New Tokina Lenses for Fall 2006

Tokina 10-17/3.5-4.5 DX fisheye zoom; Tokina 16-50/2.8 DX; Tokina 17-135/3/5-5.6 DX; Tokina 50-135/2.8 DX

At the recent Photo Imaging Expo in Tokyo (PIE2006) Tokina announced that they were working on 4 new lenses which they plan to make available in the fall of 2006. They are all "DX" series lenses, which would mean that they cover the APS-C digital sensor, but they will not have full frame coverage.

I don't know if they will be released in Japan then, or if they will also be released in the US. The web page with the announcement is in Japanese and machine translations from Japanese to English aren't all that clear (or reliable!). However here's the data that I have extracted (with possible errors..?). There's no word on pricing or which mounts the lenses will be available in, though I'd assume whatever mounts are supported, Canon and Nikon will be two of them. Possibly Minolta and Pentax?

The press release reports cooperation between Tokina and Pentax in the development of these lenses (in which case I'm sure they'd be available in a Pentax mount or maybe also as Pentax branded lenses?), but as I said earlier, machine translations from Japanese to English aren't very good. The original page in Japanese can be found at http://www.tokina.co.jp/news/pie2006news.html. If any Japanese speaking readers can provide further details after reading the page, or if they find I've made any errors in the comments below, please let me know via email to bobatkins@hotmail.com. Thanks.

	The first new lens is a rather unusual Tokina 10-17/3.5-4.5 DX fisheye zoom! At 10mm it has a diagonal field of view of 180 degrees (like a 15 or 16mm fisheye does on a full frame camera). Fisheye zooms are rather rare and this would be the first one for Canon/Nikon APS-C DSLR cameras (assuming it's avialable in those mounts) As I mentioned above, the press release talked about lens development in conjunction with Pentax and thus it's probably no coincidence that Pentax already have a DA 10-17mm F3.5-4.5 ED [IF] fish-eye zoom available for their APS-C DSLRs.
	The second lens is a Tokina 16-50/2.8 DX. This would make it one of the widest fast aperture zoom for DSLRs. Canon have a EF-S 17-55/2.8 which should become available in May/June 2006, but the price is around $1200. The Canon EF 16-35/2.8L is similarly expensive, though the zoom range is smaller but it has full frame coverage. I'd assume this Tokina would be somewhat cheaper, but there are really no clues on pricing other than the general observation that Tokina lenses are usually less expensive than analogous Canon lenses. Tamron have a 17-50/2.8 coming out soon and the expected price on the Tamron lens is under $500.

	The Tokina 17-135mm F3.5-5.6 DX is a little more conventional, but covers a wider range than any of the Canon EF-S or EF wide zooms and is slightly faster (1/3 stop) at the leong end than the other similar 3rd party zooms [Canon have the 17-85/3.5-5.6 IS, Tamron have an 18-200/3.5-6.3 and Sigma have a 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC]
	The final lens is the Tokina 50-135mm F2.8 DX, another unique zoom range. It corresponds to 80-216mm in terms of 35mm equivalent angular coverage on a Canon APS-C DSLR, which I guess makes it somewhat similar to the 70-200/2.8 and 80-200/2.8 full frame lenses in terms of photographic applications From the image it looks like it has a built-in rotating tripod collar.