Minolta AF 28-135mm F4-4.5 A-mount lens review by godsakes
 godsakes#10119 date: Apr-14-2012 | |
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| sharpness: 4 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 4 flare control: 2 overall: 4 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | Tamron 24-135mm CZ 16-80mm |
| price paid: | missing |
| positive: | Sharp Minolta colours Decent AF speed |
| negative: | Bad flare Restrictive MFD Wish it started at 24mm Heavy |
| comment: | First of all this lens is sharp but I'm not convinced it's quite as legendary as some people claim. None the less the combination of sharpness, colour and bokeh means this lens produces a very pleasing image (more than the sum of it's parts, I suppose). The main downsides of this lens is it's extremely prone to flare made worse by the fact it doesn't come with a hood, it's actually has worse flare control than most wide angle lenses. The long MFD is restrictive and means this lens is really for outdoor use. Despite what some have said, I find the AF speed to be pretty decent (the tamron 24-135mm is far slower and if you want to know what slow is try lenses like the minolta 85mm). AF accuracy could be better however. The nearest FF rival is the tamron 24-135mm it has far fewer of the drawbacks, i.e. starts at 24mm has a much more usable MFD and isn't as prone to flare. However it's image quality isn't as good as the minolta and it's AF speed is annoyingly slow for a non-macro lens. There's no clear winner between the 2 IMHO both are flawed. APS-C users with the carl zeiss 16-80mm can be smug as the carl zeiss produces a sharper image than both lenses with none of the drawbacks (fast AF, flare resistant, good distortion control), maybe you would still prefer the minolta colours and build but it's no real contest the zeiss is easily the better lens. |
36MPrating summary
- total reviews: 194
- sharpness: 4.63
- color: 4.82
- build: 4.79
- distortion: 4.42
- flare control: 3.45
- overall: 4.42