pbcbob Loc: Delray Beach, FL

That is my most versatile lens. ( Sony 70-400 G).

markwilliam1

I’d offer to sell my Like New Sony 70-400 G lens here but don’t know how. Want $999.00 paid over $2000!

In-lightened Loc: Kansas City

I have a Minolta X-700 and a 50mm looks to be a 2.0 lens. Is this lens from the generation you are referring to? Any way to use this with my Nikon gear with adapter or?

markwilliam1

Don’t think so! I’m just referring to those 3 Minolta AF lenses from 1985.

pbcbob Loc: Delray Beach, FL

Click on My Profile at top left of page. Scroll down just a little to where it says you can subscribe to all sections Here and click. Scroll down to Members Buy Sell and Trade and join. That is all.

markwilliam1

Thanks So Much!

jackinkc Loc: Kansas City

Minolta also made lenses for the Leica R camera and at least one compact rangefinder camera which was sold under both Leica and Minolta brands.

Bill P

There were, in the time of film, a number of cameras manufacturers that made exceptional lenses. Many had distinctive things about them. That was because, unlike today, all lenses were designed by hand by an engineer using a slide rule or a pocket calculator. Now there are computer programs that, although each operated by a specific engineer, produce similar results. Minolta was one, another was Olympus.Canon and Nikon lenses had distinctly different looks.

Unfortunately, some had a reputation for unreliable bodies. One was Minolta. I had a friend who oneday notices a burning sensation in his thigh. He looked down and saw smoke coming out of his pants pocket. He pulled out his Minolta P&S film camera, which was in the process of committing suicide. Oops.

SierraP Loc: Eastern Sierras

I own 45 Minolta and Sigma lenses. MC, MD, & AF. A real lenses junkie.
We compared projected images, side by side with all other brands. Couldnt tell
Minolta from any others.

potica69

In 1994 I bought a Minolta 400si and several prime lenses. One of those lenses was the Minolta 100mm F/2.

That 100 F/2 was probably my favorite lense of all times. Outstanding for portraits and other shots. Extremely sharp!

In 2007, I bought the Sony A100, since it would take all the automatic Minolta lenses I had.

Here is a sample shot using the Sony A100 & the Minolta 100mm F/2 lense:

Larry Powell Loc: Columbus OH

I am also shooting A77MK II with mostly 1985 Minolta AF, Have 50mm 1.7, 35-105, 28-85, 70-210 f4 Beer can, 100-200 little beer can. I am now looking for fixed focals. I really like these lenses. Great images and very affordable. I had a Minolta 7xi with crappy xi lenses and like you went initially with Alpha 350 to continue to use other Minolta glass I bought. When the 77II came out I jumped on it. This is one fantastic camera. The video is quite sweet too and being able to shoot video for 29 minutes vs the 11 minutes the Canon 80 can do is a huge difference. Come on 11 minutes???? I am quite happy with the combination. It is good to hear another talk them up.

Lary

Bipod

I been collecting Minolta cameras and lenses for a number of years: MR, MD and A-mount.
All the Minolta Rokkor lens I have tried have been decent performers in photographic use.
The prime lenses are very good to excellent.

I don't use Sony lenses, so I can't comment on them.

Minolta was founded in 1928, and Konica, with which it merged in 2003, even further back in
1873--even before Eastman Kodak. Many Konica Minolta lenses are versions of superb old
Konica designs (the short 40.5 mm flange focal distance of Konica lenses makes them hard
to use with other makes of camera, so the Konica Minolta versions are the ones to buy).

Minolta (and even more so Konica Minolta) had a lot of camera models in production--
from pocket P&Ss to top-of-the-line DLSRs -- most or all made by the company, not outsourced..
In fact, the lack of long-lived, iconic models is one reason that Minolta is not better emembered
today by many photographers. There were many good models between the SRT-101 and the highly
innovative Maxxum/Dynax/Alpha 7000 -- so many that it's hard to keep them straight. That's
equally true of the Maxxum line. The model numbers don't help much.

The following is how I think about the questions of the "best" lens. It's not the final word,
I don't claim its rigorously correct. and I'm open to suggestions. However, it won't do just say
a lens is "good" without saying "compared to what?" and "for what purpose?". Also, it's
necessary to understand the forces driving the market.

To the best of my knowledge, optical glass quality hasn't changed, but the quantity of glass
in a zoom lens has increased greatly, and new types of glass have become available. Some lenses
now have more than 30 elements in more than 15 groups. All that glass absorbs a lot of light
(decreasing the effective speed of the lens) and also tints the color of the light. Often yellow and
bluish glass are combined to minimize tinting (at the cost of aborption).

Tinting can be corrected in processing (if you remember to do) but absoption makes the lens effectively
slower: less fast than it's widest aperature would indicate.

The increase in optical complexity over the last 40 years is not arbitrary, it was driven by:
* The consumer's prefrence for zoom lenses -- increasing convenience but decreasing image quality
and making lenses much more expensive
* The consumer's desire for a "walk-around", "do-everything" lens
* The consumer's willingness to turn up the ISO (or use auto-ISO), offsettting the reduction in speed
but increasing image noise
* Slightly better lens coatings
* The use of MTF graphs in spec sheets and published reviews

Lens coatings have gotten slightly better -- but not enough to offset the enormous increase in number
of glass/air surfaces. And any coating is only as good as the quality control in manufacture (which is
expensive -- a lot easier for a profitable and growing company to afford than one that is facing a
declining digital camera market -- the situtation today. Scrapping a bad batch of elements greatly
increases unit cost.)

