Minolta 28-85mm original metal version

[braeside]

Using David Kilpatrick's idea of trying old lenses on the A900, I have just bought an original Minolta 28-85mm lens on eBay for £50 and will report back later. At that price it is worth trying and selling if it isn't good enough. I already have a 24-85mm Minolta, so it will be interesting to compare them on FF.

[artaphot]

I have tried it, since I own all of the 1st genration zooms. The lens is not particularly impressive, especially since the 28-135mm is so good:
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http://artaphot.ch/index.php?option=com ... &Itemid=43" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Greetings, Steve

[braeside]

Yes I would love a 28-135mm but they are difficult to find now especially after all the good reports!

[sparaxis]

I have the original-original version. In other words in MD mount. It dates from the late 1970's early 1980's and at the time was considered one of the first 28-85 or so lenses to be of acceptable quality. Along with the 35-105 and 70-210 it made it into the autofocus era pretty much unchanged.

Scanning high resolution film in a Dimage 5400 scanner is almost as revealing as a A900. This is what I found:

The lens is capable of excellent results under ideal conditions:
Do not use it wider than 35mm, and stop down to f8 or f11. Then the images are very sharp across the field.
HOWEVER. Shooting at f3.5 and 28mm is a disaster. "Mushy" would be a charitable description of the corner performance.

A good one would probably be quite OK on a APS-C camera, especially stopped down a bit.
Although they are quite cheap I think there are better alternatives out there.

The 28-135 is huge, expensive and not easy to find. (KEH usually has them though). I also undestand that they tend to be easy to whack out of adjustment, so even a clean looking one could be a dog. I am curious to hear David's Feedback on the 28-105. That may be a good alternative. They seem to be relative cheap right now.

Alan

[braeside]

I have also sent for a new Tamron 28-75mm/2.8, this is a lens that I have used in its Minolta form before, so I am pretty hopeful it will perform.

I hope that Sony bring out a decent 24-105mm/120mm SSM lens in the future. I'm not looking for f/2.8 optics if they can get decent f/3.5-4.5 or constant f/4 that would be perfectly fine (and much smaller/lighter). In other words something like the range and speed of the CZ 16-80 on APS-C.

I have mixed feelings about the Zeiss 24-70/2.8, too expensive for the range it covers and far too big heavy for my use, where I don't need f/2.8.

My line up for a while will be:

Zooms:
Tamron 17-35/2.8-4
Tamron 28-75/2.8
Sony 70-300 SSM G
Minolta 80-200/2.8 HS-G

Primes:
Sigma 24/2.8
Minolta 50/1.7
Minolta 100/2.8 macro

I'll keep the Minolta 24-85mm/3.5-4.5 for my film camera.
Will see how the Minolta 28-85/3.5-4.5 works and likely sell it.

[David Kilpatrick]

I have the original-original version. In other words in MD mount. It dates from the late 1970's early 1980's and at the time was considered one of the first 28-85 or so lenses to be of acceptable quality. Along with the 35-105 and 70-210 it made it into the autofocus era pretty much unchanged.

The 28-105mm RS which I have just bought one of uses two moulded aspheric elements and these did not exist in the days of MD lenses. It appears to perform very well on the A900.

David

[sparaxis]

David,

I am referring to the 28-85mm, not the 28-105 mm, which started out life as the 28-105 mm Xi, which had hybrid aspherics like the 35-70 f4.0.

I am not sure when Minolta started using moulded aspherics. Certainly the first time they seemed to advertise the fact was with the either the 24-85 or 24-105.

Alan

[David Kilpatrick]

Sorry! The 28-85mm is not very good, I checked it out on the 7D and it was not really good enough for that. The first lens to use an aspheric element with Minolta's patent hybrid plastic/glass design was the 35-70mm f/4. Tamron licensed the hybrid tech from Minolta, or bought-in elements made by Minolta. It is impossible to say for sure whether some Tamron designs are their own, or were developed from the start by Minolta - nearly all the modern lenses use glass-plastic hybrid aspherics, and they may all be the result of Minolta, KM, or KM-Tamron and later Sony(ex-KM)-Tamron design team work.

By using aspheric hybrids, Min/KM was able to reduce the requirement for a 3-4X zoom to four elements. That is incredible, and it it made some of the Vectis and Riva compacts the best in the world. It also enabled the TC-1's G lens to have only four elements.

Sigma never wanted to spend the money on Minolta's concept, but was was working with Leica at the time making many Leica R lenses (a fact which Leica will never allow Sigma to mention - they designed and made the 24mm Elmarit-R revision which replaced the Minolta-made original). Leitz had pressed-aspheric technology and Sigma acquired this know-how, and have used pressed glass aspheric ever since.

Hybrid aspherics have lower contrast than pressed aspherics, but cost much less to make, so it is easier to design two or more hybrid elements into a lens.

David

[bakubo]

Sigma never wanted to spend the money on Minolta's concept, but was was working with Leica at the time making many Leica R lenses (a fact which Leica will never allow Sigma to mention - they designed and made the 24mm Elmarit-R revision which replaced the Minolta-made original).

I didn't know that. Do you know if the Sigma 24mm f2.8 has any relationship to the Leica lens? The Sigma has over the years gotten some really good reviews. I bought one in Tokyo in 1991 and have always liked it. I have been using it on my A700 and it still looks quite good.

[braeside]

I have the Sigma Super-Wide II 24mm/2.8 (the AF version that has focus assist, but not actual AF drive). It is very sharp, though does have distortion that needs correcting for Architectural subjects.
Incidentally PTLens has correction for this lens and it uses the same correction coefficients as the Zuiko 24mm/2.8 which may give a clue as to its origins.

