GH2 + Minolta Rokkor 28mm 2.8 Test!

Could you check if any of these 35-70mm zooms are parfocal? It would be great to have a cheap vintage glass for the interviews. Thanks.
 
Aki_Hartikainen said:
Actually there are differences in the vintage lenses. For example, Canon FD can not seem to be able to touch both Minolta MD and Yashica ML lenses in terms of sharpness and color rendition...
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Interesting! The tests and samples I've seen show the FD 50mm 1.4 SSC much sharper than any of the Minolta MC 50 1.4, MD 50 1.4 or MC 58 1.4 wide open with the Rokkor 58 1.4 having much less CA by the time you get to f4. Can't vouch for the wider versions, but if the FD prices and the number of people re-machining FD's to fit the 5D are any indication they must be pretty good.
 
Recently I made some comparison between a Canon FD 28 mm f2.8 S.C. and Minolta MD 28 mm f2.8 and there was no contest. The Minolta images came out more punchy and more professional looking. I will try to find some of those images. I do not intend to bash Canon, different things work differently for different people.

But I have a history with this issue that I can share, as a youngster I was very interested in still photography. This was in the mid and late 80'ies. We had a close family friend, a professional well-known nature and ad photographer. His images were simply terrific. Whenever he showed them with a projector I was blown away. I could not get similar pictures no matter what I did. The pro photographer had selected the best Pentax lenses money could buy at the time, whereas I was using a Canon FD 50 mm f1.8 S.C. The pro photographer once told me, that I had selected a brand. Not the best camera system. He did not elaborate, but now I know better.

I will try to check parfocality, and will get back with that. Also, if I find a good sample from the FD vs. MD comparison mentioned, I will post results.
 
I thought I was buyng a Minolta 28mm 2.8 on ebay, but I bought a Minolta mount Rokinon 28mm 2.8. Oh well, I'll give it a try. Anyone know anything about this lens?
 
I seem to be joining the discussion a bit late, but I have found most of the Minolta MD lenses to be of very good quality. I have most of the common lenses in their line and they all work great. With the exception of needing wider lenses in the micro 4/3. The 100mm macro is really good. The 50mm 1.4 and 50mm 1.2 are beautiful pieces of glass with good bokeh and sharp with nice contrast. One of my favorites is the 24mm 2.8 and the 35mm f/1.8. THey all give the video a great, almost cienmatic quality compared to some of the super sharp and contrastier new glass.
 
el3nd1l said:
Could you check if any of these 35-70mm zooms are parfocal? It would be great to have a cheap vintage glass for the interviews. Thanks.
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My 35-70mm Minolta MD Macro is parfocal on my GH2. I guess results could vary depending on which MD-M43 adapter is used.
 
@Aki - interesting comment about Pentax. My legacy lens collection is fairly evenly split between Pentax-M's and Rokkors/MDs. All else equal, I find the Pentax's have a slight edge in both sharpness and color - for example the 35-70mm f2.8-3.5 Pentax-M is definitely nicer wide open than the Minolta 35-70mm. But ... the Pentaxes are selling for 2-4X the Rokkor's, in part because they can still be used on current retail cameras like the K-5.

Oh and .... I have owned one Canon FD (35-105mm f3.5) and one Nikkor AIs (105mm f2.8) - both lacked contrast wide open and had rather muted colors; I've sold both.
 
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GrahamH said:
Two others I have and can highly recommend (particularly for interviews) are the MD 85mm f2 and the constant aperture Rokkor f3.5 50-135mm. My copy of that latter lens is performing way better than I expected.
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I also have the MD 50-135 f/3.5, and I agree it's surprisingly good. I'm pretty sure it's parfocal, which is nice, but keeping focus during zooming is very difficult due to its push-pull action.
There's some purple fringing, but it disappears dramatically at f/5.6. I find the bokeh very uniform and pleasing too.

I'm considering de-clicking the iris soon - which should definitely help with that short 3.5-5.6 jump.
I already modified an MD 300 5.6, but the screws were easier to undo on that one.
 
It's good to hear that Pentax lenses are another sharp alternative for legacy lenses. I also checked the parfocality and the MD 35-70 f3.5 Macro should be, but isn't on the GH1 I have. So the low cost adapter while otherwise good is not accurate enough replica of the Minolta SR mount.

