Comparison between Tokina +0.4 and Tamron +0.5 Diopters

[Gabriel Copoeru]

DISCLAIMER: I apologize for posting a new topic on this, as I have also added this to the diopter thread. I didn't get any feedback and could use some because I want to sell one of these lenses and I can't decide which. 

I hope someone can clear things up for me. Although I've read up a lot on anamorphics over the past months, I am very much a noob when it comes to using them properly, as getting everything you need to maintain such an expensive passion is very difficult where I live. 

Knowing that the very coveted Tokina achromat is arguably the Holy Grail of anamorphic diopters, I was very happy to find one for cheap at a local shop (who knows how for long they probably had it).

I did a very bare bones test to compare it to another lens that I bought a while back, a Tamron +0.5 singlet close-up. I know there may be a lot of things wrong with it, lighting changes, the objects don't have an adequate texture to them for test purposes, and so on, but I wanted very quickly to see if there is any obvious advantage (in terms of sharpness) to the Tokina over it's single element counterpart.

Now, is it just me, or is there no huge difference between the images? I fail to see anything that would justify the huge price gap. I don't know if I should be dissapointed in the Tokina or impressed with the Tamron. I understand that maybe you can see what the Tokina is capable of by using better lenses, filming in different conditions, and so on. I don't know, what do you guys think? What am I doing wrong?

 

[Cosimo murgolo]

I sold out my Tokina and kept the tamaron.

[Gabriel Copoeru]

I sold out my Tokina and kept the tamaron.

​I would be interested in reasons for that, Cosimo.

[Cosimo murgolo]

​I would be interested in reasons for that, Cosimo.

 cos the tamron delivers qiuite nice images, I am quite happy with it.

[richg101]

the only flaw in your test is the camera.  the s16mm sensor is very forgiving to lenses.  assuming you ever wanted to shoot on a bigger sensor the differences will be more obvious - particularly at the edges.

 

the tokina was originally designed for use with a tokina at-x 70-200 f2.8 zoom, on full frame.  to bring minimum focus distance down from around 1m to around 0.6m if i recall.  if the achromatic qualities were not worth having, tokina wouldnt have bothered and would have sold a singlet.  so we know that for f2.8 70mm on full frame, achromatic diopters are required for clean performance.  since full frame tends to use around an 85mm lens for anamorphic attachments the achro is almost 100% required for undegraded performance to the edges of the 44mm image circle.

 

so, if you plan on upgrading to a bigger sensor, you'll be thankful to have kept the achro IMO

[Gabriel Copoeru]

Thank you very much for your excellent insight. What about this Tamron, now, how would you rate it?

the only flaw in your test is the camera.  the s16mm sensor is very forgiving to lenses.  assuming you ever wanted to shoot on a bigger sensor the differences will be more obvious - particularly at the edges.

 

the tokina was originally designed for use with a tokina at-x 70-200 f2.8 zoom, on full frame.  to bring minimum focus distance down from around 1m to around 0.6m if i recall.  if the achromatic qualities were not worth having, tokina wouldnt have bothered and would have sold a singlet.  so we know that for f2.8 70mm on full frame, achromatic diopters are required for clean performance.  since full frame tends to use around an 85mm lens for anamorphic attachments the achro is almost 100% required for undegraded performance to the edges of the 44mm image circle.

 

so, if you plan on upgrading to a bigger sensor, you'll be thankful to have kept the achro IMO

​