This TINY 500MM Gets Me Excited! 🤩 _ Tokina SZ F8 Reflex for Sony a7 IV a7III a7R a7S a9 a1.

So I haven't had this much fun with a brand new lens in a very long time, and surprisingly, it's coming from a manual focus lens. No, he didn't just say that. And not just any manual focus lens, but a compact 500 millimeter one. This is the Tokina SC Super Tele 500 millimeter F8 reflex lens, and the shining jewel of this is that it's compact, light, and most importantly, affordable. Coming in at just 310 grams and $400 with the lens adapter to play with my Sony camera. The catch, well, it's a manual focus only lens. There's no lens stabilization. In fact, there are no electronic contacts whatsoever, so it can't even transmit metadata. And the images, well, they're soft. So why am I still so hyped for this lens? No, they're not paying me. No, they're not sponsoring this video. I actually found out about this lens from sonyalpharumors.com, and I immediately contacted Tokina to get an early hands-on on this. So this is actually a review loaner unit, so this is gonna go back to them by the end of this. But I love the concept of this lens so much. So I travel a lot. You guys know I'm doing this whole nomadic thing right now, and I've always been so curious, what kind of shots can I get with a super long telephoto lens? But I've always been so hesitant getting something like a 100 to 400, two to 600, just because they're so darn big. Sure, the quality's gonna be better. It has autofocus. It has lens stabilization. It's faster than F8. But it's just not worth carrying around just for funsies. So a Tokina 500 is a terrific compromise. I can just throw this into my bag and pull it out if and whenever I need it. And the funny thing was, I was asked this question in Sidney Diongsun's Q&A video. What is the gear that I want but I don't have right now? I guess for me, it'd be like two to 600. And this happened a couple weeks before I saw the article on Sony Alpha Rumor, so I'm very happy that the stars somehow aligned and it led me to this lens. So how does it perform? Well, I'll say this. The images are a bit soft, not gonna lie. I went through their press release, saw some of their photos on their gallery, and it got me a little worried, you know? What if it's too soft to use? But I was still very curious. I was holding onto that possibility, you know? What if I can just drag that sharpening slider all the way to the right in post? Would that work? And well, I'm happy to report, it works. You've been seeing some of the photos already throughout this entire video, and they look great, especially if I'm just publishing on Instagram. Sheesh, you can't even tell. And I've shot some videos in 8K with the A1 and 4K with the A7IV and S3. Same deal, applied some sharpening, and man, it looks good. Bonus tip, increasing the contrast and lowering the shadows also help enhances the imagery and kind of makes the images look sharp too. Man, these footage here of New York just looks gorgeous. I am just so happy that this worked out because I am getting this lens because it just confirmed my curiosity. I can actually get some really interesting shots with a long telephoto like this. For example, check this out right here. I had no idea that we could see the Statue of Liberty from our vantage point until I accidentally pointed at that direction. Here's the Chelsea Piers, and I could see people literally playing ice hockey inside. Like, wow. All right, let me give you guys some reference shots so you guys can see how close a 500 millimeter can get. This is the shot of a skyline with an 85 millimeter. Here it is again, but in Super 35 mode, so that gives us roughly about a 127 millimeter. Still seeing everything. And bam, here's the 500 millimeter literally just getting, well, barely getting in the Freedom Tower. So that's pretty darn close. This is the wide shot of the edge with my 40 millimeter, and here it is with the 500. And if I point up to the tippy top, we can see the people who are doing the city climb skyscraping attraction that they offer over at the Hudson Yards. And nope, you can't pay me enough to even attempt that. Just nope, I am perfectly happy staying where I am, getting that shot with a 500 millimeter. That's all I need, that's all I need to see the top. So, user experience. Not gonna lie, for both photos and videos, manual focusing was a bit tough, especially if you're not used to it, or if you're like me, haven't touched a manual lenses in a while. And because the image quality is also soft, it makes it hard to achieve focus as well. Thankfully, I remember these cameras have focus peaking, so that definitely helped a lot. And in case you're wondering, no focus mapping on the new A7 IV does not work with this lens, so, boo. So definitely, when it comes to shooting handheld with a 500 millimeter lens like this, it's pretty difficult when you have to factor in that you gotta manual focus and don't worry about using a fast enough shutter speed. But it's been fun, you know, I've been kind of forced to just look around my environment a lot more to see, you know, what I can capture with the 500. It's a challenge. It's a challenge, challenge