Minolta AF 28-135mm F4-4.5 A-mount lens review by pcarmalt
 pcarmalt#7220 date: Apr-1-2010 | |
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| sharpness: 4 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 3 flare control: 4 overall: 4.2 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | Sigma 17-35 F2.8-4 EX DG Sony 20 F2.8 CZ 24-70 F2.8 Sony 24-105 F3.5-4.5 Tamron 28-75 F2.8 Minolta 35-70 F4 Minolta 35-105 F3.5-4.5 Old Minolta 50 F1.7 RS Sony 50 F1.4 Minolta 70-210 F4 CZ 85 F1.4 Sony 100 F2.8 Macro Minolta 100-300 F4.5-5.6 APO Minolta 135 F2.8 |
| price paid: | GBP 230 I think |
| positive: | - Images have a special look...really lovely colour - Probably the best "walkabout" lens for full frame - Fast AF - Bokeh is smooth |
| negative: | - Wide open, not great sharpness on full frame. Especially corners at 28mm very soft - Worst lens I have for CA - MFD 1.5m - Visible barrel distortion at 28mm |
| comment: | This is quite a unique lens. It was not love at first sight. It took a while for me to warm to this lens, but now I love it. Makes a great walkaround lens on full frame with almost 5x zoom range, the only one of its kind with good enough quality. At first, comparing to my Tamron 28-75/2.8 I disliked the not great sharpness below F.6, awful CA especially with tree branches, limiting MFD, distortion, and low contrast. However, the images produced by this lens have a kind of special sometimes 3D quality, with really great colour. When I started shooting RAW, low contrast became a non-issue as it's easily tweaked. And when taking landscapes, I stop down to F8 or F11. However, the special look of this lens is NOT easy to replicate, i.e. I can't make my images taken with the Tamron look like this lens. I think a lot of hype for this lens was created by the comparisons on Artaphot.ch where it outperformed CZ24-70 etc, however I think Stephen has an freakishly good copy. I have compared with CZ24-70 and it blows away the 28-135 for sharpness. Looking at sample images other people have taken using the 28-135 on dyxum/flickr they do not look any sharper than my copy. Therefore, do not expect your 28-135 to equal the sharp across entire frame wide open on full frame that Stephen's copy seems to exhibit. I think anyone who rated this lens a 5 for sharpness has not used a CZ prime 85 or 135 :-) AF is faster than all my other lenses except 135/2.8, this is very welcome... Compared to the much cheaper 35-105 Old, there is very little in it in terms of IQ. However, the 28-135 range is much more convenient. Compared to the beercan, there is very little in it in IQ except at 135mm where beercan is sharper. However, 28-135 has much faster AF. |
; 36MPrating summary
- total reviews: 203
- sharpness: 4.63
- color: 4.83
- build: 4.80
- distortion: 4.41
- flare control: 3.44
- overall: 4.42