Best Tokina Lens for Video (Top Picks in 2023)

Rajib Mukherjee

18 January, 2023 • Updated 1 year ago

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Apart from Sigma and Tamron, Tokina is the other leading third-party lens manufacturing brand in the industry.

In this article, I will discuss the best Tokina lenses for video shooting. Tokina manufactures some of the fastest and the most well-made wide-angle lenses with a fast wide aperture. These lenses are ideally suitable for shooting videos because of their constant wide aperture. Many of these lenses are designed with weather sealing, extending their usability to adverse weather and working conditions.

Whether you’re a full-frame camera user, a crop camera user, a DSLR, or even a mirrorless camera user, you will find a perfectly suitable lens for videography in this article.

Related Post: Best Tamron Lens for Video

QUICK OVERVIEW

Products	Features
EDITOR’S PICK 4.5 120 120 Tokina atx-i 100mm f/2.8 FF MacroTokina atx-i 100mm f/2.8 FF Macro	Designed for full-frame camera systems Maximum aperture of f/2.8 PRICE RANGE: Under $400 Designed for full-frame camera systems Maximum aperture of f/2.8 PRICE RANGE: Under $400 Check price at Amazon
TOP PICK 4.7 9 9 Tokina opera 50mm f/1.4 FFTokina opera 50mm f/1.4 FF	Designed for full-frame camera systems Three super-low dispersion elements PRICE RANGE: Under $900 Designed for full-frame camera systems Three super-low dispersion elements PRICE RANGE: Under $900 Check price at Amazon
MOST REVIEWED 4.5 400+ 400+ Tokina atx-i 11-16mm f/2.8 CF LensTokina atx-i 11-16mm f/2.8 CF Lens	Designed for the crop format camera systems The lens contains multi-coated elements PRICE RANGE: Under $400 Designed for the crop format camera systems The lens contains multi-coated elements PRICE RANGE: Under $400 Check price at Amazon
BUDGET PICK 4.2 +110 +110 Tokina atx-i 17-35mm f/4 FF (budget pick)Tokina atx-i 17-35mm f/4 FF (budget pick)	Designed for the full-frame camera systems Three aspherical elements in the construction PRICE RANGE: Under $350 Designed for the full-frame camera systems Three aspherical elements in the construction PRICE RANGE: Under $350 Check price at Amazon

Full-frame DSLR

Tokina atx-i 100mm f/2.8 FF Macro

The best thing about this lens is that this is a true macro lens. It can produce a 1:1 macro perspective of a subject from a close distance. If you’re interested in shooting great shots of creepy crawlies and other small subjects, the Tokina atx-i 100mm f/2.8 FF Macro is a great lens to have.

Plus, macro lenses are versatile in the sense that they serve the dual purpose of shooting both macro photography and videography and standard shots. The 100mm focal length is good enough for portrait-length shots, a little bit of landscape, and other genres. The fact that it’s an f/2.8 aperture lens means that it can accommodate many different types of photography.

One of the major issues with this lens is that the Nikon version does not come with an autofocusing motor built-in. If you’re going to use this lens on Nikon camera systems, make sure that you’re not using one of the entry-level Nikon camera systems.

With an entry-level Nikon camera, there won’t be an autofocusing motor on the camera body itself, which means you wouldn’t be able to autofocus with this lens. You can only autofocus with the upmarket Nikon systems, such as the D7500 and the D500, which have a built-in autofocusing motor.

If you plan on using this lens on a mirrorless Nikon Z series camera, the lens will also only work in the manual focusing mode. The FTZ adapter does not assist in autofocusing either.

Unfortunately, the autofocusing motor that’s present in the Canon version is audible when engaged. The performance is good but not the smoothest.

In terms of manual focusing, this lens is great. The focusing ring travels quite a lot, ensuring precise focusing corrections can be made. For video work, you can also use the manual focusing ring because this helps to produce smooth and accurate focusing results.

