Tokina and Tamron Join Micro Four Thirds

Big news for Micro Four Thirds shooters today. Three new companies have signed on to the format. Lens makers Tamron and Tokina are joined by Japanese video camera maker Astrodesign. Astrodesign makes 4K video camera rigs, which won’t be of much use to most of you, but the two lens makers are much more interesting. […]
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Tamron: Making lenses since the days when mustaches were still cool. Scan by Nesster/Flickr

Big news for Micro Four Thirds shooters today. Three new companies have signed on to the format. Lens makers Tamron and Tokina are joined by Japanese video camera maker Astrodesign. Astrodesign makes 4K video camera rigs, which won't be of much use to most of you, but the two lens makers are much more interesting.

Tamron and Tokina have been making lower-cost lenses for SLRs since the days of film. Tamron even used a mounting system that let you put one lens on any 35mm SLR body, although in practice this was of little real use: Who uses more than one brand of camera?

Now they join Sigma in making Micro Four Thirds lenses which, although the product lineups haven't been specified, means that all the major third-party lens makers are on board.

Hopefully this means more wide-angle lenses. The long end is already well served, seeing as--with an adapter--you can just stick a regular full-frame lens on the camera and have its length doubled. And one request for Tokina and Tamron: don't just take APS-C lenses and stick a new mount on them [cough]Sigma[/cough].

Tamron and Tokina join Micro Four Thirds [DP Review]

High-end video maker Astrodesign joins Micro Four Thirds [DP Review]