8 and 28-85mm/3.5-4.5) and found IQ of both to be a bit behind Minolta's 24-50mm and 28-85mm equivalent ones.

I have looked at other Tokina ones over time (AT-X and SD) but it has always been the focus haptics that were the deal-breaker for me, more so than any optical deficiencies.

Many (not all) of Tokina's lenses that were of interest to me re. focal length & speed had a woefully inadequate MFD and their focus helicoid pitch was far too steep for (my) comfort. But that is a personal preference; I know many other users that don't seem to have any issues with the focus behaviour of Tokinas in general.


PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 2:18 pm    Post subject: Re: Tokina ATX 4/100-300 vs MinAF 4.5-5.6/75-300 (big beerca Reply with quote
stevemark wrote:
The AT-X 4/100-300mm was a kind of cult lens in the early days of DSLRs. Back then, everybody and his grandma suddenly felt the urgent need to posses a 3000$ camera with a tiny (APS-C) 6MP sensor - and of course buying an additional new good tele lens for such a beast was posing quite a challenge. I myself was using fast Minolta APO lenses back then, and they were sufficient for my own needs.

During the following years - starting around 2010 - I got several Tokina AT-X lenses (their best), but I was never really satisfied since my "ordinary" Minolta lenses simply were better than Tokina's premium line. I tried lenses such as the AT-X 28-135mm, the AT-X 2.8/35-70mm, the AT-X 2.8/80-200mm and others, but not the AT-X 4/100-300mm. Nevertheless I always was curious to see how this relatively fast tele zoom would perform on 24MP FF cameras.

A few days ago I got a very nice looking sample of the AT-X 4/100-300mm, and I started playing around with it. As with all AT-X lenses I know, the lens barrel is very well made. Focusing is smooth, there's no zoom creep (it's a one ring zoom), MFD is 2m (most 300mm primes back then had 4m or even 5m MFD), and the engravings are well made. Nothing to complain here!

When it comes to performance however, neither at f=100mm nor at f=300mm the AT-X 100-300mm can match with good (contemporary!) primes - not even stopped down to f11! Around f=200mm however its perfomance is convincing and on par with many 4/200mm primes.

That said, most vintage (MF) 5.6/100-300mm zooms are pretty weak performers; usually with a relatively low contrast. Often their resolution is satisfying only in the image center; borders and corners are much weaker than with primes. Comparing to those early 100-300mm zooms, the AT-X certainly is a decent performer.

At the dawn of the AF age Minolta was calculating a few excellent zooms ("beercan series"), among them the AF 4-4.5/28-135mm, the humble AF 4/35-70mm and the excellent AF 2.8/80-200mm APO. These days, most people don't remember that the "big beercan" AF 4.5-5.6/75-300mm was a very expensive lens - almost as expensive as the AF 1.4/85mm and the AF 1.4/35mm, and more expensive than the AF 2/28 or the AF 2/100mm. In fact it was nearly three time more expensive as the AF 4/70-210mm, one of the best tele zooms available back then! In short - if the AT-X 4/100-300mm would beat the Minolta AF 4.5-5.6/100-300mm, it would be a winner.

Here are the results at f=300mm (CLICK TWICE AT THE IMAGE TO GET THE FULL RESOLUTION):



For landscapes, the "big beercan" Minolta AF 4.5-5.6/75-300mm remains a sleeper (here in Switzerland it rarely goes for more than CHF / USD / EUR 50.--). The AT-X 4/100-300mm has an excellent quality in the image center (no lateral CAs at all!), and it should be well suited for candid portraits from a distance, for sports, for animals (on APS-C), and probably also for concerts when reach is a issue.

Results at f=100mm and f=200mm will follow tomorrow Wink

S



Interesting results, thanks a lot. I've bought two samples of the AT-X 100 - 300 mm f/4 lens a few years ago and i found that they weren't up to their reputation. But both samples had a hazy doublet in the middle of the lens so contrast was clearly reduced. The AT-X 80-200 f/2,8 suffers, at least in its manual first version, from the same flaw and I wouldn't buy either lens again given that the majority of the available copies have the same "separation desease".


PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 4:12 pm    Post subject: Re: Tokina ATX 4/100-300 vs MinAF 4.5-5.6/75-300 (big beerca Reply with quote
Alsatian2017 wrote:

Interesting results, thanks a lot. I've bought two samples of the AT-X 100 - 300 mm f/4 lens a few years ago and i found that they weren't up to their reputation. But both samples had a hazy doublet in the middle of the lens so contrast was clearly reduced.

Luckily, my sample is perfectly clear. I guess the excellenbt reputation of the AT-X goes back to the time when APS-C was the satndard for prosumers. The central part of the image is excellent at all apertures and all focal lengths, even when using the 43 MP Sony A7RII. Being a rather fast zoom it is probably more a reportage and not so much a landscape lens.

Here's a center (!) crop from the 43 MP A7RII at 300mm / f4:


And here's a center crop from the A7RII at 300mm / f8:


The 43 MP sensor of the A7RII is pretty demanding on vintage glass, yet even at f=300mm and wide open there are no longitudinal CAs and no fringing. Contrast af f4 is slightly lower than at f8, but that's pixel peeping. Detail resolutioin seems to be slightly better at f4, but that again is of no practical relevance. Sadly, at f=300mm this excellent performance drops as soon as we're more than a few mm from the image center ... At f=200mm the lens is better, but at f=100mm again it has issues with borders and corners.

Alsatian2017 wrote:
The AT-X 80-200 f/2,8 suffers, at least in its manual first version, from the same flaw and I wouldn't buy either lens again given that the majority of the available copies have the same "separation desease".

I have a sample of the MF AT-x 2.8/80-200 as well, and it was fogged inside the front element. Cleaning was pretty easy and straightforward. Quite soon the issue came back, and I didn't bother cleaning the AT-X 2.8/80-200 again.

S


EDIT: cleaning of the fogged front group (three lenses, two elements) of the Tokina AT-X 2.8/80-200mm see here:
http://forum.mflenses.com/tokina-at-x-sd-2-8-80-200-hazy-element-t74276.html
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