Lens Design, Minolta, Leica, Zeiss

[rover]

I found this article earlier today and thought you may find it interesting too.

Go get some MD Rokkor-X glass, a cheap alternative to Leica.

http://www.dyxum.com/columns/dPhotoworld/Historical_perspective_Minolta_lens_design_philosophy.asp

 

[jbf]

Wow, very interesting indeed. I had no idea of minolta's pedigree. I always thought they were perhaps a subrate company. Boy was I wrong.

 

[Vickko]

Wow, very interesting read. Thank you for posting it.

Vick

 

[rover]

There clearly was some exchange of ideas between Minolta and Leitz in the 1970s. To what extent is not clear from what I have read. Minolta helped Leitz over come some engineering issues in their SLRs, while Leitz shared some ideas regarding lens design with Minolta. The MD 24/2.8 and 28/2 are said to be shared lens designs with the like R lenses. The MD 35-70/3.5 and I think a longer zoom I have read were rebranded as R lenses. Then of course there was the CL/CLE rangefinder folly....

 

[rover]

Wow, very interesting indeed. I had no idea of minolta's pedigree. I always thought they were perhaps a subrate company. Boy was I wrong.

Minolta was actually a very old Japanese camera and optic manufacturer. Quite unique, they owned their lens making from the production of the glass to the building of the barrels right up to the AF era.

Herb Keppler speculated when Sony bought the works, that Konica Minolta would retain the camera/lens manufacturing capacity it had and operate as a third party OEM manufacturer, giving up the R&D and Marketing which ultimately made that business unprofitable for them. I don't know if that is what happened, but interesting none the less.

 

[jmilkins]

I remember being pretty happy with my "new look" images in the early 90s as I transitioned from Nikon to Minolta.

Back in those days in the camera stores I worked in the owners had Leitz glass and scoffed at the Nikkors the younger or poorer set had, who in turn scoffed at the "poor" Takumars I showed up with.

I picked Nikkors first to conform, and then Rokkors in the transition to AF, and wow!

Now I sit with Rokkor primes from 20/2.8 - 200/2.8 and while they might not be the fastest-focussing or quietest glass around, I'm more interested in what they pass under the mirror of my Dynax 9....

 

[back alley]

i remember reading lots of tests results way back when, when i was a camera sales guy.
nikon and canon got all the press but quite often it was the minolta lenses that actually beat out the other's glass.

 

[Ororaro]

Minolta was always the underdog and I never understood why. The 9 line was always ahead of any Nikon and Canon. They we're innovative and introduced AF as we know it. They we're probably just a bit too edgy and a little too ahead of their time. I was a minolta shooter and always will be a Minoltist at heart.

 

[back alley]

there was a u.n. photographer that used minolta gear...isaac ...?

i think the guy that did a lot of work with the beatles used minolta also...can't recall his name...
joe

 

[xayraa33]

W. Eugene Smith used Minoltas and even Dezo Hoffman liked them.

 

[mjflory]

Rover, I stumbled across the same article myself a few days ago and found it fascinating as well. What struck me was the insistence on consistency in "look" and color across their lens line.

Someday I'll find the box in the storeroom holding all the negatives I took with my SRT's during my college years. It will be interesting to look over them in light of that article.

 

[eric]

All my Rokkor glass (20mm-135mm) have much better bokeh than my Nikons and Konica.
I've know about the Leica pedigree for a long time.
They (Minolta) also pioneered a lot of flash technology as well as the Acute-matte screens.

 

[xayraa33]

I have always said that the Rokkors came closest of any of the major japanese makers to give that look to photographs that german glass does.
that has been my experience.

 

[amateriat]

Before I switched off to my Hexars, my Main Axe system for the better part of a decade was a pair of Minolta 9xi AF SLRs, and about five lenses between them: 20mm f/2.8, 50mm f/2.8 Macro, 28-70mm f/2.8, and The Stovepipe, the 80-200mm f/2.8 APO. Of all the SLR lenses I've worked with, manual-focus or AF, these were truly among the nicest. The 28-70, in particular, was amazing: big, yes; heavy, yes; pricey? Don't ask. But gorgeous performance, vanishingly-low distortion, and bokeh-out-the-back-door. And the cameras weren't too shabby, either. 🙂

I only got rid of 'em all because I "just wasn't that into" the SLR thing anymore. I'd long been using my Hexar AF and Ricoh GR-1 a lot more, and then I slipped an eye behind a Hexar RF and That Was All She Wrote. I truly think Minolta had hit a technological zenith in the mid-1990s (okay, everyone more or less did...but that 1/12000 second max shutter speed of the 9xi wasn't a joke, nor was it matched by anyone). In fact, the mid-late 90s might've been the Golden Age for 35mm cameras, sort of the way the most amazing steam locomotive technology came about well into the diesel age...

(Maybe that wasn't such a hot metaphor...)


- Barrett