5/16/2023 0 Comments Camera guard pro![]() All of the other shots were taken in bright, direct sunlight but, apart from those with very contrasty areas of brightness and shadow, they look rather drab and lifeless, as if they were shot in overcast conditions. One of the test shots below shows the typical ‘donut bokeh’ that reflex lenses create from defocused lights and bright spots. ![]() The better news is that, like the Tokina 300mm and 600mm in the series, the 900mm produces very little color fringing and distortion. Even the best results tended to be lacking in sharpness and clarity, with poor contrast, color rendition, and vibrancy. After reviewing the resulting images in magnified playback mode, we often found they needed retaking. Ultimately, we found that every shot we took demanded a lot of set-up time and fiddling around with the very finicky focus ring, and trying to guard against any vibration or movement in a sturdy Manfrotto 055 series 3-section carbon fiber tripod and chunky XPRO ball head. It’s not surprising, because sensor-shift stabilization is notoriously second-best even for modest telephoto focal lengths, which is why so many telephoto lenses designed for cameras with IBIS feature additional optical image stabilization. Throughout our testing, we found that in-body stabilization made no difference whatsoever in minimizing camera shake. As the Tokina is a ‘dumb lens’ with no electronic communication, we set the appropriate APS-C crop mode manually and dialed in the right custom settings for in-body SteadyShot. Regardless of this, we tried the lens on a Sony A7R III (opens in new tab) camera body. However, the majority of Fujifilm and Sony APS-C format cameras don’t actually have IBIS, and it’s not featured on any of Canon’s M system cameras. This shifts the image sensor to compensate for physical movements and vibration. Tokina says the lens can benefit from a camera’s IBIS (In Body Image Stabilization). To get a decent hit rate with this lens, we completely gave up on handheld shooting. (Image credit: Matthew Richards) Performance And the only way to get that under anything other than really bright sunlight, is to boost your camera’s ISO setting to high levels, which can impact heavily on image quality. Given that the effective focal length on APS-C format Fujifilm X and Sony E is a monstrous 1,350mm (1,440mm for Canon M system cameras), you’ll need a shutter speed of around 1/1500th of a second and preferably more, for a decent hit rate in handheld shooting. Both of these can be deal-breakers if you’re after a super-tele lens for shooting anything other than static subjects. It’s also reasonably compact for stowage, thanks to a retractable design.Īs a fully manual lens, the Tokina has neither autofocus nor optical stabilization. And the Canon is full-frame compatible rather than being limited to APS-C crop sensor cameras, as well as sporting super-fast autofocus and highly effective optical image stabilization. That said, the Canon RF 800mm f/11 IS STM (opens in new tab) is a regular lens with the same fixed aperture rating and weighs in at a modest 1,206g, less than double the Tokina’s 725g. As such, this Tokina is relatively tiny and only a fraction of the weight and cost of most conventional super-telephoto lenses. So why would a lens designer want to mess about with mirrors? The short answer is that by twice ‘folding’ the image in on itself, the size and weight of the complete lens can be dramatically reduced, along with the cost of manufacturing it. The design always carries the risk that image quality will lose something in the translation along the way. ![]() As such, light enters through a ring around the circumference of the lens at the front, is bounced back by a curved mirror at the rear, and then focused onto the camera’s image sensor by an additional mirror positioned front and center. As with other reflex lenses, it uses curved mirrors in conjunction with clear glass elements to bounce light backwards and forwards within the barrel. Literally holding up a mirror to subject matter, Tokina’s new ‘PRO’ reflex lenses follow a fairly archaic principle. Tokina SZ 900mmPRO Reflex F11 MF CF at BHPhoto for $699 (opens in new tab).Lens construction: 7 elements in 7 groupsĪngle of view: 1.8 degrees (1.7 degrees Canon) ![]() (Image credit: Matthew Richards) Specifications Shown here on the right, the 900mm is noticeably larger than Tokina’s 600mm reflex lens and dwarfs the 300mm, but it’s still pretty lightweight at 725g.
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