I just took the A900 plunge...

[lattiboy]

Hi all,


I've been active on dyxum for awhile now and have really enjoyed reading all the intelligent posts over here. There seems to be a much greater concentration of A900 owners, so I thought I'd pass my setup by you. I just ordered the 900, and won't have it until next week, but I know what my setup will be:

A900
Sigma 15-30mm
Sigma 28-70mm EX DF
Old Sigma 50mm macro
MinO 50mm f/1.7
Tamron 70-200mm SP
Big Beercan 75-300mm
an assortment of older Minolta glass: 35-70mm, 28-85mm, 28-135mm (in rough shape, but optically flawless), 100-200mm.
and a 5600HS D

Obviously I won't be using ALL this stuff, but just wanted to confirm that the first 5 lenses will perform well on FF. Especially the 15-30mm and 50mm f/1.7.

Anyway, thanks for your time....

[KevinBarrett]

Welcome to the forum, Lattiboy! That's quite a plunge indeed, but I'm confused, do you already own some of these lenses or are you planning to own them? One I would recommend hands down is the Minolta 70-210/4 "Beercan." Most of the a900 owners here swear by it, which explains why it is simply phenomenal on my a700. It's sharp from corner to corner and the bokeh is the best around, but it seems to flare like crazy on my APS-C sensor (the lens hood being useless for that crop). I like the 50/1.7, it is inexpensive enough that there's no reason not to have it, but it would be worth it at twice its normal price.

[Dr. Harout]

A big welcome from me too Lattiboy.
And of course I do wish you patience for this whole week.

[lattiboy]

Welcome to the forum, Lattiboy! That's quite a plunge indeed, but I'm confused, do you already own some of these lenses or are you planning to own them? One I would recommend hands down is the Minolta 70-210/4 "Beercan." Most of the a900 owners here swear by it, which explains why it is simply phenomenal on my a700. It's sharp from corner to corner and the bokeh is the best around, but it seems to flare like crazy on my APS-C sensor (the lens hood being useless for that crop). I like the 50/1.7, it is inexpensive enough that there's no reason not to have it, but it would be worth it at twice its normal price.

I should've clarified. I own all of those lenses. Most of them sit unused because I has a pretty substantial ASP-C centric setup (I'm selling it all http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/forum_posts.asp?TID=39099 ). I've been holding on to a lot of it in case some day in the future I decided to go FF, I had no idea it'd be so soon!

I have the big beercan (which I prefer to the 70-210mm), I hadn't seen any tests, but it was as good/better than the 70-210mm on APS-C, so I'm hoping it'll perform on FF as well.

[lattiboy]

I should also mention that I picked up the A900 for $2300 after ebay cashback here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-Alpha-DSLR-A90 ... 240%3A1318" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


The seller has more at a similar price.

[David Kilpatrick]

Hi! I think all your lenses will perform well except the older 35-70 and 28-85. I have just been using the Sigma 12-24mm and it is exceptionally good on the A900 - far, far better than it proved for me when tested on full frame Kodak a few years ago, or from examples I have seen from Canon FF. The 15-30mm is slightly lower in contrast and more prone to flare, but just as sharp and probably a better aperture and focal length range in practical terms. 12mm is not needed very often even though it's amost the only thing I use the lens for. Normally I use a 17-35mm and I am in two minds whether to get the Sigma 12-24mm as well, they overlap so much.

Very good price you got on the A900. Do not expect to see prices like that in 2009. I have already had a press notice from Minox announcing shelving of plans for half a dozen products shown at photokina, because the new economic climate would not favour their sale. Sony has warned of steep (30%) price increases in electronic goods in early 2009. We are about to see some of this gear returned to the same relative price it had 30 years ago, when a basic Hasselblad or a Nikon F2 Photomic cost one-tenth the price of a family house.

David

[bakubo]

Hi! I think all your lenses will perform well except the older 35-70 and 28-85. I have just been using the Sigma 12-24mm and it is exceptionally good on the A900 - far, far better than it proved for me when tested on full frame Kodak a few years ago, or from examples I have seen from Canon FF. The 15-30mm is slightly lower in contrast and more prone to flare, but just as sharp and probably a better aperture and focal length range in practical terms. 12mm is not needed very often even though it's amost the only thing I use the lens for. Normally I use a 17-35mm and I am in two minds whether to get the Sigma 12-24mm as well, they overlap so much.

