Descriptions, pictures, tests, usage and other information on lenses, often from Minolta but also from other manufacturers. Pictures, tests and opinions are purely my own.
If I’m happy with a lens, it means that a) it fulfills my needs which may be different from yours and b) it only proves that it’s possible to get a good sample, which doesn’t mean you’ll get or have one. Image quality can vary a lot between different samples!
I wondered enough to finally get one, hoping to find the ultimate 40mm lens for street photography: the Minolta M-Rokkor 40mm 1:2 is a very light lens with a relatively long focus travel and a tab to further support easy focussing. And because it is in Leica M-mount it means that the register distance is short, so the total length of adapter + lens on the Sony A7R2 is also really small.
Continue reading “The ultimate 40mm lens for street photography?”
Picked up where I left off some time ago, did other photography in the meantime. I want a bolder style now, meaning more wide-angle than I did before. I took my old Olympus OM Zuiko 3.5/28 which meant manual-focus and it took me some experimenting to get (reasonably) sharp pictures from it. Today I got a picture that pleases me.
The advantage of a wider lens is that people often think they’re not in the frame. So this example is atypical because both girls spotted the photographer, being in the center of the uncropped frame.
These lenses came from people who had a home in Curaçao besides their Dutch home; the equipment probably was bought in Curaçao, but the seller couldn’t confirm that. Anyway, the total set was imported in America, as both lenses and the accompanying SR-T 200 camera bore American type designations; I don’t think Celtic lenses were sold in Europe, except maybe in the UK.
The most prominent feature of this lens is its weight indeed: with 600g it is the heaviest Minolta macro lens you can find. It is a chubby, hefty lens and it oozes mechanical quality. The matching life-size adapter is aptly provided with a tripod mount, while the adapter for the MD Macro 100/4 successor hasn’t one.
My first Minolta MC 135mm lens, this is the oldest of the two MC versions with a rubber-clad focus ring. According to Dennis Lohmann’s lens index it is the optical design with 6 elements in 5 groups; the later version has the 4/4 design in common with the early MD Tele Rokkor 135/2.8 lenses.
Found this lens last Sunday on the Dutch Fotografica fair. It was priced at € 20, I offered € 15 but the English seller didn’t understand me and said I could have it for 10. Deal struck.
This is a somewhat rare find: a Minolta Tele Rokkor-QE 200mm 1:5. The lens doesn’t have an automatic diaphragm and wide-open it’s only f/5, thus keeping the price lower. It was introduced in 1964 and so it wasn’t Minolta’s first 200mm: in 1960 Minolta brought the more expensive Auto Tele Rokkor-QF 200mm 1:3.5. In the price list shown at Dennis Lohmann’s site the 200/5 is listed for $119.50 vs. $199.50 for the Auto 200/3.5.
I bought this one to enhance my options in the 40-50mm range. My ideal standard lens is a bit shorter than 50mm and shows excellent sharpness across the frame at f/8 for landscape pictures. There’s only one other 45mm lens in my line-up, the Minolta MD Rokkor 45mm 1:2 and to be honest, I really don’t like it. Optically it is useable though not stellar, but especially the mechanics put me off: focussing feels plasticky and not at all smooth, even on the rather nice-looking copy I have now. Yuck.
Picked up this 35mm Minolta lens which is the second version of the MC 35/2.8 line-up, the one with the hills-and-dales focussing ring. In Dennis Lohmann’s list it is number 72, type MC-II.
In my ongoing quest to enhance my Minolta collection I recently acquired two nice telephoto lenses. Continue reading “Minolta 200mm and 300mm lenses”
