Tokina SZ-X 60-300mm f4-5.6

A lens with character and sharpness to match.

Page Last Edited : Wednesday, 10th of September 2025.
© Dave Rowlands. All Rights Reserved.

The Tokina SZ-X 630 is a Zoom lens from the film era and has a zoom range of 60-300mm at f4-5.6. I purchased it at the beginning of August 2023 after seeing it for sale and reading a few online reviews. There seemed to be a lot of different re-badged versions offered by Soligor, Tamron, Tefnon, Koboron, Promaster, and maybe a few others that I have not come across. The reviews of the Tamron and Tokina seem to indicate that this is indeed a lens worth looking into which I did, I placed my order and lo and behold it arrived a few days later,

When the lens arrived, it came in its original packaging, which also contained the manual and original filled-in guarantee card. The date of the guarantee registration is September 30th 1989, so the lens is at least 34 years old when I received it. The lens itself looked as though it had been hardly used, no marks or scratches, and the glass was super clean without any dust showing at all. The Canon FD breech mount showed no signs of usage, and the Zoom, focusing and aperture controls were extremely smooth to operate. I don't like using the single "Push-Pull-Focus" lenses on the M43 system cameras as I'd always change focus when zooming or the focal length when focusing, and it used to annoy me, but this lens seems very easy to use, and I have no problems with it.

It's a beautiful-looking piece of yesterday’s technology, and I couldn't wait to put it through its paces. As it was a fixed mount version, I didn’t need to look around for an appropriate mount to attach it to my cameras, being used to the “Tamron AdaptAll” system certainly messes up your ability to use fixed lens mounts.

The weather at the time was atrocious, with wind and rain, with very dark skies and very little contrast to anything. After a cleaning, well a wipe over, I attached it to my "OM-D E-M5 II" using a Canon FD to M43 adapter, I really should get a couple more of these but at current prices they are selling for more than what I paid for some of the lenses I have, I always check that the aperture control on the adapter stopped the lens down to the selected aperture values marked on the lens and everything was fine. As a lens from the 35mm film era everything done with the lens is always manual, especially the focusing and stopping down the aperture to whatever value I chose. The function of focusing and stopping down before pressing the shutter button becomes second nature after a while and you really don’t find it as awkward as it was during the first photographs you took.

As it’s a manual lens you either have to set your camera up in “Aperture Priority” mode or “Manual” mode but as someone who doesn’t always stick to the rules I sometimes use “Program Mode” a lot of the time, these are the settings I have my camera set to when using manual mode lenses.

Auto ISO is on with the low range set to “200” and the highest range set to “3200”, I sometimes use a low value of “400” which can help in keeping the shutter speed at a reasonable high setting.

Picture Mode is usually set to “Vivid” if the light is flat and lacking in contrast or “Natural”.

When using a Zoom lens such as this I set the “Image Stabilization” to “S-IS1” and using the “Info” I set the focal length to either half of the maximum zoom or the value just before that one. For this lens I found the best results with the focal length set to 135mm. There is nothing to stop you from setting this to the actual focal length you are zoomed at but it can slow down your picture taking but I have noticed differences in image sharpness when shooting at low shutter speeds if the lens focal length is set way off to what it it is actually zoomed to, when you do notice this it's always best to adjust the setting to avoid blurry images due to camera shake.

I shoot in Jpeg + RAW and have the Jpeg image set to “Medium” where I have set the “Medium” size to “3200 x 2400”, the reason I have it this size is so I can send via email or upload to the web without going through a resizing procedure. I always use the ORF files for photographs I want to keep, but the smaller JPEGs save me a lot of time which is better spent taking photographs.To get back to trying this lens out, I ended up just taking a few shots indoors sat on the sofa in the living room with available light coming from the window. Here are some of the quickie shots I took, all hand held in poor lighting conditions using my Olympus OM-D E-M10.

The images were taken through the living room window, the first was at 300mm at 1/100th a second and the second at 60 mm at 1/125th of a second, both were shot at the maximum ISO of 3200. The images of the dolls which are on the mantelpiece and about 2.5 meters away from where I was sitting turned out pretty well considering.

The Tokina SZ-X 630 is a Zoom lens from the film era and has a zoom range of 60-300mm at f4-5.6. I purchased it at the beginning of August 2023 after seeing it for sale and reading a few online reviews. There seemed to be a lot of different re-badged versions offered by Soligor, Tamron, Tefnon, Koboron, Promaster, and maybe a few others that I have not come across. The reviews of the Tamron and Tokina seem to indicate that this is indeed a lens worth looking into which I did, I placed my order and lo and behold it arrived a few days later,

When the lens arrived it came in its original box which also contained the manual and original filled in guarantee card, the date of the guarantee registration is September 30th 1989 so the lens is at least 34 years old when I received it. The lens itself looked as though it had been hardly used, no marks or scratches and the glass was super clean without any dust showing at all. The Canon FD breech mount showed no signs of usage and the Zoom, focusing and aperture controls were extremely smooth to operate.

It's a beautiful looking piece of yesterday’s technology and I couldn't wait to put it through its paces. As it was a fixed mount version I didn’t need to look around for an appropriate mount to attach it to my cameras, being used to the “Tamron AdaptAll” system certainly messes up your ability to use fixed lens mounts.

