Playing With Lenses

Friday, 22 April 2022

Winter blanket: Minolta AF APO TELE ZOOM 100-300mm 1:4.5(32)-5.6

Cost: $39.9 (average cost: $80)

Although there was later "D" version that is considered the best version of this lens, the changes are minimal from the later and the previous versions. And I must say I'm impressed.

Picture quality is great with rich colors, good sharpness across the image and little aberration. As you can see from the samples, even when shooting completely open, I still maintained decent sharpness.

The lens itself has the same look as most Minolta APO lenses of this era, but it has a solid, well constructed feel to it.

Where this lens really shines, is the handling with a fast focus with my adapter on the Sony. For a maximum zoom length of 300mm, this is a small lens, and therefore very easy to handle. It's pretty light, although still feeling substantial, for a lens of this range, and therefore very easy to keep steady. It was a solid performer for some tele wildlife but also for some wide (if you can call 100mm wide) landscape shots.

I like this lens... I'm pretty sure i will use it more often if I need the the 300mm reach but not want to take the heavy and much larger Minolta 75-300mm.

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 100-200mm
Maximum Aperture: F4.5-5.6
Minimum Aperture: F32
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: Minolta AF
Optics: 11 elements, 10 groups
Blades: 9
Focusing: Auto (+ Manual)
Minimum Focus: 1.5m

Filter Size: 55mm
Weight: 435g
Length: 102-112mm
Production: 1993
Serial Number: 14405445
Made in: Japan

More information on Minolta

More sample pictures at dyxum.com forums

Samples:

1/320 sec. f/5.6 295mm ISO160 - Handheld - Cropped

1/320 sec. f/4.5 100mm ISO125 - Handheld - Cropped

1/320 sec. f/4.5 100mm ISO320 - Handheld - Cropped

1/320 sec. f/5 118mm ISO320 - Handheld - Cropped

1/320 sec. f/5 118mm ISO400 - Handheld - Cropped

1/320 sec. f/5 118mm ISO2000 - Handheld

1/320 sec. f/4.5 100mm ISO1000 - Handheld

1/320 sec. f/4.5 100mm ISO5000 - Handheld

Sources:

dyxum.com

Thursday, 3 February 2022

Heavy Reach: RMC Tokina 100-300mm 1:5 Close Focus

Cost: $19.99 (market price around $40)

Let's not kid ourselves. This is a heavy lens compared to newer zoom lenses, but possible smaller and lighter than some of the latest zoom beasts out there.

It's a good traditional looking metal lens, with a build-in hood, and smooth focus, zoom and aperture rings. Very easy to focus, pretty fast in the tele range, and a pleasure to take pictures with.

Again not to much to be found on the lens, as it seems to be more rare then it's brother, the 1:5.6, but also stated to have better quality.

Rich colors, but strong color aberration in the tele-zoom range. Where the lens really shines is in the close focus range. Very sharp with a lot of depth. a reason to keep this lens.

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 100-300mm
Maximum Aperture: F5
Minimum Aperture: 22
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: OM
Optics: ? elements, ? groups (?)
Blades: 8
Focusing: Manual
Minimum Focus: 200cm, 48cm in Macro Focus
Filter Size: 62mm
Weight: 880g
Length: 170-178-mm
Production: 1980's?
Serial Number: 7916377
Made in: Japan

More information on Tokina

Samples:

Handheld

Handheld Close focus

Handheld

Reference:

AllPhotoLenses.com

Underwhelming: Cosina AF Zoom 28-70 f3.5-4.5 MC

Cost: $29.9 (market price around $25)

As this lens was manufactured by Cosinon under license by Minolta, it should be very comparable in quality to a Minolta Maxum lens of the same era. Indeed, the lens feels very solid and has a nice quality feel to it. It kind of pushes me to collect more Cosino lenses.

But in use, I did feel a little underwhelmed. Even though the auto focus worked with the "Monster Adapter", the focus was rarely accurate, and even when in focus I thought it could be a lot sharper.

Colors are accurate, but not very rich.

There wasn't much to find online about this lens, but the few reviews I found thought it to be pretty good for an early auto zoom lens, on par with some of the better kit lenses. this was not the case for me, but it could have been the adapter instead of the lens.

I will probably keep it as it is a little rare, but don't expect it will be used much.

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 28-70mm
Maximum Aperture: F3.5-4.5
Minimum Aperture:
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: Minolta AF
Optics: 7 elements, 7 groups (?)
Blades: 8
Focusing: Auto
Minimum Focus: 0.8m
Filter Size: 52mm
Weight: 335g
Length: 79-mm
Production: 1990's?
Serial Number: 99073018
Made in: Japan, licensed by Minolta

More information on Cosina

Samples:

1/50 sec - f20 - 62mm - ISO100 - Handheld

1/50 sec - f20 - 50mm - ISO100 - Handheld

1/50 sec - f13 - 40mm - ISO100 - Handheld

1/50 sec - f8 - 62mm - ISO100 - Handheld

1/80 sec - f4.5 - 62mm - ISO125 - Handheld

Saturday, 25 September 2021

A little stuck: Sigma Zoom Master 1:3.5-4.5 f=35-70mm Multi-Coated

Cost: $19.9 (market price around $20)

I would presume this lens was sold as a first generation auto-focus kit replacement lens. I would not expect to much of this lens, but when I found one in a local thrift store, and I was looking for more Minolta AF lenses to play with, it actually spoke to me.

The lens is very solid, almost heavy for such a small lens. As the exterior is made of (strong) plastic, the weight must come from a lot of glass inside the lens.

Both manual and auto focus work very well and smooth, resulting in proper edge-to-edge sharp pictures. Sadly enough, the zoom was not smooth at all on this specific copy. It made it a lot harder to use and likely not a keeper, despite the good image quality. A smarter man might try to fix it, as I'm sure that's possible, but I do not want to spent time on a such a cheap lens.

Aside from this problem, the lens has nice rich colors and almost no color aberration.

To bad from the zoom issue, as it would be a really good walk around less otherwise.

More examples on Flikr.

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 35-70mm
Maximum Aperture: F3.5-4.5
Minimum Aperture: F25
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: Minolta AF
Optics: ? elements, ? groups
Blades: 6
Focusing: Auto
Minimum Focus: 0.5m
Filter Size: 52mm
Weight: 314g
Length: 58-84mm
Production: 1988
Serial Number: 1000488
Made in: Japan

More information on Sigma

Samples: