Minolta MC Rokkor-PF 135mm f/2.8

This is one of the early Minolta 135 MC – six elements in five groups. Build to last, all metal and glass, it is a result of an old mans craft, that we wouldn’t see soon again if ever…

If you want to experience what manual focus was meant to be, find this lens in your local shop and try it. Or even better – trace one and buy it, because for 22 USD that mine cost few years ago in like new condition and original box, you might use it as a stress reliever, by just holding it and turning focus ring if you don’t have camera.

It feature built in lens hood (all metal of course and even lens cap with nice old typeface  Minolta engraving is a small piece of art compared to recent ones.

The lens is medium size for 135mm lenses, but with its 535g. it is rather heavy. Ok, not as heavy as Sony Sonnar 135/1.8 or 135 F/2.8 STF, but still, quite heavy.

It can focus from 1.5m which is somewhat disappointing and it has filter diameter of 55mm, so no problem to use filters those days.

ISO 12333 test:

f/2.8

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/4. Click for original

f/4

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/4. Click for original.

f/5.6

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/5.6. Click for original.

f/8

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/8. Click for original.

f/11

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/11. Click for original.

f/16

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/16. Click for original.

f/22

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/22. Click for original.

As much as I like the lens for its look and build quality, the image quality while not bad, is mediocre at best. Wide open Minolta shows some CA, more toward purple, and corners gets bit mushy. Contrast is lower and there is some blooming. I suspect, that making a baffle for this lens will help contrast and blooming, but I don’t think it will ever be crispy sharp as some of its (much more expensive) peers.
It is quite possible that later MD versions of Minolta 135 f/2.8 featuring 5 elements in 4 groups, are optically better and sharper. Some says – much better.

Chart tests are always a bit of lottery and my MTFs shows rather lens general behavior than absolute qualities, due to sample variations and de-centering issues of lens, sensor and mainly adapters. So, while those charts are good tool to compare lenses and read their characteristics, you should not take results literally, but rather as indication of trends.

Anyway, 135 f/2.8 is a short tele lens and it is often used on FF as a portrait lens. It will serve well as portrait lens on APS-C sensor too, but you need long enough distance from your subjects. For portraiture, character of subject isolation (bokeh), colors and contrast are more important than resolution. Here is a simple test of bokeh, showing how lens render OOF area and some circular highlights.

Bokeh Test:

f/2.8

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/2.8. Click for original

Wide open, bokeh is neutral. Highlights has tendency toward cat-eyes shape, but spherical aberration is rather well controlled. Specular highlights are quite monolith with only slightly darker edges.

f/5.6

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/5.6. Click for original

Stopped down to f/5.6 the hexagonal shape of the aperture shows up and overall the background gets a bit more nervous.

In a real life, Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 was kind of surprise for me. While softness wide open was expected, I had high hopes for so called “Minolta colors”. In general, for such an old lens, I expected to see a bit more of… well anything – wrong or good. This Minolta however ignored me and as a cold professional, did what I asked it to do, without adding anything extra. Take a look at following portrait series…

Portrait 1

f/2.8

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/2.8. Click here for original

f/5.6

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/5.6. Click here for original

100% crop

You can see that even at longer distances, sharpness wide open is sub-par. But this might worry only pixel peepers. Stopped down to 5.6, Minolta improves a lot, but I still can’t see that cutting edge in the eyes, that would be nice to have.

Portrait 2

f/2.8

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/2.8. Click here for original.

f/5.6

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/5.6. Click here for original.

100% crop

Portrait 3

f/2.8

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/2.8. Click here for original

f/5.6

Sony NEX 7 + Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF at f/5.6. Click here for original

Flaring to come… (next summer I am afraid :-() But don’t expect great results there. This is an old lens, which does have multicoating, but the quality of it was nothing to write home about.

Summary:

It seems, that I was not born to love old Minolta lenses. I have to admit, that build quality of those MC Rokkors is really outstanding, IMHO same or even better than legendary Takumars. But I just can’t find anything special in terms of rendering of those MC Minolta glasses. To be fair, it might just be certain intolerance between Minolta and NEX 7 sensor, or I might have different taste than Minolta lovers…

Don’t get me wrong, for the price – this lens is hard to beat. It will do the job and made nice, quite sharp pictures with neutral bokeh. And it will be pleasure to use it and manual focus. If you like what you see in my test, don’t hesitate and get one of those. I really think that they are underrated.

But if you look for the lens that will render a bit of its own, and give some special “flavor” to your portraits, Minolta Rokkor MC 135/2.8 PF will hardly satisfy you. Or maybe, it’s just me…

The complete set (some images will be added by time) with original images (choose original size) can be found here.

Links to the other 135 reviews (in progress):

Sony SAL 135 f/2.8 (T4.5) STF
Sony SAL 135/1.8 Zeiss Sonnar T* ZA
Carl Zeiss Sonnar 135mm f/2.8 T* (C/Y)
Canon EF 135/2 L USM
Olympus E. Zuiko Auto-T 135mm f/2.8

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