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 p.5 #3 · Introducing LA-EA5 | Mount Adaptor | Sony | Accessory | |
Dave Sanders wrote:
Hah, sure, we're going back some years, though, and I never shot them on digital, so you'll have to frame my impressions through that lens.
The 28/2 was my most used lens, full stop. I put thousands and thousands of exposures on it over the years. I was a big Fujichrome user so we're mostly talking Velvia 50 and Provia 100 with the occasional Astia 100. So, yeah, Velvia 50, that takes care of any talk about colour reproduction haha. I thought the 28/2 had very nice bokeh and and it was, for the time, very sharp in the centre straight from f/2. I usually used f/8 or f/11 for landscapes for DOF but f/5.6 was, for me at the time, critically sharp to the edges and corners. Bokeh always struck me as smooth at the time, but again, film and shallow DOF can do wonders on the bokeh front. Now, I was looking at exposures on a light table or maybe a contact sheet before printing, not at 100% on a 4k monitor, so do my old impressions stand up to how I evaluate photos now? Likely not.
That said, my MF kit at the time included an RTSII and I had the 28/2.8 Distagon and I preferred the Minolta on all fronts. I liked but never loved the Zeiss 28/2.8 and still don't totally understand the adoration for that lens. I blame the fact that its stablemate was the 28/2 and I liked it a lot better. So that may be considered high praise, everyone's mileage may vary, of course.
The 85/1.4 G (D) LTD is a lens that I regret selling, but honestly more as the investment it appears to have become. I owned the 85/1.4 G (non D) and when I was buying film and talking lenses at my favourite shop in Seoul, one of the guys showed me the LTD that they just had come in. So I traded my G and gave over a bunch of hard earned cash on got the LTD. Then as now, I was obsessed with the lower contrast look of Fujichrome Astia so my impressions of any portrait lens of the period are, pardon the pun, coloured by that. The LTD, in my memory, was sharper than my G for the first few stops and the bokeh was also softer so images had the impression of more background separation. Was it night-and-day? Likely not, but I had no ability to do real side-by-sides then.
The tricky part comes in when it comes to my real objective impression of the difference in bokeh...I also had the 135STF at that time and my god, that lens utterly blew my mind. There was quite a bit of talk about OOF areas and bokeh on the Minolta user groups on Yahoo at the time but it wasn't the same type of obsession as now. Things didn't get dissected in quite the same way. So, for looking at a photo and going for overall impression on a light table or a print, there wasn't much comparison between the LTD and STF; the STF just did things that no other lens could at the time.
So, was the LTD better than the G? Yes, in my mind, definitively. Was it better, bokeh-wise, than the 135 STF? Not a chance. So I had the LTD for a while but, when I packed up my life in Korea to go travelling, I looked at my 100/2, 100/2.8 and 85 LTD and thought 'Which one in this focal length range actually worth something?' I sold the LTD to finance a boatload (backpack?) of film haha. Sigh. That was the life of a shooter of pricey Fujichrome! I think I spent $1500 or $2000 on film for 2 months! The 28/2 came with me, though, no way I was getting rid of that one. Shoulda kept the LTD, it turns out.
So, I don't know if that helps. Like I said, a lot of my memories of those lenses are coloured by the film I used and the lenses I shot them with. In general, I have a certain affection for lenses with a lower contrast rendering. Sharp, but lacking the dink-out contrast Zeiss made so popular. Don't get me wrong, I want that contrast for landscapes, and have always had Zeiss lenses in my bag, but horses for courses, I like something different as well. I always felt that Minolta delivered that difference, hence my AF kit was Minolta, my MF kit Contax/Zeiss.
As for the 200/4, it never appealed to me as much as the 200/2.8 APO and it was big and expensive to boot. I've had basically every Minolta AF lens on my camera at some point but never that one. Go figure! ...Show more →
Thanks for the back story—I enjoyed reading it.
I never shot the 28/2. I was curious about it, but after shooting the 35/2 and not being crazy about it, I decided to pass on the 28/2 as they looked similar. Things have changed quite a bit with modern optics, in particular below 35mm and wide open performance on fast lenses. Interesting though to hear all that. And the 200/4 never appealed to either.
I have owned the 85 1.4 limited twice. I did some testing comparing it to some classic 85mm’s here:
https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1402791
And then some more modern options like the Basis and Milvus 85 here:
https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1431311/chat.php
I personally enjoy the Minolta 85 1.4 ltd as the best 85mm ever made aside from the 75/80 Lux. Not for a technical perspective—it’s does quite well for a legacy 85, but the newest generation of glass trounces it thoroughly.
Except in the smoothness of rendering. The bokeh, and in particular, the transition zone is insanely smooth. Appreciably more than the GM 85 or Samyang 85 MF or Milvus 85 or Canon 85 1.2s (though I don’t know yet about the RF 85 1.2 DO) Of course, this comes at the expense of CA, which the most lenses handle much better, and the 85 Limited has quite a bit. Centrally the 85 ltd is sharp, but it’s not a comparison in the out 1/3 of the frame to modern options. There is a pinch of SA wide open as well, which works synergistically with the smoothness of bokeh and transition and richness of Minolta colors to give a gorgeous and unique rendering IMO. It was distinctly more pleasant than the Mino 85 1.4 D I owned. Like you say, not night and day I would think, but images from the Ltd just sings.
Having said that, the lens is 3k (at least), slow/loud AF, bulky, and not great (though not horrible) to MF. But it’s one the lenses I miss—not as a collector, but just because the images had this unique warmth of color vibrance and smoothness. Interesting you got your hands on one, even then.
Times were so different reading your post! Your impressions are quite excellent with no direct comparison and on film—I wouldn’t recall/know half that as well.
All below are 85 ltd on either an a7 or a7r2–and I already apologize for so many, but perhaps you’ll be interested.
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