Tokina Lenses

[Urgrossvater]

Tokina seems to have many interesting lenses, is there a reason why that no longer support Alpha Mount ?

[Javelin]

I think there was just too small a share in the KM days but they have said at diferent show that they will soon but haven't set a specific date.

[David Kilpatrick]

Tokina is part of Hoya who purchased Pentax, considered to be a direct competitor to Sony. At that time, they discontinued support for the Minolta mount and channelled most of their effort in the Pentax lens line which is about 50% rebranded Tokina designs. The same designs were made available to Samsung and rebranded as Schneider-Kreuznach, but actually they are just Tokina. They decided not to drop Nikon and Canon for obvious reasons.

David

[peterottaway]

Most of the Tokina APS-C lens are medium to high price for the enthusiast to pro market. Given that the A700 is at present the only Sony camera to really offer the performance to justify buying these lenses, you can see why to date why Tokina has only been interested in the Canon and Nikon markets.

After all just look at the number of Canon 30/40/50 and Nikon 200/300 that have been sold in the last few years.

[KevinBarrett]

I think Tamron has an interesting position as well. With Sony having a large stake in that company, it is curious that they should offer so many lenses first to Canon and Nikon customers and only later, if at all, to Sony customers. Consider their aggressive zoom lenses: 18-270 and 10-24.