Tokina Opera 50mm

£879 / $949

Will this lens have you singing with joy?

A new premium fast prime in a cut-throat sector

This new fast standard prime is designed to be the start of a high-end Opera series, positioned above the company’s AT-X lens line to rival Sigma and Tamron’s latest premium offerings. Inside the Opera 50mm f/1.4 FF is a nine-element optical stack that contains three SD (Super-low Dispersion) elements and one aspherical element to minimise chromatic aberrations.

New to this lens is Tokina’s ELR (Extremely Low Reflection) coating, which targets the visible light spectrum entering the lens to reduce ghosting, flare and reflections when shooting scenes containing a strong light source. A nine-blade diaphragm is also present to help keep bokeh as smooth as possible, and the Opera 50mm is dust- and moisture-resistant, with seals protecting eight areas of possible ingress.

Performance

Tokina is making bold claims about the speed and silence of the autofocus system in the Opera. It’s of the ring-type ultrasonic variety rather than a more modern stepping motor design, but there is full-time manual override. It’s also nice to see a real mechanically actuated focus distance window atop the lens barrel.

In our testing, autofocus proved to be reliable and fast, right down to the minimum 40cm focusing distance. Image quality is terrifically sharp too: there’s only a hint of chromatic aberration when shooting extremely high-contrast scenes, and distortion isn’t a concern.

Such accomplished performance is almost essential if the Opera 50mm is to succeed. As Sigma and Tamron battle hard to win buyers away from Canon and Nikon’s own excellent glass, Tokina needed to deliver a very special lens to compete. If you’re willing to pay a premium for the best possible image quality, the Tokina Opera 50mm f/1.4 FF doesn’t disappoint.

Full-frame compatible: Yes APS-C effective focal length: 80mm Image stabiliser: No Minimum focus distance: 40cm Manual focus override: Yes Focus limit switches: No Internal zoom: N/A Internal focus: Yes Filter size: 72mm Iris blades: 9 Weather seals: Yes Supplied accessories: Front lens cap, lens hood, rear lens cap Dimensions (dia x length): 80 x 108mm Weight: 950g 1 The manual focus ring has continuous override, as well as a long rotational travel that makes small focusing tweaks easy. 2 The direction of focus ring rotation matches that of a Canon or Nikon lens. 3 There are seals for eight possible ingress points along the lens barrel, so you can shoot in all weathers. 4 There’s just one switch on the lens barrel, for AF/MF selection. It’s a pity stabilisation isn’t present, but it’s not essential on a 50mm lens with such a fast maximum aperture.