I had forgotten about the Sigma 15-30mm. I guess if I was to get an A900 I might consider getting it rather than getting the 12-24 *and* 17-35mm. Just one lens intead of two.

Very good price you got on the A900. Do not expect to see prices like that in 2009. I have already had a press notice from Minox announcing shelving of plans for half a dozen products shown at photokina, because the new economic climate would not favour their sale. Sony has warned of steep (30%) price increases in electronic goods in early 2009. We are about to see some of this gear returned to the same relative price it had 30 years ago, when a basic Hasselblad or a Nikon F2 Photomic cost one-tenth the price of a family house.

Whew! I hope not.

My recollection is that back in the mid-1970s the Nikon F2 Photomic body was sold for about US$550 -- about US$2,215 in 2008 dollars. They must have been a lot more expensive in the U.K.

[David Kilpatrick]

Whew! I hope not.

My recollection is that back in the mid-1970s the Nikon F2 Photomic body was sold for about US$550 -- about US$2,215 in 2008 dollars. They must have been a lot more expensive in the U.K.

They were. I bought my first house in 1972 - three bedrooms, one bathroom, one living/dining room, one kitchen and not much else (not even central heating or double glazing, and only one or two at the most power points in each room, no garage, no wall lights, no carpets, no decoration apart from a paint wash, no roof insulation, no TV aerial, gas to one fireplace and one cooker point - that was a Wimpey Homes standard semi-detched entry level house!). It cost £4,400. The same year a Hasselblad 500C with 80mm f2.8 and one back cost £408.05, a Leica M4 with Summicron f2 was £336.50 (unbelievably, the Rollei SL35 with 50mm f1.8 Planar cost only £6.50 less...), the Nikon F Photomic Tn was £311.89 with 50mm f2. The F2 would have put the price up quite a bit but I can't find how much, a couple of years later.

Our first house was a newly built semi (newly built a couple of years before) and in fairness, we could have paid £5,500 for a better specified properly glazed and heated Barratt house nearby which we originally put a deposit on but they never got built in time, so we went for what was available. A terraced 3-bed house or an older one would have been more like £3-3,500 so these cameras then did cost 1/10th the price of a home. It was no so different by the end of the 1970s, everything had increased in price, but in the 1980s the trends started to happen here which produced ultra-expensive houses and dirt-cheap consumer goods.

The US was always very different - anything you could buy was far less expensive relative to earnings, including real estate. It is getting much closer today, between the UK and US - and also between the UK and Europe.

David

[bossel]

- and also between the UK and Europe.

That's a typical misunderstanding - we "continental europeans" think the UK is part of Europe (well, European Union). Ok, there are some oddities, like plum pudding, haggish, GBP and english coffee, but we're tolerant But then, other european countries also have strange habits, like eating frog legs etc . And the bavarians think they're a free state and not really Germany. Good I am not a politician!

[David Kilpatrick]

- and also between the UK and Europe.

That's a typical misunderstanding - we "continental europeans" think the UK is part of Europe (well, European Union). Ok, there are some oddities, like plum pudding, haggish, GBP and english coffee, but we're tolerant But then, other european countries also have strange habits, like eating frog legs etc . And the bavarians think they're a free state and not really Germany. Good I am not a politician!

Last year a friend offered to sell a house in the south of France to us for 140,000 Euros - that was £90,000 back then. It looked attractive and the cost of living in the south of France is about 1/3rd the cost of living in Scotland - partly much lower food costs and local taxes, mainly MUCH lower fuel bills (my monthly gas and electricity and rates bills here would have paid the mortgage to buy that house). Of course, I am very cautious and never act on impulse - it was a lovely small village house - so I didn't do anything. Now that E140k would be more like £115-120k. A similar type of house in Scotland would have been £200k in 2007, now it would be around - £120k or not sell at all...

So, someone in 2007 could have sold in Scotland and moved to Provence at half price - now (if they could manage to sell anything, which very few can) it would be more likely to be equal.

