Minolta 28-105 f3.5-4.5 zoom xi wasn't designed for manual focus (MF)

I joined dyxum and I read a number of reviews of this lens, interestingly all of them were quite positive. Actually I love power-zoom, works brilliantly on my Dynax 7D, but MF is impossible. My favorite E-mount lens is PZ28135f4, it is a power-zoom, I love it, but it has regular manual focus experience vs this xi lens. When used as a fully AF lens, I found it snappy and lovely.

Here are a couple of photos taken with it this morning. I took a number of children photos, too and the lens worked great with portraits, too.

I found the lens AF snappy enough for the kind/style of photography I am doing.

We visited this location with the two grand-daughters.

Water sports life is quite active here.

A power-zoom lens from 1991, amazing. Manual focusing (MF) is impossible, at least with my copy. Since I use AF exclusively this is not an issue in practice, to me.

This lens has an enormously big advantage vs the Minolta 28-135, minimum focus distance is a lot shorter.

I owned and used this lens in the film days. It was my walk-around standard zoom.

I sold it and bought a 24-105  F3.5-4.5 D arond the tiem i bought the Konica Minolta 7D.

I have always been satisfied with both these lenses.

I bought the xi lens before (i had enough money to buy) the 7xi body so i had to use it in mf on the 7000AF. It is not ideal for use in mf, but it worked quite alright for me.

I've got all the zoom xi lenses , the one that's had the most use is the 35-200mm .

It gives surprisingly good results .

The others don't offer anything that regular lenses give , such as the 28-105mm RS , much better optics than the zoom xi version .

Conventional zoom ring and focus ring . Why change it ?

Regarding manual focus with these lenses , they manual focus just fine .

But there's a nack !

That doesn't mean that conventional lenses with a direct control for MF aren't far superior , they are .

.

Have yo noticed when you zoom that if you move the ring only slightly the lens zooms very slowly , and if you move the ring quite far the zoom zips out really fast with no control ?

The same happens when manually focussing .

How far you turn the zoom/MF ring controls how fast it moves from one extreme to the other .

For manual focus if you need to change from MFD to infinity quickly ,pull the focus/zoom ring back and turn the ring fully and it rapidly changes focus .

For fine focussing you need to barely move the ring from it's resting place so it moves slowly and precisely .

Takes a bit of practice , but it does work fine .

neilt3 wrote:

I've got all the zoom xi lenses, the one that's had the most use is the 35-200mm. It gives surprisingly good results. the 28-105mm RS, much better optics than the zoom xi version .

Actually, I was quite happy with the power zooming and images of the 28105XI.

Have yo noticed when you zoom that if you move the ring only slightly the lens zooms very slowly , and if you move the ring quite far the zoom zips out really fast with no control ?

Yes, I am a happy owner of the mighty FE PZ28135f4, and I love power zoom lenses.

The same happens when manually focussing . How far you turn the zoom/MF ring controls how fast it moves from one extreme to the other. For manual focus if you need to change from MFD to infinity quickly ,pull the focus/zoom ring back and turn the ring fully and it rapidly changes focus .

Yes, it works more or less OK with my copy of the 28105XI

For fine focusing you need to barely move the ring from it's resting place so it moves slowly and precisely. Takes a bit of practice , but it does work fine .

Thank you, Neil, for the explanation and encouragement. I guess my XI lens is not really OK for (powered) MF. I received it along with a Dynax 7xi.

Here is a video (https://youtu.be/kAAb5HSOSVQ) I've just recorded to demonstrate how my lens works/behaves. I didn't give any narration to listen to the sound of the lens motors.

Thank you again for the help.

dutch_km_user wrote:

I owned and used this lens in the film days. It was my walk-around standard zoom. I sold it and bought a 24-105 F3.5-4.5 D around the time I bought the Konica Minolta 7D. I have always been satisfied with both these lenses.

Thank you for your feedback.

I've just found a major issue with XI lenses, they are not supported by the LA-EA adapters. At least my lens doesn't work at all on my LA-EA4 adapter.

A regular non-XI lens just works fine with my adapter ...

... but my XI lens doesn't, unfortunately.

I bought the xi lens before (i had enough money to buy) the 7xi body so i had to use it in mf on the 7000AF. It is not ideal for use in mf, but it worked quite alright for me.

