Photographers are fickle creatures. They want supreme optical quality, top notch mechanical quality, tiny lenses, and fast bright apertures but they don't want to spend a lot of money for it. Alas reality doesn't agree and so compromises are necessary. The Minolta Celtic line are a great example of this. Minolta sacrificed some mechanical quality to reduce the price of the lenses without losing much in the way of optical performance but of course photographers turned their noses up on them. Even today in the vintage lens market the Celtic lenses don't receive respect. Their loss - this lens is fantastic. It's a great portrait lens and is extremely affordable. I found mine at a photo show for just $20 and don't regret it in the least. Specifications Mount: SR Mount Focal Length: 135mm Aperture Range: f/2.8 - f/22 Minimum Focus: 1.5m Weight: 535g Filter Thread: 55mm Collection Information Date Acquired: 06/01/19 Serial Number: 1323671 Purchase Price: $20 Going Price: ~$35 Condition: Some small stains but optically perfect Lens Review The Celtic line is Minolta's equivalent to Nikon's Series E lenses. They're economy variants of Minolta's famous Rokkor line. There are some obvious compromises in the build quality - especially the focus ring. It's still smooth to focus but instead of the distinct diamond texture found on Rokkor's you have this very slippery rubber that doesn't age well. Most copies will have some kind of damage to the ring. On mine there's a split where the rubber became stuff with age. Despite these compromises though it still has an integrated lens hood which is always appreciated and the aperture ring is easy to use. Despite being an economy lens the performance is quite solid. Wide open at f/2.8 the lens is tack sharp in the center and only slightly soft in the corners. Stopping down to f/5.6 the corners are now tack sharp as well. Flare is decently controlled though not amazing as there is definite veiling and a yellow arc being faintly visible. Vignetting is definite at f/2.8 but disappears by f/4. Bokeh is exceptionally smooth at f/2.8 with large bokeh balls rendered from point lights sources. In the hand the lens is very comfortable. The focus is a little slippery but not bad. It's not the most confidence inspiring experience in use but decent all the same. Photo Tests Should I get one for photography? If you're in need of a fast 135mm lens and on a budget I think this is a fantastic option. Performance is fantastic and the price is very low thanks the Celtic line being less popular than the Rokkor line of lenses. If you already have 135mm lenses it's a bit harder to recommend but at the price it's worth it. Should I get one for a collection? The Celtic line unfortunately isn't very interesting visually and doesn't hold much value in a collection. There's a reason why the lens is cheap - people just aren't that interested in them. If your goal is collecting the Rokkor line is probably what you should look for. 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  f/4 f/5.6 f/8 f/11 f/16 f/22 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 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 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 f/5.6 100% 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 f/5.6 100% crop Portrait 3 f/2.8 f/5.6 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. |
