Rules made to be broken: Tokina Cinema-ATX 11-20mm T2.9

There are two rules that apply to all purchases of camera gear:
1) never preorder camera gear before you have the camera;
2) never pay full price when you preorder.

Now I’ve tried to be good and followed those rules that generations who have gone before me have laid down for my own good. Unfortunately everyone with good intentions stumbles at one time or another. Today I broke both rules.

I preordered the wide angle lens I needed for the BMPCC4K I don’t have, the manual Tokina Cinema-ATX 11-20mm T2.9 PL zoom for Super 35. I paid full price. It should ship in early December. It’s done. No reviews, no insider knowledge, no certainty. But it will work on both the URSA Mini 4.6K PL camera and the BMPCC4K.

Forgive me.



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Is Tokina a good brand? I only have the 11-16, which is good, but most of my lenses are Canon.

They are doing quite well recently. Was a mixed experience in the past, but now that Sigma upped their game they have to do it too.

According to Ryan Avery, the compact lens will resolve 4K, 6K, even 8K. It’s only Super 35 though and not 135 film like their larger lenses such as the 16-28 T3. It has the same outside diameter of the lens front as my SLR Magic APO primes, 95mm, and weighs two pounds. I like this size of lens.

As Uli mentioned, Tokina has improved their lenses significantly in the last couple of years. This is not a rehousing if the 11-16mm or the 11-20mm stills zoom as it has been redesigned to provide better optical performance and likely better mechanics.

Going to be sitting pretty on the BMPCC4K this year. Really looking forward at finally having a lens that’s a logical progression from the APO 25mm. On the URSA Mini 4.6K, I expect I’ll use the long end most often in the 16-20mm range, but on the BMPCC4K, the full range will be used.

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Why do you say 'only' S-35? Who would need 11mm on a FF stills camera?

I'd say it's a great range if you need to go very wide, personally I'm fine with the Sigma 18-35mm on S-35.

Yes, 11mm is ultra wide on S35 and is still a good WA on MFT PC4K sensor. I usema 11-16 on the Broadcast Camera for a WA to normal zoom. The 11-20is going to be great on the new PC4K.
Cheers

Damn, Rick I'm sooo looking forward to that lens!

Why do you say 'only' S-35? Who would need 11mm on a FF stills camera?

I'd say it's a great range if you need to go very wide, personally I'm fine with the Sigma 18-35mm on S-35.

A lot of the latest lenses from Tokina are designed for 135 film diagonals of at least 43.3mm. An example would be the Tokina Cinema-ATX 16-28mm T3. I was just emphasize that the 11-20mm T2.9 is designed for APS-C stills cameras and supports up to Super 35 format cinema cameras as a caution only since it’s always possible someone wants their lenses to work up to FF. This is the first cinema lens I have purchased that does not cover FF.

I agree with you that the Sigma 18-35mm range is well-suited to Super 35. I bought this lens primarily to use on the BMPCC4K camera. The lens supports ever major modern mount including mFT, but I bought the PL version for my URSA Mini 4.6K Camera because my widest lens is currently the SLR Magic 25mm APO. So having the 11-20mm covered is ideal for my purposes.

But on the BMPCC4K is also an ideal home for the 11-20mm as it will cover the needs of a wide angle of view for that camera (matching a 21-38mm field of view in 135 film) when shooting DCI 4K. For those times when I might want to longer and record in HD, the 11-20mm zoom covers the short normal to portrait range (45-81mm on 135 film). To go longer and record on DCI 4K, I have the 25, 50, 85mm SLRM APO PL primes (48mm, 95mm, 162mm field of view in 135 film) for normal, portrait, and telephoto.

The 11-20mm range will work for me primarily for INT DAY/NIGHT work where you want a greater sense of intimacy suggesting you are a part of the scene, a player at the poker table if you will, rather than the detached viewer of a scene. It’s a different vibe to what I am used to, but it has its place. Focusing down to 11” also has its place!


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Damn, Rick I'm sooo looking forward to that lens!

I hear you, Robert. After finally taking care of the wide range on the Pocket4K, it will be a treat to take on any requirement for what I do. The very nature of the Pocket camera just begs me to leave it on the camera and embrace the look it affords.

I really don’t know how well it’s character will mesh with the SLRM APO primes, but I’ll find out in December. The APO are the “creme de la creme” modern budget cinema lenses. I’m hoping this redesigned cinema zoom has dialed in a look in a similar direction. Might have to slightly adjust the temperature and tint to get a good match for grading.