I guess my (30-year) XI lens has an mechanical or contact issue when pulling back the ring and activating powered manual focusing (check my video).

Thank you for commenting and giving your nice story, I really appreciate your experienced Minolta users support.

havanna60 wrote:

neilt3 wrote:

I've got all the zoom xi lenses, the one that's had the most use is the 35-200mm. It gives surprisingly good results. the 28-105mm RS, much better optics than the zoom xi version .

Actually, I was quite happy with the power zooming and images of the 28105XI.

Have yo noticed when you zoom that if you move the ring only slightly the lens zooms very slowly , and if you move the ring quite far the zoom zips out really fast with no control ?

Yes, I am a happy owner of the mighty FE PZ28135f4, and I love power zoom lenses.

The same happens when manually focussing . How far you turn the zoom/MF ring controls how fast it moves from one extreme to the other. For manual focus if you need to change from MFD to infinity quickly ,pull the focus/zoom ring back and turn the ring fully and it rapidly changes focus .

Yes, it works more or less OK with my copy of the 28105XI

For fine focusing you need to barely move the ring from it's resting place so it moves slowly and precisely. Takes a bit of practice , but it does work fine .

Thank you, Neil, for the explanation and encouragement. I guess my XI lens is not really OK for (powered) MF. I received it along with a Dynax 7xi.

Here is a video (https://youtu.be/kAAb5HSOSVQ) I've just recorded to demonstrate how my lens works/behaves. I didn't give any narration to listen to the sound of the lens motors.

Thank you again for the help.

I've watched your video twice and put the 28-105mm zoom xi lens on my 7d .

I'm not sure if it's down to the noise being amplified by your recording camera , but it doesn't sound right .

It reminds me of a coffee grinder !

The zoom function sounded about right , but it sounds like the focus gears aren't too good .

In your video it sounded like the gears were skipping at the end of their travel as well which indicates excessive wear .

Focusing is a bit louder than zooming , but when you zoomed slowly it was very quite .

Focusing shouldn't be much louder than that , AF or MF .

It's hard to say without the two lenses side by side .

.

Regarding Sony power zoom lenses , the only one I have is the 16-50mm .

As a comparison , the zoom and manual focus on that is much better and quieter  than the Minolta's .

I don't really like the Sony either , but I tend to have it on my NEX 7 as it works out as a good pocketable combination for when either I'm not somewhere with my DSLRs or if I want a digital camera for when I'm using just film .

havanna60 wrote:

dutch_km_user wrote:

I owned and used this lens in the film days. It was my walk-around standard zoom. I sold it and bought a 24-105 F3.5-4.5 D around the time I bought the Konica Minolta 7D. I have always been satisfied with both these lenses.

Thank you for your feedback.

I've just found a major issue with XI lenses, they are not supported by the LA-EA adapters. At least my lens doesn't work at all on my LA-EA4 adapter.

A regular non-XI lens just works fine with my adapter ...

... but my XI lens doesn't, unfortunately.

I bought the xi lens before (i had enough money to buy) the 7xi body so i had to use it in mf on the 7000AF. It is not ideal for use in mf, but it worked quite alright for me.

I guess my (30-year) XI lens has an mechanical or contact issue when pulling back the ring and activating powered manual focusing (check my video).

Thank you for commenting and giving your nice story, I really appreciate your experienced Minolta users support.

The Minolta Zoom xi lenses , Minolta Power Zoom lens and the Minolta / Sony teleconverters are not compatible with any Sony LA-EA* adapter .

It isn't a fault , that's how Sony do it .

There's no reason for the adapter not to work , the lenses work fine with all Sony DSLRs and SLT cameras .

They just haven't included the protocols into the adapters .

One reason could be the power drain as everything they do requires power from the small e mount batteries .

I know recent models have bigger batteries , but I reckon that might be the reason .

Or Sony just couldn't be arsed . That's just as likely !

Also I can't see a good reason for teleconverters not to function with the adapters .

They work fine on the a55 whose AF unit was in the SLT adapters.

So there's no reason for the earlier screwdrive ones not to work .

The later ones for SSM lenses might cause problems for sensor based AF , but again , on the SLT units work independently from the camera .

That's on Sony .