Tokina and Hoya lenses: Are they the same?

[diddy]

Hi,

I own the 24mm and 28mm 2.8 Hoya HMC lenses. Only recently I saw Tokina RMC II lenses which just looks the same, only different color (aperture ring in example). Is this just a coincident? Hoya is a glass manufacturer as far as I know, so they might just have asked Tokina to produce these lenses. This sounded like a reasonable theory until I found some test reports which suggest that the Hoya is not as good as the Tokina one (for the 28mm 2.8 version: http://www.pbase.com/steephill/28mms). Does somebody have some more insight on this?
Thanks,
Diddy

[iangreenhalgh1]

Yes, nearly all the Hoya lenses are Tokinas. The 24 and 28 most certainly are, as are the 135, 200, 300 and 400.

The 24 and 28 are excellent, the 135 is mediocre, the 200, 300, 400 are crap, awful CA and only so-so sharpness.



The Hoya zooms are mostly Tokinas and some are good like the 4/80-200 and 3.5/70-150,

[diddy]

Thanks a lot for clarifying this. I had a look again at these tests report. Most of the specs are the same, but the Hoya has 7 elements in 7 groups whereas the Tokina has 7 elements in 6 groups. I am just wondering why the test reports are so different. Is the Tokina one then using a different inner design as it seems? Should I go ahead and get a Tokina 28mm instead of my Hoya one?

[iangreenhalgh1]

Probably Tokina have produced a few variations, I've certainly seen a few differently labelled tokina 28s.

I have both the RMC Tokina and HMC Hoya 2.8/28 and they are exactly the same in IQ.

[diddy]

Many thanks for providing this info. I've been using the 24mm one lately a bit and my only concern is that the colors seem quite muted/contrast is a bit low. I guess the Tokina version will have the same contrast, or?

[iangreenhalgh1]

Hmm, have a look through the lens with a torch, see if there is any fungus or haze that might affect it. Mine has really strong colours and contrast.

I can only find HDR shots from my 24mm and those are not a good way to judge as I played with saturation and the contrast is totally altered by the HDR process.

[diddy]

I just checked and there seems to be no fungus or haze inside. Maybe I try to take some more pictures to see if things can be improved. Thanks!

[fermy]

[iangreenhalgh1]

YMMV?

The Hoya 28 is a Tokina, I'm 100% certain, my two copies of the Tokina badged version perform exactly the same, same bokeh, which is always a giveaway, differences in colour rendering are usually due to coatings, Tokina produced several different versions of the 2.8/28 over it's long production run, there will be minor differences in coatings. I've seen them with and without the RMC label and labelled 'EL Special' and other variants. My Hoya 24 and 28 can both be set to half stops.

I expect my copy of the 200 is pretty representative as the 300 and 400mms have exactly the same purple fringing issue and if you look around the net there are plenty of people who have copies of them with the same CA issues, particularly the 300 and 400 which have bad CA until f8. I sold my 300, still got the 400, just haven't got round to selling it.

[fermy]

[iangreenhalgh1]

I reckon the HMC on Hoyas = the RMC on Tokinas, but that's just a guess. I don't know if there are different versions of the Hoya, all the ones I've seen looked identical, there are definitely different versions of the Tokina though, they all have identical barrels but different labelling.

I'm shooting film atm so I'll try my Hoya 135 on one of my M42 cams in the next few days, see how it does, it might just not like the NEX?

[dimitrygo]

My Hoya 28/f2.8 also dosn't have half stops. But I think this doesn't tell too much Hoya and Tokina relashionship.