This whole ‘look’ thing seems to boil down to two camps. It’s “clarity and contrast” versus “creamy and character” from my perspective anyway. Lenses that are primarily designed for general purpose stills work must conform to the first camp and lenses that are designed for a cinematic look benefit from considering the second camp.

It doesn’t matter if I’m never putting anything up on the big screen, it’s a matter of taste. Both looks have their place. I prefer the Impressionist painters to the Super Realists personally but both camps produce beautiful works.


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In that previous post where I’m mentioning full-frame equivalent numbers, my ‘crop factor’ was based on the horizontal dimensions of the sensors as I always do. But I know others often use the sensor diagonal which is most important when you’re wondering about lens coverage. So I decided to restate the equivalent focal lengths using the diagonal.

Shooting in HD window on the Pocket4K, the equivalent to FF focal length range is from 47mm to 85mm. A very nice range when you want it. That will be nice for many subjects, especially people. So although the 11-20mm range sounds extreme, it’s quite practical in a variety of use cases.

Edit:
I think I should have said shooting HD windowed, the range is 45mm to 81mm.

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In that previous post where I’m mentioning full-frame equivalent numbers, my ‘crop factor’ was based on the horizontal dimensions of the sensors as I always do. But I know others often use the sensor diagonal which is most important when you’re wondering about lens coverage. So I decided to restate the equivalent focal lengths using the diagonal.

Shooting in HD window on the Pocket4K, the equivalent to FF focal length range is from 47mm to 85mm. A very nice range when you want it. That will be nice for many subjects, especially people. So although the 11-20mm range sounds extreme, it’s quite practical in a variety of use cases.


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Rick, I thought it good to inform you of my greatly admiring your style of educating the readers here, and your manifest passion for striving for cinema-photographic excellence as re: the consumerism bent for shopping wisely for accessing tools yielding huge bang for the buck -- your near-impulsive, rule-breaking Tokina 11-20mm T2 .9 full-price, paid preorder notwithstanding. ️
-[Re]Pete

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Thanks, Peter, very kind. I think there’s a rule somewhere that “if you lived a life in which you never broke the rules, you didn’t live your life.”

As for impulse buying, yes, I made that decision in a couple of minutes. The same way I bought my home in 15 minutes. But behind that impulse to pull the trigger on either of those impulse purchases there were literally years of research and learning what will work for me.

Still there’s a certain risk because ultimately it comes down to a question of trust in a vendor and faith you can make it work. Every vendor I’ve dealt with has rewarded my trust in them with one minor exception.

And if I can’t get it to work, I have faith Denny will explain it to me!


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OK Denny, what do you have to say about that!

Marshall, I only sent Rick the Duclos announcement about the great deal on a pre-order. I did not “force” him to get it, just gently encouraged him, as I thought this would be a good fit for his APOs. If it does not work out for him, I will buy the lens kit back from him.
So it is a win/win situation for him. Rick and I have it been working together on his kit since he got the UM4.6, I was there for the unboxing!
Cheers

If it does not work out for him, I will buy the lens kit back from him.
So it is a win/win situation for him.

That is a very generous offer, Denny, but I wouldn’t hold you to that. The win/win is that I’ve assembled decent gear and couldn’t have done it without your help and the recommendations of others here on the forum. Thank you all.


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Thanks Rick, but I would still do that for you. You have given a lot of your time and talen here, all much appreciated.
Cheers

What kind of breathing do you think will be going on in the 11-20mm? Similar to the 11-16?

Should be at least the same as the Cine version, not the still camera model, or better. My Duclos Tokina 11-16 has very well controlled breathing at 14-16mm, but youmwould not be pulling a focus change on anything wider than 14mm.
Cheers

My expectation is that this redesign of the 11-20mm will have virtually no breathing. Here’s hoping.


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What kind of breathing do you think will be going on in the 11-20mm? Similar to the 11-16?

The Tokina Cine lenses that I saw and played with at NAB don't breathe. At all, as far as I could see.

Hopefully the newer smaller ones won't breathe either; that's the main difference between the more economical Sigma cine lenses and the Tokina cine lenses. Sigma's are rehoused versions of the Sigma ART SLR lenses lineup with beautiful image quality, but their breathing is fairly severe except on the widest ones, while the Tokinas are specifically designed as cine lenses, so they breathe and handle like Angenieux lenses.

That has been my take with the Duclos mod Tokina also. Tokina designed their Cine Zooms based on this mod, and with some advice from Matt, I think. Their first version 11-16 Zoom, Matt commented on its odd look and awkward focus/zoom gear ring setup, then came along ver 2, solving theses issues.
Cheers

All good! And maybe just three more months to test it.