[sparaxis]

The current Leica 24mm R lens is a distant descendant of the old 9 element/7 group MC Rokkor, and thus does not bear any relation to anything from Sigma. Leica recomputed the lens after Minolta stopped making the elements for them as it used some Minolta specific glass. Sigma did produce the "cheap" 28-70 f3.5-4.5 Vario Elmar R standard zoom. Leica switched to Sigma after Minolta stopped making the manual focus 35-70 f 3.5.

You can read more about this in Erwin Put's leica Lens Compendium.

Alan

[sparaxis]

I just went and re-read the relevant parts of the book.

It seems the current leica R- mount 24 mm is the famous old Minolta MC 24 mm formula, but tweaked to make up for the fact that some of the glasses are no longer available.

The 16mm Fisheye, as well as the 80-200, 75-200, 70-210 and first generation zooms were Minolta made.

Interestingly, these lenses caused Leica to revise the lens mount, as the Minolta wideanges have a shorter back focus. They also added another cam. They cannot be used on Leicas earlier than the R3.

In Leica matters Erwin Puts is a man to be believed. His writings are even to be found on the Leica website.

Minolta in turn used a lot of other subcontractors over the years
A parallel to all the Tamron derived lenses of the 2000's were the Tokina's of the early 1980's
35-105, 35-135, 100-300 are ones I know about.
Later on there were some Cosinas at the very end of the MD era.

According to an old article (Late 1980's), the original 7000 series of cameras was so succesful that Minolta subcontracted many of the lenses to other manufactures. (Sigma was conspicuously not one of them). So that first generation Minolta lenses could be from someone like Tokina, Cosina, Kobori, Yabe or Tamron. Minolta designs manufactured under contract.

In later years before the Hoya take over, Pentax sold a thinly disgused Tamron 28-200.

Anyone notice how similar the lens diagrams for the "Zeiss" 16-35 wideangle zoom are to the Tamron 11-18 and 17-35. (And nothing like the Contax N version)

What does "designed by Sony in consulatation with Zeiss" really mean anyway?

Alan

[01af]

The current Leica Elmarit-R 24 mm lens is a distant descendant of the old 9-element/7-group MC Rokkor ...

Not true. Leica has stopped using the nine-element W.Rokkor 24 mm or descendants thereof approx. 15 years ago.

... and thus does not bear any relation to anything from Sigma.

For the current Elmarit-R 24 mm, bearing some relationship with Sigma is more likely than with Minolta. However I think it actually relates to neither of the two.

Leica recomputed the lens after Minolta stopped making the elements for them as it used some Minolta-specific glass.

Yes. But that's twenty years ago, and since then the Leica-revised Rokkor 24 mm has been replaced by entirely new designs at least once, if not twice.

Sigma did produce the "cheap" Vario-Elmar-R 28-70 mm f/3.5-4.5 standard zoom. Leica switched to Sigma after Minolta stopped making the manual-focus 35-70 mm f/3.5.

That's right. But does anybody know if Leica still works with Sigma today? Is the current Leica standard zoom still Sigma-made? I don't know ...

Interestingly, these lenses caused Leica to revise the lens mount, as the Minolta wide-angles have a shorter back focus.

You are very quick at deriving conclusions from incomplete information.

The revision of the lens mount had nothing to do with the bayonet's flange distance; it remained unchanged. The reason for the change was not the Rokkor lenses' shorter flange distance but the introduction of TTL metering and improvements in the couplings between lens and body in the Leica R range of SLR cameras.

-- Olaf

[sparaxis]

My comments on the 24mm Elmarit R, were based on the writings of Erwin Puts, as available *today* on the Leica Website in the document "Puts_Column_19-24_mm_Leica_R_Lenses_en.pdf", the document is dated 2003. Of interest, the 24mm Elmarit is not currently listed. In this document he states:

"The LEICA ELMARIT-R 24mm f/2.8 has a long history. In the period of the cooperation with Minolta this lens was adopted from a Minolta design and packaged in a Leitz mount.The glass elements were from Minolta and other manufacturers. In a later stage Minolta stopped producing the lens and Leitz had to adapt the lens design to the use of different glass types from different glass manufacturers."

Based on the source of the document as Leica themselves, I have to believe it. They would hardly be inclined to sanction something that is incorrect.

The 28-70 Sigma derived lens has been replaced by the Vario-Elmar-R 35-70 F4.0. Whether Sigma still makes anything for Leica is anyone's guess. The Vario-Elmar-R is a LEICA design.

As to the lensmount, perhaps I should have gone into more detail than the simplistic comment:

The R3 was based on the Minolta XE1. The cam follower for transferring aperture information to the body is quite different than that used on the SL2, thus the addition of a new cam. The shorter backfocus is significant only in that the 24mm and the fisheye could not be used on an older Leicaflex - The mirror would hit the back of the lens. The R3 and the R4 would have no problem as they were based on Minoltas. Older lenses could be modified to meter correctly with the R3.

The R3 and XE1(XE7) were closer than the XD7 (XD11) and R4 and later. The XE1 used the Copal-Leitz shutter and was very similar all round to the R3. Although the R4 was based on the XD7 there were some significant changes. If I am not mistaken the mirror box was different.

Alan

[David Kilpatrick]

I've got myself into trouble re Sigma before - they make much more than you imagine, just like Tokina which is the lens making wing of Hoya - without whose glass hardly any lens MF could operate. All lens makers currently source glass from several origins, from Schott (Zeiss/B+W/Rodenstock/Heliopan OEM) to Pilkington (Dow Corning), Hoya, Konica Minolta, Cosina, Sigma.

Sigma is unique in the level of hand assembly offered. That's why they made many DSLRs before DSLRs became mainstream. They make more Olympus kit than Oly would ever admit. Why do you think they are so successful businesswise?

David