I am in between these two options for general use/portraits (not fast action) in my A7RIV. I currently own the old canon 80-200 f2.8L, which is excellent optically but its AF is not as accurate and reliable as I wanted it to be combined with metabones.
Size and weight: Tamron definitely wins.
Zoom range: Minolta wins, but 20mm of extra reach are not an issue in a 60mp sensor.
Sharpness: I know the tamron is very sharp. Is the Minolta very far behind it?
AF accuracy: The so far experience with the LA-EA5 is that it AFs accurately older Minolta lenses. Is this the case even indoors, in non optimal light conditions? And what about other than the very central focus points? Will continuous eye AF work reliably if the eye is off centre? Or do I need AF-S, focus on the centre and recompose?
AF speed: Tamron easily wins.
Colour: I have heard the best about Minolta colors, but I haven't heard bad things about the Tamron either.
Contrast: I'm not sure I know much about either of the two.
For me, the rendering of the Minolta would make it the winner. Its such a pleasant look for portraits. Bokeh is very nice, too. The AF should be very accurate in either.
I have no experience with both options; in their price nor optical performance. The Minolta lens is from yesteryear when lens design/manufacturing process didn’t consider much of weight and bulk in terms of material. As you mentioned the Tamron wins in size and weight. You have to add the weight/bulk of the adapter to an already heavier/larger lens. That alone would tip the balance to the new Tamron for me. The new lens comes with warranty vs. an older lens without any warranty. The Tamron is a newly designed lens and my understanding is for the mirrorless sensor. Although it would play more a role for wide angle but it should be more compatible with the A7r IV.
Based on those considerations, I would not even consider getting an older lens. Period. But that’s strictly my opinion.
A general comment on the sharpness of the Minolta. When shot wide open, it has some of that classic 'glow' that diminishes the apparent sharpness. It is pretty much gone by ƒ3.5, and the lens is very sharp from there onward. That glow can be an asset with portraits, but some may not like it.
TheEmrys wrote:
Have you seen poor performance with screw drive lenses and the LA-EA5? Because this is the first I have seen of there being an issue with accuracy.
It’s not that it doesn’t perform well, but it is highly lens dependent. My 135 ZA focuses very well, but my 28-70 G lens does miss more often than the ZA does and doesn’t have near the accuracy of a native lens. Just from my experience I doubt the Metabones and Canon combo AF-wise m is worse than the LA-EA5 with a screw driven lens like the 80-200, and for sure neither are as good as the Tamron 70-180 is.
Given how poor the AF was even on a mount bodies, I wouldn't judge the excellent af of the 80-200 g/hs the same. The 28-70/2.8 G was always a "if you don't mind the af it's great" lens.
My magic drainpipe wasn't terribly fast or accurate on a Canon body (it made up for it in the rendering), so I wouldn't expect the MB to improve on that performance. I'd be surprised if the HS 80-200 + LAEA5 weren't marginally better, at least, and the draw will be more similar to what you get out of your MDP.
I'd say the Tamron is only the logical choice if you want a much improved AF experience and modern optics. It's sharp, smallish, and quick, but I'd rather lug around one of the old beauties.
As someone that got used to the Magic Drainpipe's goodness in terms of IQ on more than a Sony ML body, I can tell you that when I finally (and begrudgingly) decided to sell it to buy the Tamron, I was pleasantly surprised that I haven't to regret the choice: it is as contrasty and sharp wide open as the Pipe was ( and then probably some) and it is so much lighter and more compact that it feels almost unreal. The fact that you can stuff a 70-180 F2.8 in your bag "just to have it" without feeling aggravating is pretty revealing in the first place, the very good IQ paired with a very fast AF it's just the icing on the cake for me.
I don't doubt that the Minolta has a nice rendering, but it would be definitely more "vintage-y" wide open and definitely bulkier with the adapter and slower in terms of AF, so personally I would have little doubt choosing between the two.
Tirpitz666 wrote:
As someone that got used to the Magic Drainpipe's goodness in terms of IQ on more than a Sony ML body, I can tell you that when I finally (and begrudgingly) decided to sell it to buy the Tamron, I was pleasantly surprised that I haven't to regret the choice: is as contrasty and sharp wide open as the Pipe was ( and then probably some) and it is so much lighter and more compact that it feels almost unreal. The fact that you can stuff a 70-180 F2.8 in your bag "just to have it" without feeling aggregating is pretty revealing in the first place, the very good IQ paired with a very fast AF it's just the icing on the cake for me.
I don't doubt that the Minolta has a nice rendering, but it would be definitely more "vintagey" wide open and definitely bulkier with the adapter and slower in terms of AF, so personalky I would have little doubts between the two....Show more →
There is a lot of truth, but I don't think it will be slower. It is blazingly fast. It has incredible torque. I would not be surprised if it weren't among the fastest AF lenses still.
I cannot test it myself, so just reporting what I've found (and of I'm not wrong, even Philipp Reeve was reporting that AF was pretty inconsistent for action/sports, don't know if with the LE-EA5 things have markedly improved).
