Nikon/Minolta - W-A Lens and Camera Body Advice Sought

[yessammassey]

I've been more serious about medium format, but have been messing around with 35mm cameras for a while too. Lately though, I've been getting more into 35mm to amuse myself because it's relatively more convenient and easy. I used to think it was cheap, and I definitely haven't paid much to amass my small collection of slightly faulty cameras and dusty, dusty lenses, but I'm finding that good stuff seems to be getting rarer and more expensive than it was just a couple of years ago. Obviously there's a finite supply of this stuff, and it doesn't last forever, but I'm also inclined to blame the increased demand for old film camera lenses, due to the proliferation of mirrorless digital camera users who 'adapt' it to their Sonys, etc. So I figure there's no time better than the present to start staking my own claim on some decent gear (except the past). That doesn't mean I'm going to spend as much as I would on MF or digital gear, though. I don't have extravagant needs... at least, I don't think I do.

Here're my primary use cases for 35mm film photography:

• Urban landscape & street. I carry a 35mm camera with me on my bike or on foot.
• Event/candid. I need low light capability and at least a basic range of focal lengths available.
• Natural landscape; when the MF gear is too heavy to take along, or is at too great of a risk for damage.
• Night time long exposure. Mostly urban. This is a big part of what I do, even though I'm listing it last.

I've already bought into Nikon and Minolta (manual focus) gear. This is a hobby, so I don't need any of the newer AF stuff. I like the way old metal cameras look and feel, and that's as important as performance to me in this case. Rangefinders are enticing, but I like SLRs just fine. As long as I can get very close to the same final image quality with SLRs as I can with rangefinders, I'll stick with the former. I know some people consider Leica to be in a tier of quality all its own, but I'm afraid that even if it really is that much better, I'm not going to go affording it any time soon.

The only really decent lens I have right now is a 50mm 1.4 Nikkor Ai-s. It goes with my Nikon FM. I also have a 28mm 3.5 Nikkor-H, which I guess is fine, but it seems to give better results at close range than nearer infinity. But it's nice and clean and fills the wide-angle gap for now. Some better wide-angles are what I really want, though. Oh, I also have a 300mm f/4 AF Nikkor, which I primarily use on a digital mirrorless (blasphemy!) camera, but it's a great tele when put to it's original use, too.

My other 35mm camera is a Minolta XD-7 (i.e. XD, XD-11). I have a 28mm MD and 58mm MC to go with it, but they're so dusty/hazy that they look like Scarface's coffee table when you shine a light through them. Contrast suffers somewhat.

So here's the deal: I want to get wider than 50mm. I'd like to get something pretty wide; 28mm at least, 20mm at most, probably. W-A is great for urban landscape, but good compositions seem harder to come by the wider I go than 20mm. Here's the other deal: I am spoiled by MF. I want my 35mm stuff to be as high definition as may reasonably be expected for the investment of a few hundred dollars. Part of that is of course dependent on the quality of the lenses, but (and again maybe I'm more sensitive about it because I'm coming from MF) camera body vibration is the key factor, too.

Therefore, I'm look for some advice and suggestions. Based on what I've looked at so far, my 'short list' of wide-angles includes:

• Nikkor 20mm 3.5 UD
• Nikkor 20mm 2.8 Ai-s
• Nikkor 28mm 2 (any type - I have the impression that this is the 28mm Nikkor that does the best with distant subjects)
• Minolta 24mm 2.8 early-mid era MD
• Maybe Voigtlander 20mm 3.5 for Nikon?

24mm or wider would be my preferred focal length for my next purchase. I can keep chugging along with the Nikkor-H for now. But I've heard that none of the 20mm Nikkors are really top-class. I guess Olympus makes the most highly regarded 20's in the Japanese-made consumer manual focus SLR market. I'm not going to buy a third system camera, though. So, any opinions on the Nikon 20's from users here? Are the two listed above the really the best performing of the Nikon 20's? What about the 28mm 2? How far does it outclass the humble Nikkor-H?

Regarding the Minolta, it seems to be a consensus favorite among manual focus 24mm lenses. I'd snap it up without hesitation, but my XD-7 lacks mirror lock-up. Bear with me..

