Minolta 70-210 F4 lens - any good ?

andyred

andyred

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Hi

How good are they ? Are they worth the money due to their age ?

Thinking of buying one for FIL as he's a Sony user and am just wondering how good they are, due to their age. Seen a few for around £70-80 and as it's not a system I use, I'm after some advice from those that have used one...

Is there anything I should be looking out for ?

Thanks :thumbs:
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I've got one which I use on my Minolta AF film cameras and it is a lovely lens, built like a tank (quite literally steel, glass and a tiny bit of plastic) and quite sharp from f4.5 upward. O.K the AF is a little slower/noisier than more modern lenses but it does the job! For a constant f4 zoom from about £80 can you really argue?
 
For the price you can now pick them up, the Minolta 70-210 f/4 is a good lens.

I've not personally used one (but have the shorter 35-70 f/4 version, which is ridiculously cheap these days)

The downsides of them is that they are fairly heavy, can suffer a bit from CA, and the AF is slow compared to the various 70-300 ish zooms.

On the plus side, they are very solidly built, and have the 'Minolta colour' to the images they produce.
 
For the £70/£80 or so they go for I think they are great value. Mine is very sharp up to 150mm, especially stopped down a bit to say f5.6 but there is a noticeable drop off after that (@160mm to 210mm - although still decent, especially stopped down a bit - again 5.6 seems to be a sweet spot on mine at the longer end too).

AF is a bit noisy and slightly slower than some modern lenses but still decent speed compared to some other screw drive Minolta lenses I have used like the 75-300 Minolta 'new' version which is very slow and noisy!

Main problem is purple fringing/CA can be quite bad in certain situations, so not ideal for a jpeg shooter.

I guess there is sample variation with an old lens like this (last made around 25 years ago in the late 1980's) as the photos here look very good wide open at 210mm: http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/a58-test_topic98055.html

If you can find one at a dealer with a warranty that will at least avoid the ebay lottery on old lenses like this (mine was £75 from Cameraworld with a 6 month warranty and a 7 day return option). If you do buy on ebay make sure the description specifically says no fungus, no oil on blades, etc - that way you can return it if it is not as described. Try and get one with the hood included too as they are more prone to flare than modern lenses.

On the other hand, the Tamron 55-200 is a similar price new (£89), comes with a 5 year warranty, is much smaller and lighter and is probably better for longer range stuff. I have both and use the Minolta for animal and people portraits and flowers/plants etc but take the Tamron when I want to travel light and for landscapes etc. For the price the Tamron is also surprisingly sharp stopped down a bit (although it's only f4 up to about 130mm, the Minolta is obviously constant f4 throughout). http://photo.net/equipment/tamron/55_200_Di/
The Sony 55-200 is very similar to the Tamron (rebadged version??) and can be found for £99 new (white box, split from kit) and has the advantage of a non-rotating front element during focusing.
 
i was put off by the ca, but i often shoot high contrast stuff, but it has a good reputation, and im not sure what alternatives there are, and at what price
 
Thanks guys, very helpful and useful information and what to look out for :thumbs:
 
applemint said:
For the £70/£80 or so they go for I think they are great value. Mine is very sharp up to 150mm, especially stopped down a bit to say f5.6 but there is a noticeable drop off after that (@160mm to 210mm - although still decent, especially stopped down a bit - again 5.6 seems to be a sweet spot on mine at the longer end too).

AF is a bit noisy and slightly slower than some modern lenses but still decent speed compared to some other screw drive Minolta lenses I have used like the 75-300 Minolta 'new' version which is very slow and noisy!

Main problem is purple fringing/CA can be quite bad in certain situations, so not ideal for a jpeg shooter.

I guess there is sample variation with an old lens like this (last made around 25 years ago in the late 1980's) as the photos here look very good wide open at 210mm: http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/a58-test_topic98055.html

If you can find one at a dealer with a warranty that will at least avoid the ebay lottery on old lenses like this (mine was £75 from Cameraworld with a 6 month warranty and a 7 day return option). If you do buy on ebay make sure the description specifically says no fungus, no oil on blades, etc - that way you can return it if it is not as described. Try and get one with the hood included too as they are more prone to flare than modern lenses.

On the other hand, the Tamron 55-200 is a similar price new (£89), comes with a 5 year warranty, is much smaller and lighter and is probably better for longer range stuff. I have both and use the Minolta for animal and people portraits and flowers/plants etc but take the Tamron when I want to travel light and for landscapes etc. For the price the Tamron is also surprisingly sharp stopped down a bit (although it's only f4 up to about 130mm, the Minolta is obviously constant f4 throughout). http://photo.net/equipment/tamron/55_200_Di/
The Sony 55-200 is very similar to the Tamron (rebadged version??) and can be found for £99 new (white box, split from kit) and has the advantage of a non-rotating front element during focusing.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mark for the other options to think about...

Don't do e-bay, so no worries there, but will certainly think about the other options - this is a walk about lens for the shorter / lighter lens, so the Tamron / Sony could well be worth it.

Cheers
 
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