16503 :-(Recently purchased a Minolta 80-200 HS APO 2.8 Mint. Took a few shots with my A57 until the shutter froze. Got the a77ii and for the past month have been trying to micro-adjust the minolta lense. This lense is only sharp at f8. I called a lense repair tech who said that the problem came out of production that way. He suggested that I just shoot at f8. Great AF and colours. Any advice would be appreciated. Purchased from Japan.
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Minolta 80-200 HS APO 2.8 FAULTY?
- Thread starter tomasi
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- sony slt-a57 sony slt-a77
Glenn
Veteran Member
What lens repair tech? Sounds like bs to me
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JimmyMelbourne
Senior Member
Do some focus tests using manual focus. Do it in good light. Use focus peaking and centre spot, see if you can get sharp shots manually at f2.8 - f4.0. The a7ii AF can be complicated to learn so it is probably the camera and your skills to use it rather than the lens.
Marco Cinnirella
Veteran Member
Sorry to say I agree with the others - sounds like you have been told BS, UNLESS the tech meant that the lens is just not a good copy and so can not be adjusted through repair work - in which case he is probably correct, in that this lens should be sharp even wide open.
I recently got this lens and conducted extensive pixel peeping tests on my a99 full frame - it is stunning - sharp wide open at f2.8 and 200mm - FAR sharper than my Tamron 70-200 f2.8 at that focal length and aperture. It only gets better when stopped down. Reviews on Dyxum seem to agree. No point in having this lens if you have to use it at f8 !
One final note - this lens has some kind of rear lens element guard on it. I clumsily took this lens on and off my a99 once and it must have moved the a99 aperture lever out of alignment and got it stuck because when I put another lens on I kept getting camera error warnings and my camera 'crashed' whenever I tried to stop the aperture down. I gently moved the aperture lever back into alignment and all is fine again - watch out for that, it MIGHT explain the issue you had with this lens on one of your bodies. Or instead the weird issue you had (was it with your a57?) may have been down to bad lens contacts that need cleaning or a fault in the IC chip in the lens (if the latter I imagine they can't fix that due to the age of the lens).
My strong advice - return for refund if at all possible or find a repair shop that is used to working on old minolta lenses and ideally that has worked on this lens model before - not easy !
I recently got this lens and conducted extensive pixel peeping tests on my a99 full frame - it is stunning - sharp wide open at f2.8 and 200mm - FAR sharper than my Tamron 70-200 f2.8 at that focal length and aperture. It only gets better when stopped down. Reviews on Dyxum seem to agree. No point in having this lens if you have to use it at f8 !
One final note - this lens has some kind of rear lens element guard on it. I clumsily took this lens on and off my a99 once and it must have moved the a99 aperture lever out of alignment and got it stuck because when I put another lens on I kept getting camera error warnings and my camera 'crashed' whenever I tried to stop the aperture down. I gently moved the aperture lever back into alignment and all is fine again - watch out for that, it MIGHT explain the issue you had with this lens on one of your bodies. Or instead the weird issue you had (was it with your a57?) may have been down to bad lens contacts that need cleaning or a fault in the IC chip in the lens (if the latter I imagine they can't fix that due to the age of the lens).
My strong advice - return for refund if at all possible or find a repair shop that is used to working on old minolta lenses and ideally that has worked on this lens model before - not easy !
16503 APPRECIATE THE REPLIES..UPGRADED FROM THE A57 TO THEA77II SO MICROADJUST IS NEW TO ME. THE TIME HAS PAST FOR ME TO RETURN THE LENSE TO THE SELLER IN JAPAN. I INFORMED THE SELLER BEFORE THE 14 DAY RETURN CUTOFF THAT I FELT THE LENSE HAD A PROBLEM. SELLER WENT INTO PANIC MODE SAYING HE TESTED THE LENSE AT THE CAMERA SHOP WHERE HE PURCHASED THE LENSE. HE GAVE THE IMPRESSION THAT IF I RETURNED THE LENSE HE WOULD BE TAKING A BIG LOSS. I"M THINKING MAYBE HE IS HEADING FOR RITUAL SUICIDE.....SO I BACKED OFF AND SETTLED ON MY LACK OF EXPERIENCE WITH THE A77II AS THE PROBLEM. HOOKED UP A MINOLTA 100-400 ZOOM TO THE A77II AND ADJUSTED IT PERFECTLY. I AM CONTACTING THE VERY FEW MINOLTA LENSE REPAIR SHOPS.
Marco Cinnirella
Veteran Member
Good luck ! Report back on this thread what the outcome is
parallaxproblem
Veteran Member
My 80-200/2.8 HS APO is sharp wide-open on my 16MP NEX-5R and on my 24MP FF A900 (haven't used it on the 24MP APS-C A77II). It seems to out-resolve my 70-400G2 (already a pretty good lens) on the higher resolution APS-C sensor
Can I suggest trying a bit more with micro-focus adjust before you spend money on repairs? Forget all that rubbish about 'rulers and test targets'. Put the body and lens on a solid tripod, focus on something a reasonable distance away (preferably the same distance as your expected subject matter...), set the camera on 'M' mode with ISO 100 and f2.8 at 200mm and then go through all the Micro Focus adjustment points available from one end to the other, de-focusing and then using AF (preferably with a remote shutter release) and take a shot... JPEG 'fine' is OK for this (no need for RAW). Then look at the images at 100% on your computer monitor and find the region of micro-focus adjust values where the image is sharpest (ie. count the number of images from where you started) and then re-test those micro-focus values to find the precise one that is sharpest. Then check again at f2.8 with 130mm and 80mm to see if the micro-focus adjustment is still relevant at those focal lengths (annoyingly it can change on some lenses)
My 80-200 certainly benefited from Micro-Focus. The 70-400 *really* benefited from it and my 16-50/2.8 changed from a rather 'meh' lens to something quite decent after I dialed-in the correct Micro-Focus
Give it a go... it might work for you!
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Douglas F Watt
Senior Member
The 'lens repair tech' whoever he is is an idiot and appears to know nothing about Minolta glass. That lens was perhaps the sharpest 80-200 of its generation, and still holds its own against more modern offerings.
See Dyxum reviews of Minolta G 8-200 2.8.
When you say that you have been 'trying to MFA' the lens, what exactly have you tried? Can you post some results?
There are all kinds of possible explanations, indeed too many to list.
Show us the problem. Shoot wide open, and at f4 and f8 on scene with lateral/vertical depth.
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Sony A77m2-RX1-RX100III
Sony 16-50 2.8, 70-400 f4-5.6 G2, 100 f2.8 Macro
Minolta 600 f4, 300 2.8, 70-210 f4, 28-135 f4-4.5
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