Here are the FD vs. MD images, first one taken with the Canon FD 28 mm f2.8 at full aperture. I did my best to get a sharp image, but couldn't. The second one is from a Minolta MD 28 f2.8 at full aperture. Fully sharp images with that familiar high quality look came out right away:

fd28f281small.jpg


md28f282small.jpg


Normally nobody would not try to take product photos at full aperture, but every photo I take also serve as a lens test for filmic look often at large apertures. Here are links to full size 4K images, that can be zoomed in. They tell immediately which lens has the better sharpness and colors:

http://www.fourseasonshd.com/fd28f281.jpg
http://www.fourseasonshd.com/md28f282.jpg

md28f281small.jpg
:)
 
You're not actually trying to compare those two lenses with those two shots are you? 1/25th of a second shutter on one and 1/60th on the other. Iso 400 on one and iso 250 on the other. One has resolution that is almost 10% larger than the other and the focal point is radically different lighting between them. Were they hand held as well?

Yes I can tell right off which image is better :)
 
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I have plenty more samples with different exposure times and lighting, but the result remains. The other lens is sharp at full aperture and provides professional look familiar from magazines and advertisements right away. The last one was shot at 1920 * 1080, and the large version is still sharper than the FD image taken at 4K. It is just an opinion and random samples from somebody who has done photography with both lenses.

Link to the last image at 1920 * 1080. That's how your HD would look like: http://www.fourseasonshd.com/md28f281.jpg

I believe this to be the very reason why the pro photographer could take brilliant photos, and I was left wondering what the heck I was doing wrong.
 
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I made a small composite to show that my intentions in this issue are good. Both images were scaled first to 1920 * 1080, but they started life as much higher pixel size still images from either Lumix GF1 or GH1 (no real difference for still image performance). 4K or slightly above. I selected the sharpest version of both photo sessions. Both lenses operate at full aperture. In both cases maximum sharpness was directed to the white text. The result is what one would see at 1080p resolution. I'll let anybody guess which one is the FD and which one is the MD lens filming at full aperture.

compositeFDMD.png


This issue is close to my heart, because I was quite possibly robbed a career as a professional photographer for choosing a brand instead of a sharp professional quality lens, despite recommendations. For years I thought I could not take brilliant photos, and could not possibly imagine myself blaming the camera for unimpressive photos, that I thought everybody was using.

So excuse me for being allergic to washed up lenses. Only sharp lenses for me from here on out. :)
 
Mind-bogglingly sharp and cinematic. I could see a film developing there, guns, mountains, wolves, sack of gold, beautiful women, ugly men. Time to start fishing for that MD 24 mm f2.8, I guess? 200 - 300 dollars. Should be worth every penny.

The MD 28 f2.8 is the sharpest lens I have tried on the GH1. It made it to moire and alias. Your video may have been too sharp for Vimeo, and some sort of limiter kicked in. Here is my MD 28 test on YouTube from last summer, the aliasing comes from the GH1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWA73R-L1Zg
 
I think this is it. We have found the winners. MD 28 f2.8 and MD 24 f2.8. I believe there is also MD 20 f2.8, but I don't know how good it is. The MD 24 f2.8 has created a new religion among still photographers.

I am afraid the same will happen to us now.
 
Yeah, I'm starting to really dislike vimeo... which sucks, because I actually love their methodology and even purchased a plus account. I've noticed that generally speaking they are encoding their videos more aggressively and the detail is seriously being thrown out the window... breaks my heart :(. On the other hand, youtube is looking amazing @1080p, much more impressive than I remember.

I think I came across that video actually, looks really good on the gh1, didn't really notice any aliasing though; gh1 is still is such a great cam.
 
I love my old Rokkors, great glass, dirt cheap, I have a nice collection from 28-135mm of Rokkor primes, just need that elusive (dirt Cheap) 100mm 2.5 now. MY dad even had a nice constant f3.5 70-210mm Asanuma tele, thats pretty good sitting in the crawlspace ont he farm.. below 28 I turn to my native micro 4/3 stuff 20mm 1.7 and 14mm 2.5.. I also have a few cool C mounts for "specialty shots" super wide, or interesting bokeh looks etc. My biggest elusive lens now is a totally para focal zoom lens that's fast and cheap.. looking the B4 route, but the edges of the frame is just to messed up for me so far to sink $400+ into for a 2x doubled old lens and the adapter.. I wish some one would make a good knock off of that hdx2 adapter that doubles the lens and doesn't mess the edges up.
 
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