Tokina Is Breaking Years of Silence to Build a ‘Lens Like No Other’

Tokina was a significant name in lenses during the DSLR era, but photographers could be forgiven for thinking the company had given up on photography due to its lack of new lenses in recent years. However, Tokina is not gone. In fact, the company is working on its next lens right now, promising that it will be “one lens like no other.”

To see how Tokina got to this point, where PetaPixel‘s team struggles to remember precisely when Tokina last released a new lens — it was 2022, it is important to look back at when Tokina was a sizable force in the photo industry.

A Brief Look at Tokina’s History

The Tokyo-based Tokina has been around for 76 years and has been making Tokina-branded lenses for 66 of them. The company has long operated near the cutting edge, getting on board with zoom lenses way back in 1967, when they were still relatively rare. Tokina continued to make a ton of zoom lenses (and plenty of primes) throughout the film SLR era and into the DSLR age.

Tokina AT-X 12-24mm f/4 Pro lens for DSLR cameras

Tokina was a particularly big name in the market for Canon EF and Nikon F-mount lenses, making popular models like the AT-X 17-35mm f/4 Pro, AT-X 24-70mm f/2.8 Pro, and acclaimed AT-X M100 AF Pro macro lens for full-frame cameras and the AT-X 11-16mm f/2.8 Pro and 12-28mm f/4 Pro for APS-C models. These are just a few cherry-picked examples of well-regarded Tokina zoom lenses; the company made many different models, ranging from pretty good to excellent.

Tokina Opera 50mm f/1.4

However, as photographers began moving to mirrorless systems in greater numbers, Tokina was slow to the punch. Kenko Tokina unveiled a new flagship-grade DSLR lens in 2018, for example, the Opera 50mm f/1.4. While plenty of photographers still used DSLR cameras, and still do for that matter, it was a puzzling choice for a new high-end lens series. Tokina announced another Opera lens the following year, the 16-28mm f/2.8 for full-frame DSLRs.

Tokina was making mirrorless lenses at this time, at least, the Firin (stylized FiRIN) series. The first one arrived way back in 2016, but it was a manual focus-only 20mm f/2 prime. An odd choice. An AF-equipped version took two years to arrive. In April 2019, Tokina unveiled the Firin 100mm f/2.8 1:1 macro lens for full-frame Sony E-mount cameras.

Tokina Firin 100mm f/2.8

In 2020, Tokina brought its storied ATX series to mirrorless, now called “atx-m.” This series quickly pivoted from the initial atx-m 85mm f/1.8 full-frame lens to focus much more on APS-C cameras. As of now, Tokina lists only four distinct atx-m lenses on its site, all for APS-C E- and X-mount cameras. The full-frame 85mm prime is nowhere to be seen.

After the Tokina atx-m 11-18mm f/2.8 arrived in September 2022, the company went silent, at least in the photographic space.

Tokina Cinema, the company’s video-oriented brand, has been busy. Since Tokina’s last photographic lens landed on store shelves, Tokina Cinema has released multiple fully-fledged lines of cinema primes, including the Vista-P T1.5 lenses for VistaVision-sized full-frame sensors and the Vista-C cine primes that promise vintage aesthetics inside modern cinema chassis.

And these are serious cinema lenses. Although Tokina’s photographic lenses have routinely been celebrated for offering a lot of bang for their buck, often undercutting the prices of first-party lenses, Tokina Cinema is competing at, or at least very near, the highest tier of the cinema market. Tokina Cinema lenses can cost as much as $20,000 a piece. It’s a far cry from a $199 33mm f/1.4 lens for APS-C mirrorless cameras.

Tokina, a name once synonymous with photography, has faded so much that it is reasonable to wonder whether the company has abandoned the space altogether in favor of cinema. The margins are clearly higher over there. $20,000 lenses don’t cost $19,500 to make, after all.

But no, to crib the late, great Mark Twain, the reports of Tokina’s death are greatly exaggerated.

Tokina’s Next-Generation Photo Lens Makes a Lofty Promise

Kenko Tokina was at CP+ 2026 in late February, and it brought a teaser for the next generation of Tokina photographic lenses: “one lens like no other.”

Now, there are a couple of bold asterisks to throw at this new Tokina lens. One, the lens is a prototype of a new Tokina-branded lens currently in development. The final lens may be very different from the prototype shown off in Yokohama. Two, Tokina shared essentially zero concrete information about the lens. There are no specs, no release date, and no word on price. “No specs” does heavy lifting here, too, because that also includes pesky things like focal length and aperture.

In most cases, such a nebulous announcement would barely be worth getting out of bed for, but given the context, this is a big deal.

A new “next-generation” Tokina lens is in the works. The Tokina name, which has been emblazoned on photographic lenses for 66 years, is not going anywhere. Better yet, the company is adamant that the next Tokina lens will be wholly unique and unlike anything else on the market.

Hopefully, the next time Tokina’s name comes up in a PetaPixel team meeting, it will be to talk about how great that new lens is, rather than wondering if the company even still makes photography products.

Image credits: Tokina