Minolta 500mm f/8 Reflex

I was at the camera store and noticed a used Minolta 500mm f/8 reflex. I didn't know much about the lens and was under the impression that all lenses of this type were manual focus. I was startled when I put it on my camera and it auto-focused.

They don't tend to have much used Sony/Minolta gear at my crack, I mean camera dealer and this was a good price so I bought it. They have a 7 day return policy but so far, I think it's a keeper



Jay Lee
http://www.baldheretic.com

Looks like two keepers (pic and lens)!
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Ralf



http://ralfralph.smugmug.com/
10.000 slides still to scan........

Minolta and now sony's are the only reflex lense there are that can autofocus. And as you see you can get excellent result with it. I've had my own eye out for one
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F717 (Legendary)
A700 (what a fantastic machine)
A200 (Almost as fantastic)

Long refractive lenses need a lot of fancy optics to combat chromatic aberration. Catadioptric lenses have fewer polished surfaces, so they are very sharp, and there's very little refracting going on so there's little chromatic aberration.

The only downside is the goofy bokeh.

You're now the proud owner of one of the most underated lenses ever... Welcome to the club. Forget the bokeh and enjoy!
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LesP

I keep watching these on ebay and wondering whether to buy or not. Currently there is one down here in Oz for about 500 US dollars, how does that compare with what you paid?
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eric burrows

I did not pay that much, but $450 to $500 seems to be about the going rate.

Lightweight, compact, autofocus, very sharp -- you will enjoy it.
PBC

I've had two of these. One for my film Minolta...and one for my A700.

The only problem I have is trying to hand hold it. A monopod comes in pretty handy when using this lens. I like it and will keep it in my arsenal.

Welcome to the club.

I have many friends own this lens.
We love this lens so much,especially the"circle shape bokeh"

I had this lens for about 3 weeks and I really like it.



a900@17mm



a700@500mm

both shots were taken at the same location around same time.

... of the oft repeated mantra: "Mirror teles have lousy boke".

Depending on the background, they can have that, but in your picture there's not even a hint of it.

I just got the Sony version of this lens. I found that on my A350 it consistently and accurately backfocused, i.e. what I focused on would be slightly blurred, and the distance of critical sharp focus would be a bit behind it. When taking frame filling photographs of birds on grass, for example, I'd find that the bird was slightly soft, and the grass just behind the bird's feet would be sharp.

I tried manual focusing using the focus confirmation indicator, hoping to find that there would be a little depth of field giving a slight range of in-focus motion, so I could choose to focus on the back boundary of the area of DoF. But no such luck! The lens has razor thin critical focus, and with respect to manual adjustment is either in focus or out, and is quite hard to get in focus manually.

So I tried getting it to focus from a position of closer focus, and from a position of more distant focus. There were on average slight differences, but they weren't consistent or large enough to be useful.

I had previously discovered that my 50mm lens at f1.4 also suffered from back focus. Unlike the 500mm it also had a DoF with identifiable front and rear boundaries which could be focussed on individually in manual focus mode. So I decided that it was my A350 which was doing at least most of the backfocusing, not the lenses. I decided to try adjusting out the focus error using the AF focus sensor plane adjustment allen bolts under the sticky plastic cover around the tripod bolt hole in the base of the camera, using the very critical 500mm reflex lens as the reference. It took about a 60 degree clockwise rotation of the three bolts (they should be adjusted together, separately they tilt the focus sensor plane).

I may not have finished this process, but the results so far are most encouraging. Here's a cropped down and near original size shot on a slightly misty day of a clock tower a few miles away before adjustment. I took several photographs of this and other things at similar distances and this degree of softness was typical. The camera was supported on a monopod, the shutter was 1/500th sec, the SSS was off, and ISO was 100.



Here for comparison is the same shot a few days later after focus adjustment. Unfortunately the day was bit mistier and darker, so this time the ISO was 400 and the shutter 1/250th sec. Nevertheless the image is very obviously a good bit sharper.



The absence of the pointy thing in front of the clock is due to my standing a few yards across from the original position. Distance is the same.

I expect good light and distance visibility to produce sharper results, but it's already clear that the camera focus adjustment has sharpened things up a lot.

I am by the way very pleased with this lens. It seems to be good enough that my camera is struggling a bit to get the best from it, which is as good as I could hope for! I note by the way that at 1/125th sec shutter speed on a tripod I can see mirror slap blur in its images, which is annoying given that the A350 lacks a mirror lock up.

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Chris Malcolm

Chris Malcolm said:

I may not have finished this process, but the results so far are most
encouraging. Here's a cropped down and near original size shot on a
slightly misty day of a clock tower a few miles away before
adjustment. I took several photographs of this and other things at
similar distances and this degree of softness was typical. The camera
was supported on a monopod, the shutter was 1/500th sec, the SSS was
off, and ISO was 100.



Here for comparison is the same shot a few days later after focus
adjustment. Unfortunately the day was bit mistier and darker, so this
time the ISO was 400 and the shutter 1/250th sec. Nevertheless the
image is very obviously a good bit sharper.



The absence of the pointy thing in front of the clock is due to my
standing a few yards across from the original position. Distance is
the same.

