I used to have a few of each incarnations of Minolta 85/1.7 and loved them.These one were taken by Minolta MC Rokkor 85/1.7 (rubberized focusing grip,not PF) and Sony A72
Rokkor version. I regret selling it. Just wonderful colors. The Contax 85/1.4 is sharper, but I liked the ergonomics and colors better on the Minolta.
Jim
It's a great lens, and beautifully made. Just look out for oil/grease on the iris blades if you're buying one.
I had to fix that on mine last year, it was a useful learning experience !
What an interesting lens, how soft is it wide open? Does it sharpen up by f2? I currently have the 50mm f1.4 and 45mm f2 small pancake that I use with speed boosters on my Xpro3 body.
ZdevilH1 wrote:
What an interesting lens, how soft is it wide open? Does it sharpen up by f2? I currently have the 50mm f1.4 and 45mm f2 small pancake that I use with speed boosters on my Xpro3 body.
It's quite low-contrast wide open. Note that as soon as you stop it down even a little, any out-of-focus highlights become hexagonal; some photographers don't mind OOF highlights with geometric shapes, but many do. So if you stop it down you either have to make sure there will be no OOF highlights in your scene (e.g., a studio portrait) or accept the hexagons.
The softer low-contrast look wide open was reportedly deliberate by Minolta as it can be flattering for portraits. There was a lot of demand for soft portrait lenses back then, and Minolta even made the 85mm Varisoft lenses that take "softness" to a different level.
"At f/1.7 it already has quite good resolution and nice but not perfectly smooth bokeh but due to spherical aberration contrast is rather low. I think this characteristic works very well for portraits but it is a distinctly different look from that of modern very well corrected lenses like the Batis 1.8/85. The sharpness is also even across the frame so you can put your subject anywhere in the frame and not just in the center.
Stopped down to f/2.8 contrast is a lot higher but for best contrast you should stop down to f/4. For best across the frame sharpness stop down to f/5.6 where it performs very well for landscape photography."
Sounds accurate that. I haven't used it for a while, but from memory mine's only slightly soft at 1.7 , with a sharp core to the image , contrast/sharpness comes in fairly quickly - maybe not at 2.0 but certainly by 2.4 . It's nothing like eg. a Zeiss 50mm f/.1.4 ZE, which is a proper soft-focus lens at f/1.4.
However there are about 3 examples, mine is the fairly late version with waffle-rubber focus grip.
It may be that the earlier one is a bit softer. the design did change.
bjhurley wrote:
It's quite low-contrast wide open. Note that as soon as you stop it down even a little, any out-of-focus highlights become hexagonal; some photographers don't mind OOF highlights with geometric shapes, but many do. So if you stop it down you either have to make sure there will be no OOF highlights in your scene (e.g., a studio portrait) or accept the hexagons.
The softer low-contrast look wide open was reportedly deliberate by Minolta as it can be flattering for portraits. There was a lot of demand for soft portrait lenses back then, and Minolta even made the 85mm Varisoft lenses that take "softness" to a different level.
"At f/1.7 it already has quite good resolution and nice but not perfectly smooth bokeh but due to spherical aberration contrast is rather low. I think this characteristic works very well for portraits but it is a distinctly different look from that of modern very well corrected lenses like the Batis 1.8/85. The sharpness is also even across the frame so you can put your subject anywhere in the frame and not just in the center.
Stopped down to f/2.8 contrast is a lot higher but for best contrast you should stop down to f/4. For best across the frame sharpness stop down to f/5.6 where it performs very well for landscape photography."
bjhurley wrote:
You might want to look into the MC Rokkor 100mm/2.5 as well or as an alternative. It's a great lens, not so soft wide open, brilliant colors.
My 85/1.7 was tack sharp wide open in the center but needed about f/4 to be sharp across the frame, corners lagged a bit more. Not sure what you mean by contrast being low wide open. All of the shots I posted above were WO and had no aggressive editing in post.
