Tokina Cinema has announced the “Vista-P” lens series. This new series was designed in collaboration with DP and Rental House, and is an improved version of the original Vista Prime.
Tokina Cinema Vista P – Portraits with vintage personality and high resolution
Visually, the Vista-P lens series looks similar to existing Vista lenses, but the image quality is improved and unique. At the periphery of the frame, it resembles other vintage lenses like Helios-44 and Petzval with spiral distortion, but overall has a cleaner, more modern look and better resolution than traditional vintage lenses.
Precisely adjusted at the factory for maximum effectiveness
With the Vista-P lens, the Tokina modified the original Vista Prime by moving the placement of the lens elements to intentionally introduce the strong spherical distortion often found in vintage lenses.
Increasing spherical distortion is considered beneficial to many DPs and productions, so technicians at major camera rental companies sought to detune the original Vista lenses by widening the spacing of the rear element groups. To achieve the most noticeable effect, the distance between other elements deep within the lens must be increased, something that would not be possible with a simple conversion.
For the Vista-P series, the company significantly redesigned the interior of Vista Prime, increasing the distance between glass and air for hard-to-reach elements, creating a stronger distortion effect. Images created with Vista-P also achieve low contrast due to the increased distance between the air and glass surfaces, further emulating the look of vintage lenses. This low contrast, combined with increased frame edge distortion, makes Vista-P an ideal modern alternative to unreliable, low-resolution vintage lenses.
Cinematographer David Romm, who shot the hit TV show “Ted Lasso” using the Vista-P series, said he had the opportunity to try out the Vista-P series on his latest show, “The Devil’s Hour.”
We already love the look of Vista Prime’s large format cameras, but the new Vista-P series takes it a step further, says Mr. Romm. Having used Vista-P on the second season of “The Devil’s Hour,” it’s no wonder this new lens would become such a popular choice. I love the vintage feel of the falloff, which focuses the attention on the subject.
Designed for VistaVision, more sensitive for Super35
In the Vista-P series, the effects of spherical distortion are said to be most noticeable in the fine detail areas intended by Vista Vision/Full Frame. When using Super35 or lower formats, it is possible to reduce the effect at the edges of the frame.
Factory conversion
Conversion for the Vista-P series is complex and must be done at Tokina Cinema’s Japanese factory. The Vista-P series is sold as a new lens already converted at the time of purchase. It can be sold an upgrade to an existing Vista Prime lens. This requires the lens to be returned to Tokina Cinema and sent to Japan for conversion. However, once a conversion is performed, it cannot be reversed.
Advantages of Vista lenses
Vista-P lenses retain all the other major advantages of regular Vista Primes, apart from their different properties. There is almost no focus breathing and the image circle is 46.7mm, which is enough to cover all large format cinema cameras. The lenses share the same 114mm front O.D. and 9-blade iris, and are available in PL, LPL, Sony E, EF or MFT mounts.
Tokina Vista-P Lineup
Vista-P lenses are available in 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm focal lengths, all sold at a constant T1.5. It is expected that focal lengths will be added in the future.