Tirpitz666 wrote:
As someone that got used to the Magic Drainpipe's goodness in terms of IQ on more than a Sony ML body, I can tell you that when I finally (and begrudgingly) decided to sell it to buy the Tamron, I was pleasantly surprised that I haven't to regret the choice: it is as contrasty and sharp wide open as the Pipe was ( and then probably some) and it is so much lighter and more compact that it feels almost unreal. The fact that you can stuff a 70-180 F2.8 in your bag "just to have it" without feeling aggravating is pretty revealing in the first place, the very good IQ paired with a very fast AF it's just the icing on the cake for me.
I don't doubt that the Minolta has a nice rendering, but it would be definitely more "vintage-y" wide open and definitely bulkier with the adapter and slower in terms of AF, so personally I would have little doubt choosing between the two....Show more →
Thank you for your input, very useful to hear from someone who was exactly on my position. I tend to agree with you, but on the other hand I would be prepared to carry the weight of the minolta if this resulted in better image quality overall with accurate (although slower) AF. I'm not in a rush to buy any of the 2 and I might wait until someone uses/reviews the LA-EA5 + minolta combo on A7RIV, before I make my final decision.
Tirpitz666 wrote:
I don't know how reliable this guy is, but he seems far less than enthused of both the IQ and the AF performance of the Minolta on a Sony hi-res body:
I cannot test it myself, so just reporting what I've found (and of I'm not wrong, even Philipp Reeve was reporting that AF was pretty inconsistent for action/sports, don't know if with the LE-EA5 things have markedly improved).
AF performance with the LA-EA4 doesn’t tell how the LA-EA5 performs, since these two adapters work in fundamentally different ways. The LA-EA4 uses a pelicle mirror and separate AF module, so it’s just as bad as a DSLR. The LA-EA5 uses on sensor PDAF and no pelicle mirror and thus no separate AF module, just like native E-mount lenses and A-mount SSM-lenses coupled with the LA-EA3. We have to see reports about AF accuracy with the screw driver lenses coupled with the LA-EA5 adapter specifically, in order to pass judgement.
As a long time user/sufferer of the LA-EA4, this is completely true. But LA-EA5 changes everything. The 4 has an AF system from the old aps-c a65 (which I also had back in 2013 or so). The 5 uses the modern AF of the a7rIV or a6600. It is a night and day difference.
Tirpitz666 wrote:
I don't know how reliable this guy is, but he seems far less than enthused of both the IQ and the AF performance of the Minolta on a Sony hi-res body:
I cannot test it myself, so just reporting what I've found (and of I'm not wrong, even Philipp Reeve was reporting that AF was pretty inconsistent for action/sports, don't know if with the LE-EA5 things have markedly improved).
The LAEA4 module was criticized when it came out because it was already behind the times. Sony crippled it and didn’t use the easily superior a77 focus module.
On that link you posted, he was using auto focus with the LAEA4 and then using crops from that. He should be using manual focus if he wants to do crops, and the LAEA4 is notoriously finicky, inaccurate and inconsistent additionally. I’m not sure he’s wrong on the sharpness at f9 (though I think he is) but I’m not saying he’s right. Hard to glean good data from that with poor testing methodology. I do like the photos he posted in the review though.
The Minolta 80-202.8 HS is super fast. Even by modern standards, it rips through the range very quickly. Having said that, it is loud, torque-y, the flare resistance is not as good as the Tamron, the MFD is probably longer, the fringing is worse and the front element rotates when focusing which can be a pain for some users. And it’s probably not as sharp as the Tamron, at least wide open, especially at 200mm. I found my copies to be optimized for between 80 to 135mm. I do not know if the new adapter has crippled the drive speed on lenses, which Sony did on some of their bodies in the a-mount bodies like the a700, but I would guess at the Minolta 80-200 is blazing on the new cameras if not crippled. It will be way way ahead of the LAEA4 experience.
Despite the optical imperfections, the Mino images are gorgeous. I did the same exercise you were doing right now, and if Sony spreads support for the LAEA5 to other bodies, I will pick up a Minolta 80-200 over the Tamron.
Here is a video which indicates the Minolta is faster than the current Sony 70 - 200 2.8 SSM II even though the Mino can’t use the full AF module. This follows user reports where the Minolta is actually the fastest focusing telephoto lens when used natively.
My experience of the FE Tamron lenses have renderings that are kind of crunchy, and I don’t like the photos a whole lot even though they are technically good, and I have a 17 - 28 I use somewhat regularly.
I have little doubt that the LE-EA5 will perform much better than the LE-EA4 (doesn't take much to tell the truth), my point would be how much better and if enough to make the most out of all the Mino torque.
At the end I guess it will all boil down to if someone prefers the less "modern" rendering of the Mino with a maybe slightly less performing AF and more bulk, or the more contrasty/crunchy rendering of the Tammy with full native AF and reduced size/weight. I think that both could be winners at the end, so hard to go wrong with any of them IMHO (but after having experienced quite a lot with adapted lenses, I'm not totally slanted towards native solutions, if they are compelling enough).