You May Like: Best Sony Lens for Video

Tokina opera 16-28mm f/2.8 FF

Designed for full-frame camera systems, this lens is best suited to shoot landscapes, cityscapes, wide panoramic vistas, and group shots. Though this isn’t the best lens for street photography (that role is best suited for the 35mm prime or even the 50mm prime), one can make use of this lens for street and other POV photography if one is creative enough. This lens can also be used to capture the subject in the middle of the frame with ample negative space around the subject.

The lens is compatible with the APS-C camera systems as well. But the heavy and bulky nature of the lens means it’s going to pull the weight of the camera and lens down as it’s heavier than a standard entry-level DSLR. This lens is best used on a full-frame camera system where the weight distribution makes it a perfectly balanced addition.

One advantage of this lens is that it has a fixed aperture across the focal length. There are no visual jerks when you zoom in or zoom out while shooting videos.

The fast wide aperture is good enough for low light work. It also contributes to creating a nice background blur. Though, in this case, a wide-angle lens isn’t the best candidate for shooting bokeh.

The construction of the lens includes aspherical and low dispersion elements. These elements help suppress the effects of spherical and chromatic aberrations and color fringing. In addition, multi-coating is also applied to the lens elements so that ghosting and flares are suppressed.

Autofocusing on the lens is powered by Tokina’s DC motor-powered Silent Drive module. This is a very powerful and very sophisticated autofocusing mechanism. The system also uses a GMR magnetic sensor and an internal focusing design.

As we have seen with the other Tokina lens designs on this list, this lens comes with the one-touch focus clutch mechanism. You have to use the pull mechanism in order to engage manual focusing. As discussed, this system isn’t like the full-time manual focusing override available in some Canon and Nikon lenses.

The focus clutch mechanism, again, isn’t the best design for the purpose for which it has been designed. The focus clutch mechanism takes a while to get used to.

The lens’s front element is large and bulbous, making it impossible to use normal screw-in filters. Some third-party adapters do, however, allow you to use a filter with this lens.

Tokina opera 50mm f/1.4 FF

This standard prime lens has a focal length of 50mm and a fast wide aperture of f/1.4. A standard prime lens is a fantastic piece of optic. It offers a similar angle of view as the human eye, and being a fixed focal length lens (thus the name standard prime) offers more in terms of optical superiority than zoom.

The fast f/1.4 aperture is a great aperture to experiment with shallow depth of field. The f/1.4 aperture can blur the background and create the soft focus effect many photographers and videographers seek. This helps create that cinematic effect that everyone loves.

A 50mm prime is a versatile lens option. You can shoot many different genres, but most importantly, you can use that lens to capture the eye-level POV that’s so commonplace.

The build quality is excellent. Although plastic has been used in the manufacturing of this lens, the lens does come with a metal bayonet mount and a robust build.

The lens features weather sealing, but you need to ensure your camera body is also weather sealed to ensure all your shooting components are protected. Also, despite there being eight spots on the lens where weather sealing has been used, this lens isn’t completely weather-sealed.

Autofocusing on the lens is internal. Manual focusing is possible by flicking a switch on the lens that ensures a change of focusing mode from auto to manual. That said, the lens also has a manual focusing override. All you need to do is grab the manual focusing ring, and you can change the focus.

Also benefitting manual focusing are the two hard stops at near and infinity focus so that you can reliably set focus at infinity and the closest focusing distance.

Tokina atx-i 17-35mm f/4 FF

The Tokina atx-i 17-35mm f/4 FF is designed for full-frame camera systems and is meant to be a wide-angle lens. The lens is great for shooting landscapes, cityscapes, wide panoramic views, wide-angle portraits, group shots, street photography, architecture, and interiors. Though I must say that architecture is best shot using a tilt-shift lens.

This lens is an excellent videographer’s tool. The constant aperture ensures there is no visual jerk as you move from 17 to 35mm and vice versa.

With a wide-angle lens, you can also shoot environmental portraits where you incorporate part of the subject’s immediate environment, workplace, or area they live in. This sort of composition requires that there is sufficient space around the subject – this space is called negative space.