I twice took my 58mm MC Minolta out on a tripod for some nighttime urban shooting. Once with an XD-7. (Not the same one I use today; this old one had a slightly faulty shutter that lagged and overexposed toward the bottom edge) The shots turned out 'OK'. At least I thought so until I went out with my (nowadays less than fully functional) SR-T 101. The shots taken with the SR-T were made with the mirror locked up, and ranged from 1/2 to 6 seconds. They turned out noticeably sharper than the shots from the XD. The MLU was the only sensible explanation for that, as the tripod, lens, and shutter release cable were all the same. These days, I have a better-functioning, smoother XD-7. I have been told before that Minolta eschewed MLU in their later cameras because they believed that the mirror/shutter dampening was good enough without it. I'd like to know if any XD (or other Minolta SR-mount camera) users feel that MLU isn't needed with the newer bodies, or if I'll really need it for my specific and less common long exposure use case. Also, does anyone know which cameras in the Minolta lineup actually have MLU? The SR-T is the newest model I know of that has it. Were there any newer?

My FM has an effective mirror prefire when the self-timer is engaged, but that only works for speeds of 1 second and faster. There's no MLU with Bulb mode. I'm thinking that my FM is probably going to do no better than the XD-7 when it comes to Bulb mode, due to the mirror slap. Once again, if you have some experience, please let me know.

Also, if you have any alternative suggestions for wide-angle lenses in these mounts, please let me know. I'm very curious to know if I'm missing something.

 

[Paul Howell]

I had the Nikon 28mm F2, not a bad lens, ok wide, but the Vivitar 28mm 1.9 was a better performer, and for the money the Vivtair 20mm 3.8 which was made by Kiron is a possibility.

 

[bdial]

I have a Nikkor 20mm, the f.3.5, I think. It's a lovely lens, very wide, too wide for a lot of subjects (IMO, but YMMV). I think Nikon has some 24's too, if you might want something in between.

 

[RichardJack]

Hi,
I shoot mainly digital now which is what I would recommend for landscape photography with some of the new Nikon 24 or 28mm AFS primes. I've owned almost every MF MC/MD Rokkor from 7.5mm -500mm and Nikon from 14mm -600mm. For film shooting I got better results from Minolta's wides. 85mm and up I prefer the AI/AIs Nikkors. My favorite Minolta wide is the 21mm f2.8 MC Rokkor-X. I found t better than the Minolta 24mm f2.8 MC/MD (not new compact version). Nikon's MF wides are not as sharp at infinity. Even though the 20mm f2.8 AIs is better rated than the 20mm F3.5 AIs version, the latter has lower flare and produced better images for me. Of the MF Nikkors the best one at infinity is the 28mm f2 AI (not the f2.8 AIs). Thee Nikkor wides shine at subjects about 15' away or closer. The new f1.4. & f1.8 Nikkor wides are much better but huge and expensive and don't have aperture rings. You'd need a F6 body to take advantage of these. I don't know what you plan to do with your images, I scan my own negatives and then have a pro lab do my printing. I have found that from 35mm the practical print size limit is 12x18" for prints viewed at about 1.5' away. About 1/4 the size of FF digital. Sticking with film, I mostly shoot 6x6 and 6x7 now. My cameras of choice are Bronica's, I have many and full sets of lenses for each model. My favorite being the Nikkors.
This is just personal taste, I could not afford Hasselblad. I have made 24x36" prints from scanned medium format.
Getting back to 35mm, my favorite bodies are the Minolta XK & XD11 and Nikon F3 and FA.
Sounds like you already own some good stuff.
Regards,
Rick
www.pbase.com/rick_jack

 

[ac12]

I have always used the Nikkor 24/2.8 since the 70s. It was the widest lens that still used 52mm filters, which was a consideration when Nikon filters were expensive. When recently rebuilding my kit for Ai, I put the 24/2.8 Ai into my new Ai kit. The 24 is wide enough and controlable enough that I did not worry about wide angle perspective distortion. Granted I've used it for so long that I may have learned to unconsiously manage it. There have only been a handful of times when I wish I had something WIDER than the 24. But I was not willing to pay the much higher cost of a 20.

