The Tokina Vista Prime family has expanded again! This time with a 65mm. Let’s take a look, shall we?
Upon original polling of cinematographers, 65mm was among the top 2 choices – the other being a 40mm which Tokina announced back in November 2020. The addition of the 65mm brings the Vista Prime set to nine lenses, all at a fast T1.5. The Tokina Vista Primes feature a huge image circle – one that exceeds that of 35mm Full Frame, making them compatible with nearly every motion picture camera sensor on the market today. The other most notable characteristic is almost zero focus breathing. If there is breathing, it’s not noticeable enough to take away from the image.
| Focal Length | 65mm |
| Max Aperture | T1.5 |
| Coverage | 35FF, VV |
| Lens Mount | PL, EF, Micro 4/3, E, LPL |
| Front Diameter | 114mm |
| Filter Thread | 112mm |
| Weight | 5 lbs |
We sat down with Cinematographer, Phil Holland to get his take on the latest Cinema Vista Prime. Here’s what he had to say:
“With today’s new release of the Tokina Cinema Vista 65mm T1.5 the prime set has grown to an impressively flexible 9 lens set. Recently they also released the 40mm T1.5 as well. I was itching to test the new lenses against their adjacent focal lengths to see how I would be putting them to work and I’m happy to say they fit right in with the rest of the prime family. I refer to these as intermediate focal lengths and overall I find them useful to manage the sometimes large leap between certain focal lengths in both field of view as well as magnification. For instance the jump from 50mm to 85mm is extremely noticeable when tackling compositions. Similarly, 35mm to 50mm is a big leap. These two new focal lengths truly help with that and provide very useful glass for VistaVision as well as Super 35mm filmmaking.
“I find having these lenses is really useful for narrative and commercial work. For my style of filming I see this filling useful gaps on the two most popular modern formats, Super 35mm and VistaVision. On VistaVision the 65mm sits on the longer side of a normal lens, which makes for nice tighter mediums through closeups. On Super 35mm the 65mm is considered a short telephoto, which works well for wider closeups when the 85mm feels too snug. The 40mm on VistaVision plays well as a do it all focal length being on the longer side of wide angle. On Super 35mm the 40mm gets you a bit tighter than the 35mm for more intimate closeups.
“The newest 65mm Tokina Cinema Vista prime slides right in and works great with the rest of the glass in the series by maintaining a fast T1.5 transmission and generous lens coverage to even beyond VistaVision. Sharp and very usable wide open with very minimal chromatic aberration, nearly zero focus breathing, well wrangled contrast, and pleasing lens flare. It’s nice that all the gearing and front outer diameter has remained consistent with the rest of the set for really speedy lens changes.
“In testing if you’re looking for real subject separation and shallow depth of field, wide open through T2 look great. If you’re looking to clean up some of the cat eye bokeh that occurs at maximum aperture I find stopping down the lens to about T2.8 through T4 creates lovely circular bokeh and really puts the lens right in the expected sweet spot optically.”
Watch Phil Holland’s test footage of the 40mm and 65mm Vista Primes below. Read more about the Tokina Vista Prime line-up here. The 65mm is available for order now at Duclos Lenses starting at $7,499 and will begin shipping late January 2021.
The 65mm is as good as I’d hoped. Really happy to fill in the gap between 50mm and 85mm.