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Lenses

First Impressions: Tokina 50mm F1.4 Opera (Canon EF)

Chris Gampat
4 Comments
10/08/2018
4 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera first impressions 5

Last Updated on 10/09/2018 by Mark Beckenbach

The Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera thus far seems to be the best bang for your buck 50mm f1.4 lens on the market.

One of my biggest criticisms of Tokina was their lack of weather sealed glass, but the new Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera offers it and a number of other great things. Tokina and Hoya, who provide the literal glass in the lenses for most of the industry, are very experienced lens makers and when you look at what the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera really is, you start to realize that the ‘bigger is better’ trend is really imperative to creating better lenses. But in comparison to many others on the market, the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera offers not only weather sealing but gorgeous bokeh, sharp optics, and an autofocus fast enough to track moving subjects in low light (tested on a Canon 5D Mk IV) for under $1,000.

Seriously, what’s not to like?

Tech Specs

Specs taken from the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera official page.

50mm

1.4

16

15 Elements / 9 Groups

47.4°

72 MM

2 LBS

15.7 IN

9

AF

107.5mm

80mm

EXCLUSIVE 3-YEAR USA WARRANTY

BH-726 Round Petal Type

Ergonomics

The Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera looks in some ways like a Sigma Art lens. It’s in fact almost the same shade, but that little Art logo on Sigma’s lineup surely stands out. Instead, you’ll see some more neutral coloration with the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera.

When the lens hood is attached to the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera, the overall package surely increases in size. You’ll spot the massive focusing ring, the AF/MF switch, and the distance focusing scale. That’s mostly it on the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera.

Turning to the side, you can see there isn’t a whole lot else to the lens.

Build Quality

This is one of the first thoroughly weather sealed, new lenses that Tokina has come out with. The Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera is not only weather sealed, but it’s build solid too. In many ways, it feels like a Sigma lens when it comes to the build quality. It’s still not going to hold a candle to a Zeiss Otus lens, but that’s a far different type of optic. Instead, the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera is meant to give users some of the best performance at a more affordable price point. It indeed goes after both Sigma and Tamron’s 45mm f1.8 Di VC USD. This is larger than Tamron’s lens offering and around the size of Sigma’s 50mm offering.

Tamron’s lens is also more affordable than Tokina’s. But to be fair, this is an f1.4 lens and Tamron’s is only f1.8. Make of that minuscule difference what you will, but both lenses are still under $1,000.

Ease of Use

The Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera isn’t at all complicated to use. You screw it on, choose a focusing point on the camera, focus the lens, shoot, and enjoy the images. There aren’t a whole lot of switches to worry about considering that there is no image stabilization built in. That, in practice, translates into less to worry about compared to Tamron’s offering.

Autofocus

In our tests on the Photokina tradeshow floor, I was able to use the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera on the Canon 5D Mk IV to quickly capture moving subjects as they went from left to right. They weren’t moving at New York City walking speeds though. Instead, I’ve observed Europe’s more sloth-like walking pace. And for tracking subject’s moving slower, this lens will be able to capture a lot of moving subjects candidly on the streets (providing your country’s laws are okay with that). But for faster moving folks, you’re going to want to stop the lens down for sure. Zone focusing may still be called for.

Image Quality

We were allowed to publish sample images from the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera. This is the only one that I thought was even sort of publishable. I was on a trade show floor, and conditions aren’t at all ideal. As you can see, the bokeh is nice and the colors are a bit more muted. This may be ideal for portrait photographers who adore that look of Kodak Portra 400. But we’ll need to test an official review unit first.

First Impressions

So far, I really like the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera. It isn’t making me go head over heels like Sigma’s is, and Tamron’s lenses also do quite a bit to differentiate themselves. I feel like the Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera’s special feature may really be with the image quality, which I’ll need to mull over when a full review unit comes in.

autofocus Bokeh build quality image quality lens sharpness Tokina 50mm f1.4 Opera weather sealing
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Written by

Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
4 Comments
  1. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:37 am
    Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
    Spot.IM/1.0 (Export)

    I’ve had the OEM version of this lens for a couple of months now, and it’s absolutely outstanding. Now that it’s available under license to Tokina, the rest of the DSLR world can get Otus-level IQ with weather sealing and autofocus. Bravo Pentax!

  2. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:37 am
    Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
    Spot.IM/1.0 (Export)

    Pentax gave up on SMC a while ago. The DFA*50 is HD coated with Aerobright II on the front element.

  3. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:37 am
    Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
    Spot.IM/1.0 (Export)

    pentax has the SMC treatment 🙂

  4. Guest

    05/01/2019 6:37 am
    Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
    Spot.IM/1.0 (Export)

    This lens was developed along with Pentax. The Pentax 50mm f/1.4 SDM AW HD D FA* was co-developed with Tokina and they are optically identical. The reason for the weather seal robustness came from Pentax for use on the K-1 and K-1II.

    You should have figured this one out, but then again this site pretty much ignores Pentax.

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