My primary lens is a Nikkor 35-105 zoom (which replaced the 43-86 zoom), so I don't worry about a 35mm prime.
If you are shooting primes, there might be an argument for these 2-lens kits for light carry: 35+105 or 28+85.

What I like about the older lenses is, the DoF scale is on the lens, so you don't have to guess at the DoF.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

W

I've been more serious about medium format, but have been messing around with 35mm cameras for a while too. Lately though, I've been getting more into 35mm to amuse myself because it's relatively more convenient and easy. I used to think it was cheap, and I definitely haven't paid much to amass my small collection of slightly faulty cameras and dusty, dusty lenses, but I'm finding that good stuff seems to be getting rarer and more expensive than it was just a couple of years ago. Obviously there's a finite supply of this stuff, and it doesn't last forever, but I'm also inclined to blame the increased demand for old film camera lenses, due to the proliferation of mirrorless digital camera users who 'adapt' it to their Sonys, etc. So I figure there's no time better than the present to start staking my own claim on some decent gear (except the past). That doesn't mean I'm going to spend as much as I would on MF or digital gear, though. I don't have extravagant needs... at least, I don't think I do.

Here're my primary use cases for 35mm film photography:

• Urban landscape & street. I carry a 35mm camera with me on my bike or on foot.
• Event/candid. I need low light capability and at least a basic range of focal lengths available.
• Natural landscape; when the MF gear is too heavy to take along, or is at too great of a risk for damage.
• Night time long exposure. Mostly urban. This is a big part of what I do, even though I'm listing it last.

I've already bought into Nikon and Minolta (manual focus) gear. This is a hobby, so I don't need any of the newer AF stuff. I like the way old metal cameras look and feel, and that's as important as performance to me in this case. Rangefinders are enticing, but I like SLRs just fine. As long as I can get very close to the same final image quality with SLRs as I can with rangefinders, I'll stick with the former. I know some people consider Leica to be in a tier of quality all its own, but I'm afraid that even if it really is that much better, I'm not going to go affording it any time soon.

The only really decent lens I have right now is a 50mm 1.4 Nikkor Ai-s. It goes with my Nikon FM. I also have a 28mm 3.5 Nikkor-H, which I guess is fine, but it seems to give better results at close range than nearer infinity. But it's nice and clean and fills the wide-angle gap for now. Some better wide-angles are what I really want, though. Oh, I also have a 300mm f/4 AF Nikkor, which I primarily use on a digital mirrorless (blasphemy!) camera, but it's a great tele when put to it's original use, too.

My other 35mm camera is a Minolta XD-7 (i.e. XD, XD-11). I have a 28mm MD and 58mm MC to go with it, but they're so dusty/hazy that they look like Scarface's coffee table when you shine a light through them. Contrast suffers somewhat.

So here's the deal: I want to get wider than 50mm. I'd like to get something pretty wide; 28mm at least, 20mm at most, probably. W-A is great for urban landscape, but good compositions seem harder to come by the wider I go than 20mm. Here's the other deal: I am spoiled by MF. I want my 35mm stuff to be as high definition as may reasonably be expected for the investment of a few hundred dollars. Part of that is of course dependent on the quality of the lenses, but (and again maybe I'm more sensitive about it because I'm coming from MF) camera body vibration is the key factor, too.

Therefore, I'm look for some advice and suggestions. Based on what I've looked at so far, my 'short list' of wide-angles includes:

• Nikkor 20mm 3.5 UD
• Nikkor 20mm 2.8 Ai-s
• Nikkor 28mm 2 (any type - I have the impression that this is the 28mm Nikkor that does the best with distant subjects)
• Minolta 24mm 2.8 early-mid era MD
• Maybe Voigtlander 20mm 3.5 for Nikon?

24mm or wider would be my preferred focal length for my next purchase. I can keep chugging along with the Nikkor-H for now. But I've heard that none of the 20mm Nikkors are really top-class. I guess Olympus makes the most highly regarded 20's in the Japanese-made consumer manual focus SLR market. I'm not going to buy a third system camera, though. So, any opinions on the Nikon 20's from users here? Are the two listed above the really the best performing of the Nikon 20's? What about the 28mm 2? How far does it outclass the humble Nikkor-H?

