Minolta AF 28mm F2.8 A-mount lens review by transiently

transiently#45713 date: Jun-2-2021
sharpness: 3.5 color: 4 build: 4 distortion: 3 flare control: 3 overall: 3.5	tested on: film camera: APS-C: 6MP; 10MP; 12MP; 14MP; 16MP; 20MP; 24MP full frame: 12MP; 24MP; 36MP; 42MP; 61MP
ownership:	I own this lens
compared to:	It's about the same as the much more expensive 28/2 pro lens I used for a short time around 1990, and very little worse than the 24/2.8 which used to be fairly respected. It looks as if it performs almost as well as my first series 35-105...but this isn't exactly incredible for a prime.
price paid:	it was almost free
positive:	Images have a nice look to them, with pleasant out of focus areas. It's easy to carry and use. Centre sharpness is good right from maximum aperture
negative:	Stop down to 5.6 or so if you have interesting things at the sides and don't think too much about the corners.
comment:	I have used this in its manual focus form on film, and on micro 4/3. The latter definitely shows that its overall sharpness doesn't stand much scrutiny, since M 4/3 is magnifying the image quite a lot, but it's not looking terrible on APS-C and was always fairly good on film, so I'd guess would be at least reasonable on full frame digital at, say, 24 MP. I took my A37 camera out of retirement to test it and quite liked it.