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Tokina AT-X 2.5/90mm "The Bokina II"
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 7:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Woodrim, this is beautiful... Shocked Well done.


PostPosted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
woodrim wrote:
Was sitting on my front porch this evening as the sun was setting. Series 1 Bokina at f/2.5 using NEX-5N...



A beautiful and wonderful image, congratulations.

Regards.


PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
What is the minimum working distance (from the front of the lens not from the sensor plane) for this lens,
either Tokina or Vivitar (without and with the proprietary 1:1 extender)?


PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 1:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
You can use calculators like this to work out focus distances
http://www.mystd.de/album/calculator/

1:1 with 90mm lens is focus distance of 0.2m. relate that to the extension of your lens and you can figure out the CWD


PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 5:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
nice shot woodrim !

I found my copy in New Zealand, LN, in MD mount, and had to pay something like 275 for it. Maybe more. Of course I read all the stories about it first LOL.

DSC02068 by unoh7, on Flickr

Around the same time I also found a 105/2.5 Kiron, which is scratch free but has some haze. It's still wildly sharp, but I doubt it has the contrast it should: but it was only 125USD.

I use 90s alot, bought the at-x for my nex-5, where it was outstanding.

But one day I did a shootout with my little TE90 thin, and found it was also very good on the Nex and much easier to carry! Of course the TE is an everyday 90 and can't do the close work, plus it does not do OOF like the Bokina, but it's mobility trumped those issues.

Now I shoot 95% with:

DSC02767 by unoh7, A7 + Bokina @ f/4ish

and my two main 90s are the little CV 90/3.5 APO and the ultra-modern 90/2.5 Leica.

But I still have great affection for the Bokina, and it really does deliver on the A7 Smile


DSC02790 by unoh7, A7 Bokina


DSC02810 by unoh7, A7 Bokina
Now, to be fair the A7 makes good bokeh with nearly any lens--a side effect of it's thick filter stack I suspect, but the tokina seems especially creamy Smile

For reference (shot on m9):

L1021320 by unoh7, CV 90/3.5 APO @ f/5.6


Boardman Pass by unoh7, Leica 90/2.5 f/5.6

I think the Bokina can easily compete with these lenses at infinity, but I'm too fat to drag it up to really see Wink


PostPosted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
This post has been invigorating,
I have several vivitar 90mm 2.5 used with Minolta then canon with FD EOS adapter
I jumped ship for nikon 800E and just edit purchased bokina on ebay $410 hopefully good shape with 1.1 adalter, cases etc.
Will reply with results


PostPosted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
uhoh7: Given your discriminating taste in lenses, it is a great endorsement.


PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 2:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
This is a very good thread for comparing the best lenses in this class, but I can´t find any comments or pictures taken with the Yashica 100mm 3.5 which also is a very good lens. Can this lens be just as good or better than the Bokina?


PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2016 2:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Eriksen wrote:
This is a very good thread for comparing the best lenses in this class, but I can´t find any comments or pictures taken with the Yashica 100mm 3.5 which also is a very good lens. Can this lens be just as good or better than the Bokina?


The 90mm 2.5 is in a different class. The "legendary" class. There isn't any comparison from any other lens.


PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2017 10:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Some from the Bokina from spring/summer's big butterfly migration of caper white butterflies. The whole album of all of 'em is over here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/piggsyface/sets/72157679920489846 but these are just the bokina ones.

Cross polarised + diffused flash, + stacked raynox 150+250, focus stacks












Cross polarised + diffused flash, raynox 150 focus stack







Natural light, lens only









Diffused flash, lens only




Cross polarised flash, raynox 250




Natural light focus stacks









Also, after buying it in April 2016 and relying on someone to on-ship it to me from the US, I finally, finally got hold of the native 1:1 macro extender for this thing. Just in time for me to have gotten big into using cross polarised flash for macro and needing a new diameter cir-pl to use it properly Very Happy. I can fit it to my raynox but by then you're at about 2x magnification on 2x crop minimum Very Happy


PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2017 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
SHARP.


PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2017 11:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
WOW.....that is impressive. Not just the lens, the technique and skills are just as impressive. Like 1


PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2017 12:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
woodrim wrote:
SHARP.




