Tokina 25-75mm T2.9 Cine Zoom – First Footage and Available for Pre-order

Lens News

by Jakub HanMay 11^th, 2021

Tokina 25-75mm T2.9 Cine Zoom lens is now available for pre-order for $4,999. The lens offers an interchangeable mount, Super35 sensors coverage (or up to VistaVision with the 1.6x expander), compact size with relatively low weight, parfocal design, and 0.8 MOD geared rings. Let’s take a look at the sample footage of this lens paired with a RED Komodo.

Tokina Cinema first announced this zoom lens in May 2020. With an expandable image circle up to 8K VistaVision and swappable lens mounts, the lens looks quite interesting. Now, the time has finally come for the lens to hit the markets. To entice all potential customers, Tokina Cinema also published a lens test video from DP Bob Gundu. Let’s take a look at all the details.

Tokina 25-75mm T2.9 Cine Zoom

As Tokina Cinema states, the lens is a constant T2.9 throughout the range, with parfocal operation and good zoom tracking with minimal image shift. Lens breathing, distortion, and aberration should all be highly controlled. The lens fits in between Tokina’s existing 11-20mm T2.9 and 50-135mm T2.9 cinema zooms. The 3x zoom range allows the lens to remain relatively compact by cinema zoom standards. The 2kg weight and moderate size make it suitable for operation on gimbals, Steadicams, jibs, and other situations where a larger zoom lens would be inappropriate.

The lens is 174mm long (PL Mount) with a 86mm filter thread, and a 95mm front diameter for common cinema accessories. It is constructed of aluminum common with other Tokina Cinema lenses in the series. It features a nine-bladed iris, has smooth, 0.8 MOD geared rings for focus, iris, and zoom, and features Tokina’s interchangeable lens mount system. It is available in PL, E-mount, MFT mount, and Nikon F mount options.

Director of Photography Bob Gundu tested the lens and concluded that he found it to be the perfect match for his RED Komodo. The lens has a 36mm image circle that fully covers Komodo’s sensor (slightly larger than Super35). He made the following short film with this lens-camera combo. If you want to really pixel peep the video, the full 4K version (9.42GB) can also be downloaded from this Dropbox folder. Tokina also offers TIF frame grabs from the video in UHD resolution here.

The Tokina 25-75mm T2.9 will also cover several popular larger sensor models like the RED Helium 8K, RED Dragon 6K, RED Monstro in 6K, Sony FX9 in DCI 4K crop, or the ARRI ALEXA LF and Mini LF when shooting in their UHD crop mode. Tokina also offer a 1.6x Expander in PL-to-PL or PL-to-E-mount that allows the lens to cover Vistavision-sized sensors, giving it the equivalent range of 40-120mm at T4.

Price and Availability

According to Tokina Cinema, the first shipments of the 25-75mm T2.9 Cine lens will begin in July 2021. The lens can be pre-ordered now for $4,999.

Do you use the existing Tokina Cinema zoom lenses? Are you planning on investing in this one? What do you think of its look? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.