Aaton XTR Prod with Tokina 11-20mm Cinema ATX? Good or bad idea?

Rowan Biddiscombe · November 30, 2020

Hey everyone,

Just purchased a beautiful Aaton XTR Prod (very happy) and I'm currently figuring out which direction I want to go lens wise. I've personally already used the Arri/Zeiss 11-110 T2.2 a bit and quite liked it. Not tried the Canon "hurt locker" zooms but have only heard good things. My main question was around using newer glass made for S35, and what the potential downsides of that might be. The Tokina seems to be well made, not huge, have great reviews, not silly money, and can be used as a superwide on S35 when the opportunity arises. Is there something I'm missing? Image wise, what am I losing by using it on S16?

Thanks!

Rowan

Baltasar Thomas · November 30, 2020

I'm looking at this one for my LTR as well. I can't really think of any downsides, I use M42 full frame stills lenses on my LTR as well and those produce excellent results.

Tyler Purcell · November 30, 2020

I can't think of any reason why it would be a problem. The center of the glass (which is what the S16 camera would be using) is usually the crispest section. I have used my Rokinon Xeens on my XTR Prod without any issues. If anything, I'd say they worked very well, crisper than my standard Super 16 glass. It's just, these lower-cost primes and zooms, are generally not very crisp all the way open. So that's something to think about as well.

The one thing about this lens that's tricky is 11mm being the widest. I have the 11-165 and it's not QUITE wide enough. I prefer something a bit wider, like an 8-64, that's the perfect lens for Super 16. You can find one used on eBay if you look hard enough.

Heikki Repo · November 30, 2020

I was looking into this option as well, before deciding to go with prime lenses designed for super16.

There aren't really good examples on Youtube with Tokina lenses on a camera with a S16 size sensor (not to speak of actual 16mm film camera) but the closest I was able to find is this clip by Hideki Shiota that combines the original BMPCC and a Tokina 11-16mm. How do you find the look? I think it is beautiful, but not really what I was looking for...

Edited November 30, 2020 by Heikki Repo

Rowan Biddiscombe · December 11, 2020

Thanks everyone! Just wanted to say I ended up going with the Canon 8-64, it’s definitely a bit longer/heavier but I’m really loving the overall variety it offers.