Pekka Buttler, 07/2025
Tokyo Koki Seisakusho / Tokina
Tokina Co., Ltd. (株式会社トキナー, Kabushiki-gaisha Tokinā) traces its roots back to May 1950, when it was founded in Shinjuku, Tokyo, as Tokyo Optical Equipment Manufacturing (Tokyo Koki Seisakusho) by a group of former Nikon engineers. Initially, the company specialized in glass polishing and the mass production of lenses for film projectors. However, postwar economic struggles and instability forced it to temporarily cease operations. It wasn’t until 1959 that the company resumed activities, primarily as an OEM lens manufacturer for other brands.
By the early 1960s, Tokina began manufacturing lenses under its own brand name, Tokyo Koki, a phonetic abbreviation of the original Japanese name. This marked a significant step toward becoming an independent player in the photographic lens market. This transition culminated in the introduction of its first zoom lens, the 90–230mm f/4.5, in 1967.
Having seen Tamron’s success in using an intermediate mount, Tokina launched their own intermediate mount (the T-4/TX mount), even though the resulting lenses were most often sold under the Soligor and Vivitar brands. As its reputation grew, the company changed its name in 1971 to Tokina Optical Co., Ltd.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Tokina established itself as a leading manufacturer of lenses for single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras, all the while the bulk of its production was sold under other brands like Vivitar or Chinon, but also some you’ve likely never heard about. Tokina also had a prolonged strategic partnership with Konica, and some of Konica’s most well known lenses were actually produced by Tokina1 .Tokina also kept up with industry shifts such as the growing demand for autofocus capabilities, adapting its lens systems accordingly from the mid-1980s onward.
After the effective end of intermediate mounts (due to the increasing dependence on electronics in lens-body communication) and the lessening importance of re-branders, Tokina ‘in-housed’ a lot of its lens manufacturing, increasingly selling their lenses under the Tokina brand.
The 1990s marked a period of major structural change. In 1994, Tokina was absorbed by Kenko Co., Ltd., a company known for photographic accessories. Although it maintained some operational independence under the name Tokina Co., Ltd., this marked the beginning of deeper integration. The full merger between Kenko and Tokina was finalized in June 2012, creating the unified entity Kenko Tokina Co., Ltd. This merger also included Hoya, a manufacturer of optical glass that Tokina had used extensively. Together, the merged companies broadened their scope beyond photographic lenses to include a variety of optical products such as binoculars, microscopes, and filters. The combined firm reported annual revenues of up to 20 billion yen, signaling robust growth and a strong market presence in both consumer and industrial optics.
Today, Tokina functions as a prominent brand under the Kenko Tokina corporate umbrella. While it continues to be known for its high-quality camera lenses, particularly among photography enthusiasts and professionals, the company has also carved out a significant presence in other optical technologies.
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Footnotes
- Some Konica aficionados like to pretend that in this partnership Konica did the designing and Tokina the manufacturing, but several coincidentals point to Tokina also doing design work on several lenses only ever sold under the Konica brand. ↩︎