Many readers may notice that the 17-35mm has a slow constant aperture. At f/4, it’s significantly slower than some of the other wide-angle zoom lenses that we have discussed here. The Tokina opera 16-28mm f/2.8 FF, for example, is one such lens.

The Tokina opera 16-28mm f/2.8 FF is similarly priced to the Tokina atx-i 17-35mm f/4 FF, and it offers a slightly extended angle of view. Though when it comes to the telephoto end, the Tokina atx-i 17-35mm f/4 FF is the clear winner. I don’t think that the two are significantly different either way, with the maximum aperture being the largest difference.

At f/2.8, the Tokina opera 16-28mm f/2.8 FF is a full one-stop faster than the Tokina atx-i 17-35mm f/4 FF.

The construction of the lens includes two super-low dispersion elements and three aspherical elements. The first takes care of the chromatic aberrations and color fringing, and the second one takes care of the spherical aberrations. On top of that, the lens also features an anti-reflective multi-layer lens coating that suppresses lens flare and ghosting.

APS-C

Tokina atx-i 11-20mm f/2.8 CF Lens

Designed for APS-C camera systems, the Tokina atx-i 11-20mm f/2.8 CF is a wide zoom lens with a 35mm format equivalent focal length of 17.6-32mm. The fast f/2.8 aperture is constant across the focal length and ensures that the lens can take advantage of the wide aperture, and there is no jerk as you’re zooming in or out while shooting videos.

This lens is perfectly suited for capturing wide panoramic shots. You can capture landscapes, cityscapes, and wide frames with the subject at the center of the frame and lots of negative space around. But that’s just a small percentage of the possibilities of this lens. You can also use this lens to shoot star trails, Milky Way photography, and other general photography purposes.

This is a wonderful wide-angle lens for shooting B-rolls and works as your main lens or the support lens, whichever you may need. This is a versatile lens in every sense of the word.

Three super-low dispersion elements ensure that the lens can control color fringing and chromatic aberrations well. Three aspherical elements ensure that spherical aberrations are managed.

The system is powered by the Silent Drive Auto focusing motor. The performance of the autofocusing mechanism is good and accurate. The unique one-touch focus pull mechanism characterizes Tokina’s focusing systems but takes a bit of time to get used to for someone who has never used Tokina lenses before.

If you like the functionality, you will find the one-touch focus pull mechanism makes it very easy to transition from auto to manual focusing.

The lens features a water-repellant anti-reflective multi-coating that ensures that the overall light transmission improves and suppresses the number of reflections. This results in improved image quality.

Tokina atx-i 11-16mm f/2.8 CF Lens

This is a wide-angle zoom lens designed for crop segment camera systems. The effective focal length on a 35mm format is 17.6-25.6mm. That makes this lens suitable for shooting landscapes, cityscapes, group shots, architecture, weddings, street photos, and, of course, videos.

The construction of the lens consists of two aspherical glass- and two super-low dispersion elements. These take care of spherical aberrations and chromatic aberrations, and color fringing, respectively.

Overall, suppression of lens flares and ghosting is very effective as well. The lens rarely suffers from any of these issues.

The nine-blade aperture diaphragm ensures that the lens can produce a decent background blur. Additionally, the lens features an anti-reflective multi-layer coating and water-repellent coatings. This ensures that the lens can capture greater color accuracy and sharpness, and is easier to clean.

The lens’s autofocusing mechanism is internal and very silent. This is a great advantage for people who are looking at this lens for shooting videos. Internal focusing ensures that the barrel length does not change when the lens focuses.

Auto to manual focusing transition happens using the one-touch focus clutch mechanism. This takes a bit of time to get used to for someone who is moving from a Nikon or Canon lens that comes with a full-time manual focusing override.

That said, manual focusing is super smooth when you get used to it. A manual focusing ring travels a long distance which is great for precise focus lock and shooting videos.