MTF graphs are both good an bad:
* Good measure of lens aberrations
* Poor measure of lens contrast (not tested with light fro outside the angle of view--a common cause
of flare -- especially in zooms not having adjustable lens hoods)
* No measure of lens absorption ("t-stop") or tinting of light

As you're probalby aware, primes and zooms are different animals. And zooms designs can be
divided into two types:
* linear (the classic telephoto "beer can" zoom) which zoom by sliding, and in which alternate groups
all move all move together
* rotational -- zooms by moving the outer barrel which contains cams slots that cause various groups
to move at various rates.

Rotational zooms can be further split depending on their range: wide-wide, wide-normal, normal-long,
or wide-normal-long. The greater the range, the greater the trade-offs in the design.

It's important to understand that there is no perfect zoom lens design (the long telephotos come closest),
and even if there was it couldn't be manufactured perfectly. All those moving parts have mechanical
tolerances.

Old prime lenses (vs. new prime lenses):
Pros: inexpensive, sharp, contrasty
Cons: coatings not quite as good as the best available today, some glass (e.g. calcium flourite) not available

Old linear ("beer can") / classic telephoto zooms (vs. new ones):
Pros: inexpensive, correction close to contemporary linear/telephoto zooms, less glass = less absorption by glass and tinting of light
Cons: slightly less well-well corrected, perhaps, slightly more distortion

Old rotational zooms (vs. new ones):
Pros: fewer moving groups so more robust and less variation in units produced, less glass = less absorption by glass (faster)
and less tinting of light, in a few cases less flare (varies)
Cons: much more geometric (Petzval) distortion, more aberrations, inso

To sum up: for primes, there is little difference (exept the money you save!). Many Konica Minolta lenses
were repackaged superb Konica lenses.

For zooms, it depends on the type of photography you do;
* Telephoto: primes, or new or old linear zooms will perform well
* Architecture, the best choice is a prime (old or new) or contemporary zoom if necessary
* Portraits: old zooms (with softer focus, especially off-axis) may look better
* Landscape: primes, new or old. A contrasty and flare-resistant lens can be important.
In extremely contrasty situations, a contemporary zoom can be used to reduce contrast.

For AF lenses in general, there is an important reasons to prefer old Minolta A-mount lenses over
contempory Nikon and Canon AF lenses: the former are not motorized. Minolta invented the
"driveshaft" AF, used in Minolta and Konica Minolta A-mount lenses, where the motor is
located in the camera. Unmotorized lenses are:
* Smaller
* Lighter
* Cheaper
* More robust
In any thrift store you are likely to find both Minolta A-mount and Canon EOS AF lenses.
The Minolta's probably still work; the Canons are there because they don't (and would be too
expensive to fix or parts aren't available).

Minolta was founded in 1928, and was a top maker of optics for industry (it still is) as well as
for photography (a business it exited in 2006--which turned out to be a very smart business move
given the steep decline in the digital camera beginning in 2011).

Minolta merged with Konica in 2003 and became Konica Minolta. Konica was a premier lens maker--
tracing its history back to 1873--even before Eastman Kodak!

One factor may be that Monilta's and even more Konica Minolta's production volumes were huge--at any
given time it could have as many camera models and Nikon and Canon put together (and it used the same
glass in many cameras). It could exploit economies of scale and all the beneifts of statistical process control.

Actually, the lack of iconic, long-lived models is one reason that Minolta is not better remembered
by photography buffs. There were many good camera models between the SRT-101 and the Maxxum7000
-- so many that it's confusing. The same goes for the Maxxum line (althogh the naming of models became
more standardized). Even after all these years, I keep coming across 30 year-old Minolta cameras I've never
seen before. Minotal was perhaps the most innovative camera manufactuer of its era apart from the original
(Edmund H. Land) Polaroid.

One huge reason to prefer Minolta AF (A-mount) lenses over contermporary AF lenses from Nikon and Canon
is that they aren't motorized. Minolta invented "driveshaft" autofocus, in which the motor is located in the camera.
This makes Minolta AF lenses:
* smaller
* lighter
* cheaper
* more reliable
than contmporary AF lenses. At almost any thrift store you may find Minolta AF and CanonAF lenses.
The Minolta ones still work, the Canon ones are there because they don't.

Sure, lens mount adapters are a hassle, but the ones that do not contain an optic are relatiely trouble free.
There is an inconvenience to using a manual lens (or unsupported AF lens) with an AF camera.

The bottom line is that if someone can buy a well-made lens inexpensively, it makes sense to try to figure
out what subjects it's best for, and try to use it. As the OP has found, you don't have to pay a lot for a
lens to take a great picture -- particularly if one doesn't insist that insist that every piece of gear be tiny,
convenient and the very latest technology.

A lot of photographs hanging in art museums today were taken wtth a Cooke Triplet or a Tessar.
Those were very contrasty and quite sharp in the center of field.

Ltgk20 Loc: Salisbury, NC

I picked up my first Minolta in 1986: The Maxxum 7000 with a 50f1.7 and eventually got a 70-210f4. I followed the 7000 with a 700si, then an a100, a700, a99 and now a99ii. I've had the opportunity to own many of the classics: 135f2.8 (pocket rocket), 35-105 macro, 100f2 (amazing lens), 17-35f2.8-4, 16f2.8 fisheye, 200f2.8 (amazing sharpness), 80-200f2.8 HS and a few Sony rebrands: 35f1.4, 1002.8 macro, 500f8 mirror and 135f2.8 STF. To me the 200f2.8, 80-200f2.8, 100f2 and the 135 STF are truly special.

Finally, it's amazing just how fast the a99ii will drive the screw lenses.

Kuzano

More info than most Minolta Gearheads can digest...............FIND IT ON THE "ROKKOR" FILES HERE.......

http://www.rokkorfiles.com/

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

So????

Guess who can't make a sensor?