Tokina Jumps In! The new 20mm f/2 Firin Lens for Sony FE

<p>Tokina joins the Sony full frame lens club with this new offering announced today <a href="http://www.tokinalens.com/news/press/N0000064/">HERE</a></p>

<p>A major third party lens maker adds to the available lens options for Sony mirrorless cameras. Hopefully, more lenses will follow!</p>

<p>Main Features</p>

<ul>

<li>Perfect match to SONY A7 series body in terms of design, high-precision Japanese made parts and form factor.</li>

<li>Being compact and light-weight, FíRIN 20mm F2 FE MF performs excellent optical abilities due to perfectly placed two all-glass precision molded aspherical elements with 3 Super-Low Dispersion (SD) glass lens elements that are greatly reducing aberrations and yielding higher resolution and contrast. All lens elements are carefully multi-coated that helps to reduce reflections and flares to an absolute minimum.</li>

<li>The FíRIN 20mm F2 FE MF has an ability to encode and transmit aperture, distance and optical data to the camera body making this lens fully suitable in terms of using MF assist function, 5 axis image stabilization and view finder electronic distance scale. Lens CPU with optical correction data noticeably contributing to final image processing inside the camera.</li>

<li>Design devoted to manual shooting and cinema enthusiasts includes a wide manual focus ring, aperture ring and depth of field index bar.</li>

<li>De-Click Aperture function makes this lens suitable for cinema/video shooting.<br />Product images to use.</li>

</ul>

<p>Specifications:<br>

Focus distance : 20mm<br />Brightness : F2<br />Compatible format : Full format<br />Minimum aperture : F22<br />Lens configuration : 13 elements in 11 group<br />Angle of view : 92.651°<br />Filter size : 62mm<br />Shortest object distance : 0.28m / 11 in.<br />Macro maximum magnification : 1 : 10.33<br />Focus method : Internal focus<br />Number of aperture blades : 9<br />Maximum diameter : 69mm<br />Full length : 81.5mm<br />Weight : 490g<br />Hood : Square, bayonet type<br />Mount type : Sony-E<br>

Estimated Time of Arrival : First Quarter, 2017</p>

 

<p>This is another arrow in the quiver for the A7. Me, I'm not a customer for this lens, but it's great that the A7 system is made stronger each day. I would guess that lens manufacturers have a basic roadmap about the system that they're catering.</p>

<p>The A7 series is well served by not only adapted and original native lenses, but by third party native lenses, too. No DSLR system has this level of flexibility. Once Sony releases a performance-oriented body, they're on their way to potentially dominating the market for 135 format systems.</p>

<p>Looks good.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>FíRIN is a variation of Fírinne - the old Irish word for “truth”</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Great to know...now I'm sure to buy it!?</p>

<p>I wonder sometimes who digs up these names.</p>

<p>@Louis. The same Japanese who digs up names for cars. (Maybe he taught the Koreans, as well).</p>

<p>I want to know what other focal lengths Tokina has in mind for this new series of lenses.</p>

<p>OK now I'm really puzzled. At Photokina, the Tokina Firin "roadmap" shows planned new lenses; a UWA, a Wide, a Standard Zoom and one other unstated - but all of these mystery lenses will be AF. What "series" then are we talking about? Sounds like they are just adapting older designs, changing the cosmetics, and calling it FiRin. I was hoping for a consistent set of high quality MF lenses a la Loxia. </p>