Tokina ATX-M 33 mm f/1.4 X review - Summary

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Tokina ATX-M 33 mm f/1.4 X

8 August 2022

Maciej Latałło

11. Summary

Pros:

solid, mostly metal casing,
very good image quality in the frame centre up from f/2.0,
very low lateral chromatic aberration,
good distortion correction,
slight astigmatism,
out-of-focus areas very pleasing to the eye.

Cons:

weak image quality near the maximum relative aperture,
noticeable longitudinal chromatic aberration,
distinct coma,
problems with the performance against bright light,
autofocus performance leaves a lot to be desired.

I admit I don't understand the idea behind the launch of such a lens. You deal here with a contemporary optical instrument with as many as 10 elements inside, one made of low dispersion glass, and it still performs like old double Gauss constructions, with just 6-7 elements made of ordinary glass. In some areas their performance simply cannot be distinguished: both share such features as a slightly blurry image by f/1.4, a quick resolution increase on stopping down the aperture, a distinct decrease of resolution on the edge of the frame, problems with spherical aberration, and, finally, quite distinct coma.

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I wonder why Tokina water down their good name with such launches. It is completely understandable that Viltrox, a beginner on the market, produces such constructions – they are a newplayer, they try different things and observe what happens. Tokina used to produce their optics on their own. A change of approach - ordering lenses in Chinese factories, plagued with quality control issues (we've seen it many times while testing some Viltrox constructions) - will not bring them success on the market. Tokina, please, don't follow that path!