Tokina - AT-X 340 AF-II 100-300 F4

Tokina was known as a 3rd party lens manufacturer for many camera brand. nowadays, you can find Tokina are designing their lens to fit mostly for Nikon and Canon mount. recently, they released an Ultra Wide Angle (UWA) lens for Sony/ Minolta mount, but it was long after the last Tokina lens for A-mount was released.

for me, Tokina lens was always give a satisfaction (in term of value for money factor-lah!) as i used to own some Tokina lenses before. they're quickly become a collector item then, so this Tokina ATX 340 AFII 100-300 f4 is surely a collector item.i was lucky to get it via a friend who are no longer using Minolta camera. i'm not pretty sure when was this lens manufactured, but one thing for sure, the build quality was really superb. try to hold it and you will say: "Wow, this is really metal man!". i have no complain whatsoever about the build quality as most of Tokina lenses will guarantee you a very solid build. weight was around 1.5kg. and it have a rotating tripod collar in which you cant unattached it; but you can rotate it freely to suit your needs. it uses 77mm filter thread in which are common for many telephoto lens out there. the coating was nice to as you can see from the picture, its still 'colorful'.

the rotating but unremovable tripod collar


the coating was still good

one of the plus point of this lens is, it offer you a constant aperture at f4 at all focal length. it was really useful when shooting at low light condition (ok..f2.8 is a performer at low light, but you have to splash your money more). i once brought it to football match and it doesn't disappoint me. step down to f5 and beyond, the lens sharpness really shown and the bokeh was surprisingly very smooth and milky.

my final say: if you come across this lens, please have a look. it was hard to find it now as only few are left in market. i do know one guy at Ipoh have this, but the lens was fogging and almost impossible to use. i wonder why Tokina (or even sony itself) decide not to produce this lens again. definitely one of my best buy. thumbs up!

**update: i recently have to sold this beauty to new owner to make way for other lens to come. hard, but its true..