The weather at the time was atrocious, wind and rain with very dark skies and very little contrast to anything. After a cleaning, well a wipe over, I attached it to my "OM-D E-M5 II" using a Canon FD to M43 adapter, I really should get a couple more of these but at current prices they are selling for more than what I paid for some of the lenses I have, I always check that the aperture control on the adapter stopped the lens down to the selected aperture values marked on the lens and everything was fine. As a lens from the 35mm film era everything done with the lens is always manual, especially the focusing and stopping down the aperture to whatever value I chose. The function of focusing and stopping down before pressing the shutter button becomes second nature after a while and you really don’t find it as awkward as it was during the first photographs you took.

As it’s a manual lens you either have to set your camera up in “Aperture Priority” mode or “Manual” mode but as someone who doesn’t always stick to the rules I sometimes use “Program Mode” a lot of the time, these are the settings I have my camera set to when using manual mode lenses.

Auto ISO is on with the low range set to “200” and the highest range set to “3200”, I sometimes use a low value of “400” which can help in keeping the shutter speed at a reasonable high setting.

Picture Mode is usually set to “Vivid” if the light is flat and lacking in contrast or “Natural”.

When using a Zoom lens such as this I set the “Image Stabilization” to “S-IS1” and using the “Info” I set the focal length to either half of the maximum zoom or the value just before that one. For this lens I found the best results with the focal length set to 135mm. There is nothing to stop you from setting this to the actual focal length you are zoomed at but it can slow down your picture taking but I have noticed differences in image sharpness when shooting at low shutter speeds if the lens focal length is set way off to what it it is actually zoomed to, when you do notice this it's always best to adjust the setting to avoid blurry images due to camera shake.

I shoot in Jpeg + RAW and have the Jpeg image set to “Medium” where I have set the “Medium” size to “1920 x 1440”, as the camera has two SD card slots I use the second card to store the full sized JPegs, the reason I have it this size is so I can send via email or upload to the web without going through a resizing procedure. I always use the ORF files for photographs I want to keep but the smaller JPegs saves me a lot of time which is better spent actually taking photographs.To get back to trying this lens out I ended up just taking a few shots indoors sat on the sofa in the living room with available light coming from the window. Here are some of the quickie shots I took, all hand held in poor lighting conditions using my Olympus OM-D E-M10.

The images were taken through the living room window, the first was at 300mm at 1/100th a second and the second at 60 mm at 1/125th of a second, both were shot at the maximum ISO of 3200. The images of the dolls which are on the mantelpiece and about 2.5 meters away from where I was sitting turned out pretty well considering.

100 percent crop of the image above,

Considering these images were taken hand held using the E-M10 which only has the cut down IBIS the images look really good for a lens this old.

The lens feels pretty good to hold, and on the E-M1 II, it looks the part and does pretty well on the 20 MP sensor.

The Guarantee card included in the box when I purchased it shows the date of 30-9-89, indicating that this lens is now nearly 36 years old (as of July 2025). The lens looks and feels like it has never been used; it's in pristine condition.

At less than £30.00 including delivery, it's a lens I will not be selling on.

I know the images were taken at a high ISO of 3200, but could you even imagine doing this all those years ago and getting some decent results?

I found another review online which included a photo of the box and the price sticker, it was for a Nikon mount version of the lens, though, and the price was in American dollars.

An American $1 in 1989 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $2.61 today, an increase of $1.61 over 36 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 2.70% per year between 1989 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 160.52%, so that lens today would cost around $1123.62, or, in UK Pounds, £828.62.

Image found on the internet of the SZ-X 630 showing a box with a price-sticker.

Enlarged version of the price sticker. That price tag, though, it's a shame there is no visible date stamp.

The shots below are of the lens attached to my "OM-D E-M5 II"

After seeing the results using it on the "E-M5 II" it's going to be a joy on the "E-M1 II" especially as all I have to remember to do is add the lens to the manual lens list on the camera and selecting it before actually using it. I did manage to get some outdoor shots from the front door using the "E-M1 II", click the link to see them.

I'll be using this lens quite a lot in better weather and especially while out on my eBike where I don't need to worry about the extra weight.

And some images of how the lens looks on the "E-M1 II"

You would never know that there is over 30 years separating the lens and the camera, especially when you look at the results

Unmistakably made in the 1980's and attached onto a camera from 2016 and still capable of creating superb imagery, we have come a long way.

The ability to have a database on camera of all the manual lenses, well, up to 10, you own, was a long time coming, but extremely welcomed. I can now leave the notebooks and pencils at home as the details will be stored in the EXIF data.

Below are some more quick shots taken using the E-M5 II from my front door.

All shots were taken hand-held with Aperture Priority set to f6.3, ISO set to Auto, and IBIS Focal Length set to a default 135mm throughout its zoom range.

If I want to get the best results, then I set the IBIS Focal Length to the nearest value I have the lens zoomed to. I have found though that setting it to around 100 to 185mm gives me some very good results. And some more low-light shots taken while testing out another Canon FD to M43 Adapter.

Taken at full zoom of 300mm at f5.6, 1/100th second auto ISO at 1000.

Taken at full zoom of 300mm at f5.6, 1/100th second auto ISO at 1000 as above.

Taken at minimum zoom of 60mm at f5.6, 1/100th second auto ISO at 250. IBIS Focal Length was set to 180mm by mistake as I was checking something else at the time.

Taken at full zoom of 300mm at f5.6, 1/100th second auto ISO at 400 with IBIS Focal Length set to 180mm.

Taken at full zoom of 300mm at f5.6, 1/100th second auto ISO at 500 with IBIS Focal Length set to 180mm.