I expect good light and distance visibility to produce sharper
results, but it's already clear that the camera focus adjustment has
sharpened things up a lot.

Click to expand...

After further tests I've decided that I've probably got the focus on this lens as well adjusted in my A350 body as possible and am leaving it at that for now. I've also discovered that it wasn't a good idea to use that clock tower a few miles away as a test, since at that distance over city roof tops in Edinburgh the view is almost always slightly fuzzed by atmospheric haze and the distorting effect of currents of hot and cold air such as are easily seen with the naked eye when looking over the top of a fire. In several subsequent visits to that view on days with much better visibility due to less atmospheric haze, the wavy distortions of different air temperatures have made it impossible to get anywere near the clarity of those shots.

I suspect that in distant views like this the lenslike distortions of different air densities can also throw the AF off by accidentally temporarily producing apparently sharp focus at the bit the AF sensor is looking at the wrong distance. It's certainly the case that when atmospheric distortions are obviously affecting the image that I get better focus manually than using AF, whereas in good atmospheric conditions the AF focuses more sharply than I can manage manually.

Chris Malcolm said:

I am by the way very pleased with this lens. It seems to be good
enough that my camera is struggling a bit to get the best from it,
which is as good as I could hope for! I note by the way that at
1/125th sec shutter speed on a tripod I can see mirror slap blur in
its images, which is annoying given that the A350 lacks a mirror lock
up.

Click to expand...

The bad news is that I've quite clearly seen mirror slap causing slight but very obvious vertical smearing in an otherwise sharp image at shutter speeds of 1/200th sec on my best tripod (a Benbo with column extended to eye level). I also note that most of my sharpest shots were taken at shutter speeds of 1/500th and higher, which could be a coincidence such as sampling error. I'll later devise some better tests of the effects of mirror slap, shutter speed, SSS, and various kinds of camera mountings.

As I thought it probably would, adjusting the A350 camera body focus to produce best results with this very critical lens has also improved results with my other focus-critical lens, the Sony 50mm f1.4. What it seems to have done to that is to nail focus spot on at apertures of f2 and smaller, but at f1.4 there is still backfocus well outside the very narrow sharp DoF region. So that widest back focus looks like aperture-related focus drift which I'll simply have to learn how to get round, e.g. by focusing on the nose of a head shot when I want the eyes in focus, or leaning slightly forwards after focusing, etc..

I expected that this focus adjustment wouldn't have any significant effect on the focussing of my 18-250mm zoom, since that had enough depth of field to swallow the small adjustment which mattered a lot to the very critical 500mm. I now suspect that what I previously thought was simply the well known softness of that lens when racked out to its full 250mm was at least on my own A350 in part due to back focus, because it now looks a bit sharper at 250mm.

So far so good. It's now clear to me that this rather extraordinary 500mm mirror lens is stretching the limits of what my camera, my best tripod, and my long lens understanding and technique are capable of. That's a pleasant and interesting place to be in which I shall enjoy exploring further. My next experiments will be to add some kind of gun-like sights to it to make aiming it easier and faster, and to find out how much and under what conditions lengthening the lens hood improves contrast.

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Chris Malcolm

I'm watching your thread. I have a KM 500mm waiting for me at my son's house in NY for when I see him in June. You are making it harder to wait, it looks great,!

It doesn't have a clear filter so I am still at a quandary whether to buy a replacement (US$75 here in HK) or just cover the slot with tape. (General advice seems to be that it doesn't make much difference). If any 500mm fans have a spare one, even a broken one (lots seem to have had the clip broken) please let me know. I'd much rather see the money go to a useful purpose than into the jaws of Sony. I'll have to order in the next couple of weeks if I decide to bite that bullet! If it's complete, I guess if I ever sell it it would be easier.

cheers

tom

Any samples from A900?

--
My gallery -> http://kubica.deviantart.com/gallery/
A900 / SAL 50 1.4 / S 12-24 / S 70-300 APO

On the issue of blurring due to mirror slap I was going to suggest using the 2 sec timer with MLU & then remembered that the entry series of Sony DSLRs does not have this feature.

The only measures which you can take are to avoid using the tripod extension column & use a remote shutter release togther with a high shutter speed.

Keith-C

Wow, awesome shot showing the difference!

It's funny, I had similar experience with my 100-400mm, as this lens prove my A700 had lots of BF - I had to turn about 120-130º. At 400mm @ f6.3 and close focus (2-3m), the DoF is small enough to get very clear focus informations.

After that, I turned to my A350, which I mostly use with 18-250mm, and also correct a small BF - about 45º. With the 18-250mm the sharpness was very good, but I only use it @f8. I believe it's better now, at least with my A700 the lens is very sharp.



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JP
Lisbon, PORTUGAL

Sony Alpha A700 v4
Sony Alpha A350

SAL 18-250mm + MINOLTA 70-210 f4 'Beercan' + MINOLTA 100-400 APO + SIGMA EF-500 DG Super

Very nice. The composition and colors are pretty cool.
Cheers!

--
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Lenses: Some primes, some zooms, some Gs a CZ and a TC.
Camera: A700, 800si, and an M1