This lens comes with GMR sensors that ensure that the lens provides fast autofocusing performance. Another advantage of this lens is the presence of a detailed focusing distance scale. This is ideally suitable for using hyperfocal distance when shooting landscape photos.

In terms of performance, autofocusing is snappy, even in low-light situations. What I don’t like is that autofocusing is noisy. Unless you’re prepared to dub your footage with a voice-over or music, the autofocusing noise can cause issues with video footage.

One final thing about this lens is that a bit of vignetting happens when shooting wide open. That happens because this is a wide-angle lens and vignetting goes away at f/5.6.

Tokina AT-X 14-20mm f/2 PRO DX

This is a wide zoom lens designed for the crop camera system. the 14-20mm focal length becomes the equivalent of 21-30mm on a 35mm format. This means the lens is suitable for shooting street photos, landscapes, cityscapes, star trails, fireworks, group shots, pano shots, and environmental portraits where the subject dominates the center of the frame, and there are vast negative spaces across the frame.

If you’re planning on shooting video work with this lens, the fast and constant f/2 aperture across the focal length ensures that the lens can capture a lot of light in any situation.

Additionally, the f/2 aperture is good enough for crushing the background. Pleasing shallow depth of field effects can be achieved using the lens, which ensures that the lens can create nice background suppression.

The internal construction of the lens consists of two glass molded aspherical SD elements and one plastic molded aspherical element. This ensures that the lens can suppress the effects of spherical aberrations.

Additionally, the lens also features two super-low dispersion elements that ensure that chromatic aberrations and color fringing are suppressed. Though in real-life situations, chromatic aberrations are present in high contrast situations to an extent. Is that a huge deal breaker? Not really, because CA can be adjusted during post.

On top of that, the lens also constitutes a multi-layer anti-reflection coating. This coating ensures that the lens can withstand the effects of ghosting and flares.

The autofocusing mechanism of the lens is internal. That means the lens barrel length does not change when it’s focusing. The lens has a manual focusing mechanism powered by the one-touch focus clutch mechanism.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, I am not a big fan of this system, and for someone coming from a Nikon and/or Canon full-time manual focusing override mechanism, it takes a bit of time to get used to.

In terms of optical performance, the lens is very sharp when shooting at 14mm, and if you check the lens’s sharpness at the center of the frame, nothing will be out of place. However, increasing the focal length results in the lens’s softening when you look at the middle of the frame.

Mirrorless full-frame

Tokina FiRIN 100mm f/2.8 FE Macro

This is a very reasonably priced macro lens designed for Sony E-mount camera systems. The lens offers a maximum magnification ratio of 1:1, which is life-sized, ensuring that you can create very close life-sized images of creepy crawlies and other small objects. Plus, the minimum working distance of about 12-inches makes it possible to shoot interesting B-rolls without any light blocking or scaring your subjects away.

With its 100mm focal length and f/2.8 aperture, this lens is also suitable as an everyday portrait lens. If you’re a videographer, you will find the f/2.8 aperture very useful for capturing those shallow depth of field shots. But the versatility does not end there. It’s an ideal portrait length; therefore, shooting with this lens means you can capture beautiful bokeh with a shallow depth of field for subject separation.

One of the disadvantages of this lens is that it lacks image stabilization for a 100mm focal length. If you’re shooting with a tripod, you would be fine; the problem comes in when you’re shooting hand-held. You must remember to shoot at a minimum shutter speed of 1/100 sec to ensure you don’t get blurry images. While that’s possible when shooting in good light with the f/2.8 aperture, it’s not easy in insufficient lighting.

Another thing that’s missing is the focus range delimiter button. For some reason, the Tokina engineers have not provided this all-important tool which comes in handy when shooting small bugs and other tiny subjects. The effect of this is that autofocusing is tricky and that, at times, the lens searches for focus from the closest focusing distance to the farthest.

But there is one big bonus: the manual focusing ring that does not have the focus clutch mechanism. I have made my displeasure quite evident in this discussion about the one-touch focus clutch mechanism.