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Thanks Rick, but I would still do that for you. You have given a lot of your time and talen here, all much appreciated.
Cheers

You and Rick are an awesomely inspiring pair of resourceful enthusiasts here, among commendable others, Denny.

Thank you for your kindness, Peter. It’s a pleasure.


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Yes, thanks for the complement Peter, very kind. I had a chance to go the Victoria and meet Rick and enjoy his hospitality, he is a gentleman among gentlemen, and very knowledgeable, especially around computer and software bits.
Cheers

... I preordered the wide angle lens I needed for the BMPCC4K I don’t have, the manual Tokina Cinema-ATX 11-20mm T2.9 PL zoom for Super 35. I paid full price. It should ship in early December...

Here it is late December, but I just received my tracking number for the prepaid Tokina zoom. Looks like it has a chance of arriving by month end.


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Congratulations Rick, now all you need is a camera to,put it on.
Cheers

The Tokina 11-20mm PL has arrived, very cold, so I’m letting it acclimate. The Kenko Tokina Cinema ND 2/4/6 (0.6, 1.2, 1.8) screw-on 86mm filters are here too; they look like they can be stacked, so I think I can safely add my thin B+W 486MRC IR Cut 86mm screw-on.

Good to go—where’s that camera? I’ll take them out on a shoot this Sunday with the URSA Mini 4.6K and expect to post next week. The test time might just be a naked lens to look at the colour cast. Then add filters.

This lens looks like a great companion for the SLR Magic APO lenses in terms of sharing similar dimensions at least. So it feels very familiar. I don’t expect to have time Sunday to do a detailed comparison yet of the Tokina zoom and APO primes.

The image circle is 30mm so the APS-C lens covers the URSA Mini 4.6 and also supports the combination of the BMPCC4K and the SpeedBooster Ultra.

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Great news Rick. I am going to order the MTF Services Nikon Z to PL adapter, and try my Duclos Tokina 11-16 in DX (S35) crop mode on my Z6. With the 30mm image circle, I should be able to cover this with ease, perhaps even full FX open gate at 16mm That said, this lens is also available in the Nikon F mount, so that would work also without needing a PL adapter.

Looking forward to yiur tests of the 11-20 Zoom. How about a few pix of the new lens also.
Cheers

Rick,

I don't know of this is of interest to you but I just received my metabones pl to m43 speed booster and used it on my Red T2.9 17-50mm zoom, giving me an effective T2.1 12-35mm. At first wide was slightly soft at infinity but I did an adjustment on the speedbooster and it seems to be working fine. I'm going to do more tests before my return time is up. The rear element to pl mount distance of your tokina might be within the tolerance of the speedbooster. 15.8mm from the rear element popping out fully to pl mount blades is the most it can be. Its pricey but it can give that lens a double life.

I think the Tokina rear element is not sticking out much more that 12mm, if that. So it should be good to go with a PL Speed Booster. How do you like the PL Speed Booster? I was also interested in this option.
How is the Red zoom working with it? I also have a Red Zoom (18-50), and wondered how it would work with the new Pocket 4K Camera.
Cheers.

I think the Tokina rear element is not sticking out much more that 12mm, if that. So it should be good to go with a PL Speed Booster. How do you like the PL Speed Booster? I was also interested in this option.
How is the Red zoom working with it? I also have a Red Zoom (18-50), and wondered how it would work with the new Pocket 4K Camera.
Cheers.

I love the red zoom version 2. Compact, good range, somewhat fast. Did a bunch of research on the speedbooster before I hit the buy button. There are no reviews on the pl/m43 speedbooster that I can find. Metabones kept stating that it was specifically designed for Zeiss cp's and their list of approved lenses did not include my red zoom. Measured my lens and when I got it it fit but I was disappointed that at full wide angle and full open f stop shooting at infinity the center of the image was slightly soft compared to images without the speedbooster. I then remembered that you can do an adjustment to the speedbooster and with some trial and error of popping the lens on and off and adjusting I think I have found the sweet spot and so far it it looks great. I'm going to do more tests tomorrow.

Excellent build quality of the speedbooster. Attaching lens is smooth as butter. Almost insignificant amount of mount play on my pocket 4K. Image seems to be on par resolution wise as without the speed booster and that extra stop is huge.

Also the reason I got it was because the pl to m43 speedbooster seems to have been discontinued so it feels that when existing stock is gone, its gone.

Mico, the new Tokina 11-20mm PL extends 13.6mm beyond the flange so no my a problem for the SpeedBooster Ultra. The new Tokina has likely been designed with the extension of the CP.3s in mind as were the SLR Magic APO primes.

I didn’t realize the PL-mFT SpeedBooster 0.71x has been discontinued. Oh my, but I am not thinking of buying anything else for the time being.