That's how things have changed between the UK and 'Europe' (for us, mainly France/Italy/Greece/Spain as not many people have made economic/lifestyle based moves to Holland, Germany, etc).

David

[caporip]

Welcome and congrats i think youll be very happy!

David Kilpatrick said :-

Very good price you got on the A900. Do not expect to see prices like that in 2009. I have already had a press notice from Minox announcing shelving of plans for half a dozen products shown at photokina, because the new economic climate would not favour their sale. Sony has warned of steep (30%) price increases in electronic goods in early 2009. We are about to see some of this gear returned to the same relative price it had 30 years ago, when a basic Hasselblad or a Nikon F2 Photomic cost one-tenth the price of a family house.

I remember buying a brand new Nikon F2A in 1982 from one of the porters at the bank i worked at for £220 if i recall which was a small fortune in those days (mind you I was single and had no kids then........sigh)

[bakubo]

The status of the UK/Europe relationship is rather difficult to figure out. I know the UK is not a full member of the EU and has a different currency, but for someone on the outside, where the UK sits with regards to the EU it is all pretty confusing. I guess you guys have it all figured out though.

[bakubo]

David, it is interesting hearing about houses there in the early 1970s and amazing that cameras cost such a large percentage of the price of one of them. In 1975 I had my head set on getting a Nikon F2 Photomic, but by the time I felt like I could afford it I decided to go for the Minolta XK instead. I think I paid $485 for the body and at the same time I bought a 50mm f1.4 (don't recall the price on the lens, but probably something like $125). It was a bit cheaper than the Nikon and also had some cool new features: aperture priority mode, grip sensor, silicon cell light meter. Minolta always seemed to give more bang for the buck. I also wanted a camera with a changeable finder like the XK and F2. After buying the XK though I grew to hate that feature. I never bought any other finders and it just made the camera bulkier and heavier. After the first few months I just didn't use the XK that much and in 1983 I got an X-700 which I liked much more. The XK was a very nice camera, just not for me. I sold it to a collector in Japan in 2000 for $500. I still had the original box and packing materials for the body, original box for the finder, original manual/warranty info/lens brochure/etc.

[David Kilpatrick]

The XK was far more expensive in other parts of the world. In 1974 (? I think) Minolta gave me an XE-1, 24mm, 50mm f1.4 and 80-200mm zoom in exchange for one year's worth of small UK club magazine articles and the use of a sheet of 24 slides by Japan, from which they picked some shots to use on lens boxes. I think the value was over £500 ($1000 then). Ashvin Gatha, a famous Indian photographer who I think was with Magnum at the time, was given an XK (actually XM in that region) with similar lenses for some poster shots. In 1976, Ashvin's XM was really badly beaten-up and he was keen to swap it for my nearly mint XE-1 (at photokina) because Minolta would not give him a new one, and he used his cameras in terrible conditions - dust, rain, mud, everything. Of course I kept my XE-1!

We later got a beautiful XM-AES - the silicon cell model, with the improved prism - along with waist level, magnifier finders, screens, flash accessories and related parts. This was one I found secondhand, in fine condition, in the early 1980s. The AE-S prism was far superior to the AE. It was still much too heavy to use as a regular camera, but was something beautiful to have for a period before it got a new home.

In the Leitz catalogue are the three Minolta lenses which made it to the Leicaflex system in 1974 - the Fisheye-Elmarit-R f2.8 16mm, the Elmarit-R f2.8 24mm, and the Vario-Elmar-R f4.5 80-200mm. These are the only lenses labelled 'only for the Leicaflex SL2'. They were the only ones at that time made by Minolta, as well. After the zoom listing, is this item:

For use on the Vario-Elmar-£ f4.5 80-200mm
Achromatic front lens by MINOLTA, type 0 for extending the focusing range from 0.86 to 1.28m.... ....MINOLTA code no 1475

The only real acknowledgment of their contribution!

David

[bakubo]

Right you are! I had the AE finder with cds photo cells. For some reason my memory played tricks on me a few minutes ago and I was thinking that it had silicon cells. The silicon cells didn't come in until the AES finder.