Photo 150 "2022" - Phil Wood

The people laying down in the park are having such good fun!

Week 13 - Theme 1: Blast from the Past

Just a snapshot this week, another mate (Chris) from the 70s/80s - this one from the mid 70s I'd guess from the hair.

Travelled quit a bit with Chris including one pretty epic trip to Kenya for a wedding and a cycling holiday to Bordeaux. I really should have some slides somewhere.

Chris


Praktica LLC + ?

Week 13 - Theme 3: Week Prime - B&W

Minolta AF 100mm f2.8 macro RS (1993)

Esplanade


Sony A99ii + Minolta AF 100mm f2.8 macro RS

Week 14 - Theme 2: Week Prime - Colour

Minolta AF 85mm f1.4

Minolta made four versions of this lens, I think this is the only instance of so many variants - showing the high regard this design was held in. I only have the first variant from 1986. It is revered from the narrow depth of field and as a supreme portrait lens. However, it is less flexible than designs like the 100mm macro owing to a susceptibility to chromatic aberrations (CW), the purple or green fringes along high contrast edges. CA goes away when you stop down, but it limits the use of the lens at the wide apertures that make it stand out. I find the cheap and cheerful Sony 85mm f2.8 more useful for general use.

For this week I am riding on the back of my April Foolishness entries.

Spring

Sony A99ii + Minolta AF 85mm f1.4

Week 15 - Theme 1: Blast from the Past

Still at Vesuvius, after posing for photos at the top we descended into the crater past steaming rock - my first trip into a volcano, a strange experience.

Vesuvius


Praktica LLC + ?Pentacon Electric Oreston 50mm f1.8

Week 15 - Theme 2: Week Prime - B&W

Minolta AF 85mm f1.4

A step down.

Sony A99ii + Minolta AF 85mm f1.4

Week 16 - Theme 2: Week Prime - Colour

Minolta AF 300mm f4 HS APO

In general Minolta's white primes have been items that I would like to add to my collection but were priced out of what seems reasonable for a lens that I doubt I'll ever use extensively. Then a copy of this lens appeared on ebay at what seemed to me to be a bargain price. I bid the opening price and assumed I wouldn't get it - but I did!

It arrived a couple of days later and I took it to an organised photowalk in Oxford.

My initial reactions are very positive, it is sharper than any other 300mm lens I have ever used - which, to be fair, does not include any lens one would expect to outperform a pro-quality zoom of this age (it was introduced in 1994). It is, however, a pretty big lens and pretty heavy - I find a monopod useful, both as a shooting support and as a carrying handle.

Autofocus is pretty good, it's a screwdrive lens so it cannot match SSM speeds, but it works plenty well enough for my uses. There is some CA, again no worse than one would expect from a lens of this era. All in all a very good lens - if only it was black.

Cyclist.

Sony A99ii + Minolta AF 300mm f4 HA APO

Edited by Phil Wood - 02 May 2022 at 10:43