I need to get used to the Tokina on the BMPCC4K. If I need to go wider, the URSA Mini 4.6K is always an option that almost matches the wider field of view of the BMPCC4K plus SpeedBooster but not the T2.1 aperture, 0.75x versus the Ultra 0.71x.



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Rick you got some great lenses there and they are plenty wide.just thought I’d throw it out there.enjoy your new lens.
Also I haven’t seen a discontinued page anywhere but I cannot find it on metabones site. They just show the pl to e mount speed booster. And there’s very few places that have it.

I thought I saw it there but you have to search for it specifically, not when just browsing.


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Nice smooth gears. Rear element changes with zoom within a cowling.




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Looking good Rick, I like it! Anyone want a good deal on a Duclos Tokina 11-16 PL lens?
Cheers

Looking forward to some real world test footage Rick!

Ouch… That’s a sweet glass… bring some footage please : )

Thanks, gents. Sunny Sunday...


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Hey Rick, what adapter are you using on the Pocket? I've heard Metabones does make a PL to m4/3 Speed Booster. The only place I've found it is at B&H though.

Hi, Dave. I’m currently using the URSA Mini 4.6K PL camera as the BMPCC4K has not arrived. Expect it will be here shortly. When it arrives, I have two shim capable mFT-PL dumb adapters: Wooden Camera mFT-PL Pro for use with the Tokina 11-20mm PL and the SLR Magic mFT-PL for use with the APO primes. I have the two options since there’s a chance the correction got the Tokina PL zoom might be slightly different than for the APO PL primes.

I even have shims for the new 32mm APO PL on the slight chance the newest lens has a different tolerance. The greater uncertainty in the equation though is the tolerance for the FFD if the BMPCC4K mount since I can’t change that.

If I had the SpeedBooster Ultra mFT-PL, that would likely be the easiest adjustment to compensate for varying tolerances in mFT cameras. Until I have experience with the BMPCC4K, I’m likely being overly cautious!


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Shot some tests over our two sunny days here but it’s a busy time of year with family. Edits and titles are all done but need to cut it down to size before I can post on Vimeo. May end up posting at least two videos.


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Cool Rick, can not wait to see them. Happy New Year
Cheers

Here is a quick look at the Tokina. Part 1 with additional uploads shortly.



First Look (part 1) at the new Tokina Cinema ATX 11-20mm PL lens received from Duclos Lenses. This test December 29, 2018 shows a full range zoom between two subjects. It also illustrates flaring near a bright sun. On December 30th, you can see the difference in image quality when the lens and matte box are in shade. At the very wide angles, I’ll likely want to keep everything shaded as some of the flares are soft and pleasing while others are hard and distracting.

I tilted up on the second day to match the angle of the sun on the first day; but with an extreme 11mm lens, most times you’ll want the camera level. The lens is quite rectilinear when levelled. You can see focus breathing is non-existent, but some chromatic aberration is evident at the boundary between a dark edge and very bright background. On the URSA Mini 4.6K camera, there is no vignetting with the Kenko Tokina Cinema IRND filter at 11mm. This is good news since the Bright Tangerine Misfit Atom is rated to manage a 14mm lens. However if you stack a filter, the lens should be used around 12.5mm or 13mm to avoid vignetting. The lens presents a very clear image, perhaps slightly warm (like my SLR Magic APO primes that I need to match with the Tokina). The Kenko Tokina Cinema IRND1.2 filter seems to be free of a colour cast; that’s the only filter I’ve used so far. I plan to use this lens shortly for a BTS of a client shoot.

Here is part 2 illustrating flaring with the lens exposed to a bright winter sun.

Looks good Rick.
Cheers

Thanks, Denny. I’m glad I tilted the camera in one sequence as it shows how distorted perspective appears at such wide angles. Hope I can manage to avoid that when I don’t want the effect it creates. Keeping the camera level lets trees stand up straight on the vertical; otherwise the world’s looking like the Tower of Pisa.

Going to be a learning experience to avoid some of the strange flares and keep the good flares! Simple solution of shading the lens works, as I showed, but removing all flares isn’t always the artistic choice.


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Good Rick, yes you need to keep the camera sensor plane vertical when shooting lines like trees, or buildings, unless you want a special distortion effect of converging lines, etc. The wider the lens focal length, the more pronounced a keystone effect is.
Cheers

Hi Rick, I thought I remembered that you had bought some of the SLR Magic ND filters. Yet I see here that you're trying the Kenko Tokina's. Thinking about picking up a set of fixed screw on's so I'm wondering which ones you like and why. Denny's gonna chime in too I hope. Thanks.