accepted. Oh. Now, when it comes to video, you will need to consider a strong tripod or else even the tiniest bit of wind can shake your footage. That'd probably be the only biggest thing I would watch out for if you're using this lens for video. Now, speaking of shake, obviously the full frame Sony cameras have built-in in-body stabilization. So you can actually set, manually set the focal length stabilization in camera. So I just set it to 500. And that's gonna allow you to shoot at a slower shutter speed, something under a one over 500 and still get a pretty decent shot. Now, because it's F8, obviously you gotta do your due diligence of keeping your sensor and glass clean. Otherwise you will have unwanted dirt in your photo and video. I'm gonna put some dirt in your eye. Another thing to note is the donut-shaped bokeh. Because there's this giant center dot in the center, it does make things like bokeh and shooting into the sun looking a bit weird. Personally, I'm not a fan of the donut-shaped bokeh, but for the size and for the price, I'm willing to overlook it. And because of how this lens is built, we don't have to worry about chromatic aberration. In fact, there aren't many optical glass elements inside of this lens, just a few mirrors. That's how it is so light. Now, you might be asking, well, Jason, why not just get an APS-C zoom lens with a 300 millimeter focal length in it? Wouldn't that give you like a 500 millimeter full frame equivalent look? And to that I say, you're damn right. You are on the ball with that. So I'm gonna play the devil's advocate here, right? Sure, you can get an APS-C zoom lens with a 300 millimeter focal length in it, right? There's one for the APS-C, 75 to 350, and that's gonna give you roughly a 525 full frame equivalent look. And the plus side is that it offers you autofocusing capability and image stabilization, but the trade-off is it's gonna be a bit more expensive and slightly heavier, which in the realms of APS-C isn't a bad thing. But depending on which camera you use, the megapixel drop might be significant. If you're shooting with the A1, A7IV, A7R, might not be a big deal to use a crop lens like the 70 to 350, but if you're planning on doing 8K on the A1, you can't do 8K in crop mode, and you sure as hell cannot do 4K 120 in crop mode on the A1 and the A7S III. That'd be the only thing. If you're just going for photos and you don't mind the megapixel drop and you're willing to spend the extra dough for the autofocusing capability, the lens stabilization, and all that jazz, might be worth getting the APS-C lens instead. So what's my ultimate verdict on the Tokina 500? I love it. I know this lens isn't gonna be for everyone, but if you're in the market for a portable 500 millimeter, this is gonna be great for any of the Sony cameras. And to answer my APS-C users, would this be good for something like an A6000 or a ZV-E10? I mean, sure, it can be, but if you take that crop factor into consideration, this lens will become like a 750 millimeter, which might be a little too tight. But in my experience, this lens will be perfect for the A7S III just because the lower megapixel count actually helps make the footage and the photos look a wee bit more sharper. And the high ISO performance of that camera allows you to use this lens at night, especially with this having an F8 aperture, you don't have to worry too much about noise. And if you have the A1 like me, you can actually shoot an 8K, throw into a 4K timeline, and that downsampling would just help make the footage look a little bit more crisp. So yeah, definitely adding this lens to my arsenal. Let me know in the comments down below what you think of the photos and the footage that came out of this lens, and if you would consider something like this. As always, if you enjoy my video, be sure to like, comment, and subscribe. And if you wanna go the extra mile to support my channel, just stick around and listen to what my sponsor Squarespace has to say. Vivian and I always strive to bring you guys the best and most unique image and video samples whenever we talk about cameras and lenses. And oftentimes, we have high production costs to make this all happen. It's sponsors like Squarespace that help funds our production budget so we can keep bringing you guys more high-quality samples. So the best way to support us and to help us continue to do what we do is to simply check out how Squarespace can help you. Link down below. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform to create beautiful websites. No coding knowledge whatsoever. Perfect for people like me because I just wanna make YouTube videos for you guys and not have to worry about coding my entire website. Simply just select one of their templates to get started. Every aspect is easily customizable with their drag-and-drop feature. Whether you're in need of a portfolio, an e-commerce store, or even a simple blog, design it with Squarespace. Use my link down below to test it out. And when you're ready to launch your first website or domain, use my code, Jason Vong, to save 10% off. Guys, thank you so much for watching. I'll see you guys in the next video. Peace.