is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese manufacturer of photographic lens

Photographic lens

A camera lens is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capable of storing an image chemically or electronically.While in principle a simple convex lens will suffice, in...

es and CCTV

Closed-circuit television

Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....

 security equipment.

History

Tokina, become a partner of Pentax

Pentax

Pentax is a brand name used by Hoya Corporation for its medical-related products & services and Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company for cameras, sport optics , etc. Hoya purchased and merged with the Japanese optics company on March 31, 2008. Hoya's Pentax imaging business was sold to Ricoh Company, Ltd...

, division of Hoya Corporation

Hoya Corporation

is a Japanese company leading in manufacturing of optical products including photomasks, photomask blanks and glass magnetic-memory disks, contact lenses and eyeglass lenses using the wavefront technology, Photonics...

 and jointly developed some lenses. These will be available under the Pentax

Pentax

Pentax is a brand name used by Hoya Corporation for its medical-related products & services and Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company for cameras, sport optics , etc. Hoya purchased and merged with the Japanese optics company on March 31, 2008. Hoya's Pentax imaging business was sold to Ricoh Company, Ltd...

 and Schneider Kreuznach

Schneider Kreuznach

Schneider Kreuznach is the abbreviated name of the company Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH, which is sometimes also simply referred to as Schneider. They are a manufacturer of industrial and photographic optics....

 D-Xenon and D-Xenogon brands in Pentax K mount

Pentax K mount

The Pentax K mount, sometimes referred to as the "PK mount", is a lens mount standard for mounting interchangeable photographic lenses to 35 mm single-lens reflex cameras. It was created by Pentax in 1975, and has been used by all Pentax 35 mm and digital SLRs since...

 and under the Tokina brand for all other lens mount

Lens mount

A lens mount is an interface — mechanical and often also electrical — between a photographic camera body and a lens. It is confined to cameras where the body allows interchangeable lenses, most usually the single lens reflex type or any movie camera of 16 mm or higher gauge...

s. However, the research center, design and engineering teams of these two companies are completely independent.

The co-developed lenses share main optical designs but have different barrel structures and coatings. They also have some other different features. For example, the Tokina AT-X Pro 12-24mm II comes with built-in silent focusing motor, while the Pentax version has screwdrive autofocus. Another example is that Tokina AT-X Pro 16-50mm and 50-135mm have only screw-drive autofocus and no weather-sealing, but Pentax version have both features.

Another difference is the procedure for switching between manual focus and auto-focus. With Tokina's "One-touch Focus Clutch Mechanism", you move the focus ring forward to enter auto-focus mode, and backward to enter manual-focus mode. With Pentax's "Quick-Shift Focus System", introduced in early 2004 with the DA 16-45mm f/4.0, you just rotate the manual focus ring while staying in auto-focus mode. Sigma and Nikon now have systems similar to Tokina and Pentax, respectively.

As of March 2009, the six lenses co-developed and released in both Tokina and Pentax versions are the AT-X Pro 12-24mm f/4.0, AT-X Pro 16-50mm f/2.8, AT-X Pro 50-135mm f/2.8, AT-X 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 fisheye, AT-X Pro 100mm /2.8 macro, and AT-X Pro 35mm f/2.8 macro. The last Tokina lens released before the collaboration was the 28-70mm f/2.8, in 2002. The currently available Tokina own-designed lenses are the 11-16mm f/2.8, 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6, 16.5-135mm f/3.5-5.6 and 28-80mm f/2.8.

As of February 2010, Tokina started production on its first Sony Alpha-mount lens, the AT-X 116 Pro DX 11–16 mm f/2.8.

See also

• List of lenses made by Tokina
• List of photographic equipment makers
• List of Nikon compatible lenses with integrated autofocus-motor

External links

• Official homepage
• Canon EOS System Overview: Tokina AF Lenses for Canon EF with technical data, comments and test references, including discontinued models