Minolta lenses and Sony High-pixel sensors?

[mark_kesper]

<p>Since quite many here probably have Minolta glass that is made for Minolta/Sony SLR/DSLR/DSLT that uses the today actual A-mount. <br>

What I wonder is basically<br>

1. If SLR glass worked for analog film, should it work for the digital high-rez sensors of today? <br>

2. Is it known if Minolta glass is enough for sensors of 24 Mpixels? 36 Mpixel? 36-40+Mpixels?<br>

3. If some Minolta glass can be used for those resolutions - which models/what grade are those and how to identify them? Is there any list of these?<br>

4. What is it that essentially limits glass from being enough for a certain resolution?<br>

All of this is of course a part of a discussion of how much resolution power old analog film had in comparable digital resolution. I've heard some say 24-36 Mpixels, whereas some say that's too high and other have had the opinion that a good exposure of high-quality analog film could be higher than that.</p>

<p>/Mark Kesper</p>

 

[james_f6]

<p>Two things, all Minolta, Konica Minolta, and Sony lenses work on all Sony camera's. I would steer clear of the xi series lenses from Minolta, they work, but are a bit iffy with the mechanical zoom.<br /> If you have a crop sensor camera, which is everything other than the Full Frame Sony A99, A900, A850, then all your images will have a magnification factor of 1.5. Otherwise the full frame Sony's will give you the right focal length.<br /> That said, crop lenses (D) will be cropped on a full frame Sony, resolution is usually cut in half.<br /> 1. Yes<br /> 2. Yes<br /> 3. <a href="http://kurtmunger.com/lens_reviews_id21.html">http://kurtmunger.com/lens_reviews_id21.html</a> <br /> 4. D Lenses which are made for crop sensors will be limited on Sony Full Frame camera's. And Any lens on a non Full Frame camera will have a magnification factor of approx 1.5<br /> I just bought a Sony A99 Full Frame I have plenty of Minolta Primes and they all work like a charm.</p>

<p>My Camera's<br>

Konica Minolta 7D<br>

Sony A700<br>

Sony A65<br>

Sony A99</p>

[timb196]

<p>I'll second what James has said except I will add<br>

dyxum.com</p>

<p>which has a very,very good lens data base.<br>

Gnerally speaking my experience with the Minolta G series is they have handled 24 Mp pretty easily. those include the 200/300/400/600MM tele and the 80-200 zoom. If you find a good copy of the 28-135 zoom that does it too. The 100 macro/100 f2/85 f1.4/28 f2 also in my experience have handled 24 Mp pretty well.</p>

<p>Tim</p>

[Colin O]

<p>Just to correct a small mistake above:</p>

<dl>

<dt>D</dt>

<dd>Distance encoder, used for ADI flash, matrix metering in MF mode and DOF display.</dd>

<dt>DT</dt>

<dd>"Digital Technology", image circle adapted to APS-C digital SLRs. Can not be used with full-frame film cameras. Can be used on full-frame digital cameras in crop mode.</dd>

</dl>

<p>(For simplicity, I just copied that from Michael Hohner's excellent site.)</p>

 

<p>Now, to the subject in question. There seems to be an obsession with sharpness these days. Of course it's not irrelevant, but why is it essential for a lens to be able to resolve to the pixel level? Photos will never be viewed at this level, except when "pixel peeping". If you are printing to much larger sizes than you were with film or if you are doing extreme cropping in post-processing, then it might be an issue, but otherwise why wouldn't a film-era lens be sufficient now? Who knows, in a few years there might be 200 megapixel "full-frame" cameras. A lens may very well not be able to resolve to the pixel level in that case, but if you are still only printing to, say, 8" x 12", what difference does it make?</p>

 

<p>I'm reminded of the quote attributed to Henri Cartier-Bresson, "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept."</p><div></div>

[carbon_dragon]