Should mention most of those natural light ones are at F2.5 also. That's the real strength of it, I think - I have other macros that are lighter, better corrected, longer, whatever, but the bokina's versatility where you get truly excellent starting material out of it from f2.5 to f16 (and f22 perfectly usable also) even on 2x crop is what pushes it into the next level. Should also credit Neat Image software with some of the sharpness too I think Very Happy

Lloydy wrote:
WOW.....that is impressive. Not just the lens, the technique and skills are just as impressive. Like 1


Thanks! The closeups of the caper white's face were probably the hardest PP job I've ever had to do, it's really a job for a bi-telecentric "proper" high magnification optic I think - caper whites aren't the largest butterflies there are. Having things change in dimensions in front of and behind the focal point, and all those scales and protruding hairs, means a lot of cleaning up focus stacks with a 4px size brush Very Happy. There are a few things like dark OOF areas and the antenna seeming to change position as they cross different contrasting surfaces that look like errors in PP but are actually there in single exposures as well. But, really, with stacked diopters and a 2x crop factor and on digital you're so far beyond the magnification this was ever designed for it's kind of amazing to get anything good out of it at all Very Happy


PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2017 4:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Very impressive work piggsy. Like 1


PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Wonderful shots piggsy, thanks for sharing.


PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 3:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
PP is pretty amazing, focus stacking is something that I badly want to learn.


PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
piggsy wrote:

Should mention most of those natural light ones are at F2.5 also. That's the real strength of it, I think - I have other macros that are lighter, better corrected, longer, whatever, but the bokina's versatility where you get truly excellent starting material out of it from f2.5 to f16 (and f22 perfectly usable also) even on 2x crop is what pushes it into the next level. Should also credit Neat Image software with some of the sharpness too I think Very Happy

[ . . . ]

Having things change in dimensions in front of and behind the focal point, and all those scales and protruding hairs, means a lot of cleaning up focus stacks with a 4px size brush Very Happy.


I too am a novice at focus stacking and would like to know more about how you do this, and what the primary benefits are.

And thanks for mentioning Neat Image software. I downloaded the demo version -- both standalone and PS plugin -- and I gotta say, it's the easiest to use and simply the best in terms of output of any noise reduction software I've ever used. Amazing results with grainy film images.


PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
cooltouch wrote:
..............Neat Image software. I downloaded the demo version -- both standalone and PS plugin -- and I gotta say, it's the easiest to use and simply the best in terms of output of any noise reduction software I've ever used. Amazing results with grainy film images.


I am using "Neat Image" since ages when I started to digitize my analog material. You're absolutely right: It's IMHO the best software to restore old grainy pictures. Also quite useful to optimize high ISO shots. Worth every penny. Just upgraded to version 8.


PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
cooltouch wrote:

I too am a novice at focus stacking and would like to know more about how you do this, and what the primary benefits are.


It's like a panorama for depth rather than width and height of the image. Although you can use it for anything really, even middle distance shots as I did on some of those, it's mainly used in macrophotography because of the way effective aperture and absolute measures of the depth of field become fiddly around 1x magnification and then become even bigger problems as you go past that. The aperture of peak optical performance is going to give you sub-mm depth in focus - some of those shots of the caper white's face, you have only the very front most facing pieces of the compound eye sharp and everything else is a blur, and that's using unusually high numerical apertures for this kind of work. But focus stacking software can compare many images against each other and pick out the areas of highest information or contrast and place only those pieces together, just like you'd paint with layers ordinarily to say, paint out stray light post or whatever.

If you have PS - the easy option to do it is to take a bunch of pictures of a flower or whatever at very slightly different focus distances, load up those photos in layers (eg lightroom, select a bunch, edit in > open as layers in photoshop), when in photoshop, select the layers, edit > auto align layers, edit > auto blend images, stack images, let it do its thing. If you need to do some touch up work later (pretty much any stack of sufficient complexity from any software will) this guide has some good tips.

Quote:
And thanks for mentioning Neat Image software. I downloaded the demo version -- both standalone and PS plugin -- and I gotta say, it's the easiest to use and simply the best in terms of output of any noise reduction software I've ever used. Amazing results with grainy film images.


It's the best one I've ever found, it's really the best one for actual practical images on their way out of an edit rather than the usual kind of theoretical noise reduction on a bog standard image that comes out of a camera.


PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 1:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Just because this came up earlier in the thread (from like 2010 Very Happy), I thought I would show some of the downsides of this lens also. A couple of situations where it can be provoked into misbehaving, SOOC jpgs from the E-P5 -

very broad blue haze and a bit of purple fringe


veiling flare (w/ generic 55mm lens hood)


purple fringing around highlights


These are pretty rare examples but it does happen every now and then every few thousand shots. But if you feed it a shot it doesn't like and get unlucky this is what can happen - nothing LR's defringe/dehaze can't deal with usually, although that blue haze one is trickier than usual.


PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 10:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hello, i just received the tokina version of the 90mm f/2.5, finally able to make a first batch of test shots to see the difference with the Kiron/Komine quality.
I think the Kiron / Vivitar / Lester a. Dine family, 90mm f/2.5, 2.8, 100mm and 105mm f/2.8 can all be put in the same level, test shots are just impossible to differentiate.

As shown above and here, the Tokina is clearly above all the others...outstanding sharpness and great chromatic management (almost perfect, only a real high quality apo could do better).
Test shots from Vivitar 90mm f/2.5 Macros by Yann Dubois, sur Flickr
I made the focus on the "F" from FED, as you can see, global rendering is pretty similar in sharpness and bokeh but you can spot the contrast upgrade on the Tokina shots. Texture and definitionis almost perfect and better even at 2.5.
Test shots from Vivitar 90mm f/2.5 Macros by Yann Dubois, sur Flickr
When zoomed in, you can see why the global image seems to be better : nice rendering of the metal texture, reflections and at 5.6 you can even see the texture in the FED engraving, perfect sharpness.

I'll see on a real life shot if the difference is clearly visible too.


PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Awesome flower picture!


PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Musashichan wrote:
Hello, i just received the tokina version of the 90mm f/2.5, finally able to make a first batch of test shots to see the difference with the Kiron/Komine quality.
I think the Kiron / Vivitar / Lester a. Dine family, 90mm f/2.5, 2.8, 100mm and 105mm f/2.8 can all be put in the same level, test shots are just impossible to differentiate.

As shown above and here, the Tokina is clearly above all the others...outstanding sharpness and great chromatic management (almost perfect, only a real high quality apo could do better).
Test shots from Vivitar 90mm f/2.5 Macros by Yann Dubois, sur Flickr
I made the focus on the "F" from FED, as you can see, global rendering is pretty similar in sharpness and bokeh but you can spot the contrast upgrade on the Tokina shots. Texture and definitionis almost perfect and better even at 2.5.
Test shots from Vivitar 90mm f/2.5 Macros by Yann Dubois, sur Flickr
When zoomed in, you can see why the global image seems to be better : nice rendering of the metal texture, reflections and at 5.6 you can even see the texture in the FED engraving, perfect sharpness.

I'll see on a real life shot if the difference is clearly visible too.


There is a little problem
There are NO 90mm 2.5 From Kiron .. The kiron is a 105mm/2.5 and the vivitar 90mm macro is the 2.8 komine OR the 2.5/S1 (from tokina and same lens as the atx- except coating)

The komine is known to be a very good lens but also known to be under in iq from the kiron or Tokina which are more or less on par


PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes my mistake, i cinfuse the 105 Kiron i have with the 90 2,5 Komine, i'll redo...i saw too that the aperture didn't close at 5,6 with the komine because i didn't lock the adapter...
Have to rework Wink
I have the 3 version, so we'll see which one is better but i think there will be no difference between the komine 90mm and 105 kiron...


PostPosted: Thu Jun 14, 2018 7:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I make another batch of test shots with the Bokina from Tokina : Vivitar Series 1, the Vivitar 90mm f/2.5 from Komine factory and the 100/105mm Vivitar f/2.8 from Kiron factory.

Vivitar Macros test shots by Yann Dubois, sur Flickr

As you can see the constrast is better wide open on the Tokina, sharpness too if you look closely or zoom in.

Vivitar Macros test shots by Yann Dubois, sur Flickr

Zoom shows the very very good definition of the Tokina wide open, this will grant a nice use on real life shots wide open when you want to have a sharp subject and perfect bokeh. Other lens are really good too, they are highly recommand and i understand why. Chromatic aberration is visible on the 3 lenses but reflections are much nicer on the Tokina, the glow aspect of the Kiron and Komine will make the subjects less sharpness. Closed, it's almost impossible to spot which one is better...
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