Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm 1:3.5 vs Minolta MD 135mm 1:3.5 – comparison
Older DDR’s (German Democratic Republic/East Germany) vs Japanese latest – 135mm slow manual primes fighting.
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Minolta MD Rokkor 50mm 1:1.2 lens review
Ladies and Gentlemen! If you are even a little fond of photography, then this lens should be put on your camera, and only sometimes change to some other lenses. OK, it is a joke. I am by no means going to insist on such radical advice. The choice of lens is a personal matter for everyone. It’s just that this particular lens is really a great option among other ultra-fast models.
The book “All about Minolta Camera” (or simply “MINOLTA”) is one of the most important materials for Minolta enthusiasts. I can even say that this is the true Gospel for MINOLTA collectors:
Despite the importance of this book, I have never come across its electronic copy. Even just scanned pages. Yes, the book is from Japan – Minolta’s origin country, and never was translated/published in the outer world. So finally this problem is solved. Here is a fully scanned book, as well as its recognized version. You just have to copy the text of interest to your favorite translator. (Note: some Japanese texts especially in vertical layouts are need to be converted to horizontal layout for better translation result)
The OCR version / searchable PDF, optimized size for comfortable reading (33 Mb):
Additionally: here is the scanned “All about Minolta Camera” book PDF version (223 Mb) – pictures only (not OCR) but high resolution if more details are needed like lens optical designs.
Here is the OCRed version of the original book by Kamio Kenzo “Aim Is Leica!”.
Japanese, searchable PDF.
Please, use any preferable translators.
Full set of books images (JPG) – download
Yashica ML 28mm F/2.8 vs Minolta MD 28mm F/2.8 5×5 – comparison
Both of these lenses are quite suitable for those looking for an inexpensive wide-angle. But the price quite accurately reflects their capabilities – they cope with their tasks, although they are not something outstanding from the point of view of optics. They are somewhere in the middle of the evolution of 28mm lenses – there are many sharper ones, but there are also many much weaker models.
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Minolta MC Rokkor PF 50mm 1:1.7 vs Minolta MD 50mm 1:1.4 – comparison
This battle cannot be called fair – the difference in construction between 1.4 and 1.7 usually always makes itself felt. But it so happened that I still have materials that are suitable for such a comparison, and it was decided to use them. Just out of curiosity.
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Minolta MC Rokkor PF 50mm 1:1.7 vs Yashica Lens ML 50mm 1:1.9 – comparison
Both lenses were recently tested on the website and I didn’t miss the opportunity to compare them with each other.
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Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Sonnar 3.5/135 lens review, aka Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm 1:3.5 DDR Sonnar
Mount – M42
This lens is out of the zone of my interests, I don’t know much about it, nevertheless, it was interesting to test it and find out what it was capable of. It turned out that everything is very good. Unlike the “second” Zeiss (Western, or FRG), lenses from which are so overpriced that after tests they can even be disappointing, this lens turned out to be much better than I imagined at the beginning.
The lens for the test was provided by Egor Nikolaev (Егор Николаев) – many thanks and greetings.
Minolta MC Rokkor PF 50mm 1:1.7 lens review, aka Minolta MC Rokkor-X PF 1:1.7 f=50mm
The first middle-price 50mm lens by Minolta (all previous was 55-58mm). A huge number of these lenses have been produced, so it is quite common. Hopefully, this review will be helpful for many owners of these lenses.
By the way, about the yellow inscription ‘Rokkor-X’ – for those who are not very familiar with the Minolta lens lines – this inscription does not affect anything and only means that the lens was exported to North America. If there is no such inscription on your lens, or it is white, then do not pay attention, no differences were found between lenses with such an inscription and without it. All test results will be the same (of course, within the deviations between copies of the lens)
Yashica 50mm ML lenses comparison – Yashica ML 50mm 1:1.4 vs Yashica ML 50mm 1:1.9
Yashica has done a lot for the photography industry, this is one of the companies that should not be underestimated. We currently have two excellent lenses from this company in testing.
Both lenses for the test was provided by Egor Nikolaev (Егор Николаев) – many thanks and greetings.
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