Tokina Pulls Photo Contest Winner After Reddit Claims it Was AI-Generated

Apr 27, 2026

Matt Growcoot

A group of people stands ankle-deep in the ocean at sunrise or sunset, pulling in a fishing net under dramatic, cloudy skies with birds flying overhead. The sunlight reflects warmly on the water’s surface. — This image initially won the annual competition but was later pulled.

Lens manufacturer Tokina has pulled the overall winner of its 2025 monthly photo contest after a “violation of the contest rules.”

It comes after a Reddit post last week titled “Lens maker Tokina falls for AI image in photo competition,” which called out the winning image and admonished Tokina for not realizing the photo is allegedly a fake.

“Whether this is a completely false photo or heavily upscaled, this is just unacceptable and shameful for a camera lens company to award,” reads the post that was shared to r/cameras.

An award certificate shows a sunset beach photo with people facing the ocean. Text announces Abu Elias as the winner of the Tokina Monthly Photo Contest 2025 for “Between the Waves and the Nets.”. — Screenshot of the initial announcement. | Reddit

Tokina seemingly reacted to the Reddit post and replaced the winning image with a photo by Lee Nuttall. Every month there is a chosen winner, but this award recognizes the best shot from all 12 winners from 2025. It is chosen by “all employees who are involved in developing manufacturing, logistics, and selling Tokina lenses.”

“Previously announced overall winner’s work was disqualified due to the violation of the photo contest rules,” Tokina writes on its website. “Our apologies for this happening [sic]. We will reconsider the selection process by establishing additional checkpoints before making final judgments.”

PetaPixel has reached out to Tokina to clarify what exactly the violation was.

Is it Really an AI Image?

The image has an invisible SynthID watermark, which means it was either entirely AI-generated by Google Gemini’s Nano Banana Pro, or it was significantly altered by one of Google’s photo editing tools like Magic Editor.

A group of people in hooded clothing stand on a beach at sunset, pulling in fishing nets from the shore. Seagulls fly overhead, and the sun reflects off the waves. Colored circles highlight different areas of the image. — As well as the SynthID, the Reddit user also highlighted the inconsistencies in the image. But not all of them are as they appear: the man standing second left looks like he is wearing a strange mask at first glance, but it’s actually a baseball cap pulled down low with a second piece of headwear on top.

Many of the commenters on the Reddit post, who are presumably photographers, agree that the image is AI-generated. The Phoblographer also condemned the judges for not asking for the RAW files. But not everyone is certain it’s fabricated.

One Redditor points out that the SynthID watermark could indicate that the photographer replaced the clouds, removed an object, or upscaled it, fairly normal edits that photographers make to their images on apps like Lightroom and Photoshop, the difference is that if the photographer did use one of Google’s photo editing tools, it automatically adds the SynthID to show that AI was used.

That same Redditor also shared a video from the photographer’s YouTube page, which appears to be the same scene as the photo.

The photographer, Abu Elias, is from Oman and regularly shares stunning nature photographs that look genuine. According to his social media, he has won other photography awards. PetaPixel has reached out to Elias for clarification.

If the above video was taken around the same time as the photo that initially won the Tokina contest, then it seems plausible that the photographer replaced the sky, as the video was taken during daytime hours when the Sun was near meridian, while the photo shows the Sun setting.

This article will be updated if and when PetaPixel hears back from the relevant parties.