<p>I think that it can be the case that high MP sensors such as the Sony Nex 7 or the latest Sony DSLR can expose lenses from the old Minolta line that were less than spectacular. But there were a lot of lenses that were spectacular or at least very good. I have tried a few, though not scientifically. The Minolta 50 and 100 f/2.8 macros are really great lenses. The 100-300 APO is a pretty good lens. The old Sigma 18-35 is pretty bad on modern sensors. The old Minolta 500/8 is pretty high quality for a CAT lens but it needs really good technique considering it's 750mm on an APS-C camera. </p>

[dave_redmann]

<p>The point at which the lens becomes the limiting factor is not a bright line. Moreover, in any given model of lens, much depends on working aperture, focus distance, working focal length (for a zoom lens), sample variation (some are just better than others that are ostensibly identical), and subject (whether it calls for high resolution only in the center, or across the frame).</p>

<p>IMOPO, with today's high-resolution sensors, both "full-frame" and "APS-C", we place considerably higher demands on our lenses than we did with 35mm film (where often the practical limitations on print size and image quality had more to do with graininess than with resolution, although resolution certainly can be an issue to).</p>

<p>That said, the Minolta / Konica Minolta auto-focus lenses with the best <em>reputations</em> for sharpness / resolution include the 24mm f/2.8, the 85mm f/1.4 (all versions), the 100mm f/2, and the 100mm f/2.8 macro; and among zoom lenses, the 24-50mm f/4, the 28-135mm f/4-4.5, and the original (big!) 35-105mm f/3.5-4.5. I have not owned any of these lenses except the original 35-105 (there was a later, smaller, inferior lens of the same focal range), and it always seemed quite sharp, but I never tried to test it.</p>

<p>Comparing film and digital resolution has a somewhat apples-to-oranges character, but IMOPO, for most typical color films, a DSLR of 10 to 12 MP has about the same real-world effective resolution--but with much better noise / grain and color accuracy.</p>

 

[sgust]

<p>I did some reading on this issue back when I was choosing a macro lens for my Sony. It seems the only significant differences between the lenses designed for film and those for digital are the coatings and the electrical contacts. New lenses have better anti-reflective coating to better minimize flare and ghosting. Not really an issue though unless your shooting at a bright light source.<br>

Sony's lens also have additional electrical contacts that communicate more information to the camera than the old lenses did. As far as I know this mostly has an influence on using hot shoe flashes and adds some EXIF data.</p>

[Colin O]

See this on the subject of lens contacts:<br>

<a href="http://www.mhohner.de/sony-minolta/faq.php#lenscontacts">

http://www.mhohner.de/sony-minolta/faq.php#lenscontacts</a>

[mark_kesper]

<p>Thanks for all the input. This thread has turned out to be quite good as resource. I know about mhorner.de and kurtmunger. Both really good pages. <br>

For me it's a bit about avoiding lenses that won't work with FF A-mount. <br>

Of course sharpness isn't everything. But it helps kind of and gives a bit better control. </p>

[timb196]

<p>I tend to agree with Dave on the sharpness question not being a bright line.<br>

However, depending on your composition or subject a sharp object in the image can serve as a potential anchor point to draw the eye in the image or to seperate the main object from the background. So while there is perhaps some over emphasis on sharpness these days, it can serve some very useful purposes. The converse is also true; not all compositions or subjects require razor sharpnesses.<br>

One of the reasons I am very fond of my Minolta 85mm/1.4, is its particular quality of seperating the main subject from the background. The same is true of my Minolta 300/2.8. My belief is that the Minolta paid particular attention to micro contrast and higher resolution leading to better edge seperation for their upper echelon series lenses.<br>

Cheers<br>

Tim</p>

 

[james_f6]

<p>Well if you check out my Sony A99 thread above this one, you can see a Sony Full Frame using a Minolta 28mm 2.8 lens.<br>

I can tell you that my 50mm lens is just as sharp, even sharper.<br>

I think all Minolta lenses are fine to work on a Full Frame (just steer clear of the xi lenses, because the motor zooms in those lenses I found sometimes were not reactive. </p>

[ricardovaste]

They work great. The good ones.