I always prefer the grab-and-turn convenience of the full-time manual focusing override on Canon and Nikon systems. So, I am happy that this lens does not have the focus clutch mechanism but instead the same system that Nikon and Canon have.

Tokina atx-m 85mm f/1.8 FE

This lens offers the perfect focal length for shooting portrait photos. Beyond that, you can also use the focal length for shooting weddings, fashion, street photos, and everything in between. This prime lens has fewer moving parts inside, and more focus has been placed on the optical efficiency of the lens.

The fast f/1.8 aperture captures a lot of light, even in low light situations. The aperture makes it possible to capture good exposures even using street lights. Additionally, the fast wide aperture ensures you can play around with the depth of field. You can capture a very shallow depth of field and use that to isolate the subject from the background.

This is useful when you’re shooting videos as well. You can take advantage of the shallow depth of field to produce that beautiful cinematic effect.

Plus, the beautiful bokeh is a great bonus to have. This is great for shooting both stills and videos.

The lens’s construction constitutes one SD low dispersion element, which ensures that chromatic aberrations are suppressed. To counter flares and ghosting, the lens comes with super low reflection multi-coating. Although this counters flares and ghosting to a large extent, there is a little bit of that when working in difficult lighting conditions.

Despite being an OEM lens, the initial reaction is that the lens is well built, and it can almost pass through as a well-built OEM product. This is a very good, solid-looking lens with a mostly metal construction.

The manual focusing ring is very smooth to operate. The focusing travel is precise enough to warrant accurate manual focusing, almost like a manual focusing lens.

Speaking of which, autofocusing is great on this lens. We have tested this on Sony systems (of course, this is an E-mount lens), and the performance is comparable to some of the OEM lenses that we have tried.

Mirrorless APS-C

Tokina atx-m 23mm f/1.4 X

This lens has been designed for Fuji X-Mount camera systems. The focal length of 23mm becomes the equivalent of 35mm in a 35mm format. That means this is a standard prime lens on a 35mm format equivalent. The lens is versatile and can be used in several photography situations. You can use this to shoot street photos, weddings, portraits, everyday moments from the human eye’s perspective, and so much more.

The lens’s construction consists of low dispersion glass elements that ensure that the lens can suppress the effects of chromatic aberrations and color fringing.

The maximum aperture of f/1.4 ensures that the lens can collect a lot of light in every situation, especially in low light situations. It is 2/3^rd of a stop faster than the f/1.8 lenses, and that means a lot of light is captured.

The other benefit is the ability to blur out the background and capture a shallow depth of field for a beautiful background blur. For someone shooting videos, this is an inexpensive way to play around with a shallow depth of field.

Autofocusing on the lens is powered by a stepping motor. The advantage of such a motor is that it’s extremely silent. However, it can be slower than the standard ultra-sonic motor-powered autofocusing mechanism. For shooting still images, this autofocusing motor isn’t the fastest; however, when it comes to shooting videos, this AF motor is probably the best suited.

Moving on to the construction of the lens, metal is used in the manufacturing of this Tokina product.

The large focusing ring is very smooth to operate. In addition to the focusing ring, there is a step-less mechanical aperture ring on the lens. This de-clicked aperture ring is very useful for shooting videos.

Videographers will not be disturbed by the clicking sound, but still, photographers will find the absence of the de-clicked version to be a touch inconvenient because they will have no way to confirm when they have changed the aperture.

The lens uses an internal focusing mechanism which ensures that the lens’s barrel length does not change during focusing.

Written by

Rajib Mukherjee

Rajib is an avid travel photographer and an overall shutterbug. The first time he ever clicked an image was with an Agfa Click IV back in 1984. A medium format film camera. From that auspicious introduction to photography, he has remained hooked to this art form. He loves to test and review new photography gear. Rajib travels quite a lot, loves driving on Indian roads, playing fetch with his Labrador retriever, and loves photography. And yes, he still proudly owns that Agfa Click IV!