Regarding the Minolta, it seems to be a consensus favorite among manual focus 24mm lenses. I'd snap it up without hesitation, but my XD-7 lacks mirror lock-up. Bear with me..

I twice took my 58mm MC Minolta out on a tripod for some nighttime urban shooting. Once with an XD-7. (Not the same one I use today; this old one had a slightly faulty shutter that lagged and overexposed toward the bottom edge) The shots turned out 'OK'. At least I thought so until I went out with my (nowadays less than fully functional) SR-T 101. The shots taken with the SR-T were made with the mirror locked up, and ranged from 1/2 to 6 seconds. They turned out noticeably sharper than the shots from the XD. The MLU was the only sensible explanation for that, as the tripod, lens, and shutter release cable were all the same. These days, I have a better-functioning, smoother XD-7. I have been told before that Minolta eschewed MLU in their later cameras because they believed that the mirror/shutter dampening was good enough without it. I'd like to know if any XD (or other Minolta SR-mount camera) users feel that MLU isn't needed with the newer bodies, or if I'll really need it for my specific and less common long exposure use case. Also, does anyone know which cameras in the Minolta lineup actually have MLU? The SR-T is the newest model I know of that has it. Were there any newer?

My FM has an effective mirror prefire when the self-timer is engaged, but that only works for speeds of 1 second and faster. There's no MLU with Bulb mode. I'm thinking that my FM is probably going to do no better than the XD-7 when it comes to Bulb mode, due to the mirror slap. Once again, if you have some experience, please let me know.

Also, if you have any alternative suggestions for wide-angle lenses in these mounts, please let me know. I'm very curious to know if I'm missing something.

ell, whatever you get in 35mm will never be able to compete with MF but the Nikon 35mm lenses you mentioned are all great(I have most of them).Keep going and all the best.

 

[yessammassey]

I had originally decided on the Nikon 24mm 2.8, knowing some of the great photos that have been made with it, but first copy I bought, and the second one that replaced the first, were both worse performers than the 28mm 3.5 Nikkor-H that I'm using now. Maybe the 24mm is not as good as it is sometimes rated, or maybe I am cursed to have bad copies of it; maybe the floating element systems in those lenses get misaligned with age. Whatever the reason, my experience with the Nikon 24mm is why I'm still searching for a good wide-angle lens today.

Hi,
My favorite Minolta wide is the 21mm f2.8 MC Rokkor-X.

I didn't realize that Minolta made a 21mm that worked without having to use MLU. Definitely looking into that, thanks for the tip.

I think my search for another Nikon body (for timed exposures with MLU) is over! And I don't have to buy anything new! Somehow I thought that I couldn't make timed exposures longer than 1 second with the mirror locked up on my FM, but it seems that all that is necessary is to keep the cable release depressed while the self timer lever is counting down and then keep it depressed until ready to close the shutter. For some reason I thought that 'B' defaulted to some preset shutter speed when initiated with the self-timer.

I am still a little concerned about using this method. Is it bad for the camera? If you just select 'B', engage the timer lever, then press & release the shutter button, the timer counts down and the camera makes what sounds like ~1/2 second exposure. By keeping the shutter button depressed with a cable release, I hope I'm not going to jam anything up. That is, I hope I'm not 'forcing' the shutter to stay open when the camera mechanics are trying to close it. I could see the slow speeds or self timer mechanism getting out of whack if so.

 

[Les Sarile]

Here're my primary use cases for 35mm film photography:

• Urban landscape & street. I carry a 35mm camera with me on my bike or on foot.
• Event/candid. I need low light capability and at least a basic range of focal lengths available.
• Natural landscape; when the MF gear is too heavy to take along, or is at too great of a risk for damage.
• Night time long exposure. Mostly urban. This is a big part of what I do, even though I'm listing it last.

Curious what exposure times you use as the Pentax LX is the ultimate night time (ultra) long exposure capable camera ever - past or present by any brand. It also has the widest exposure range meter, brightest most versatile fully interchangeable viewfinder system in a compact body with MLU.

The Pentax LX can aperture priority autoexpose a scene for as long as it takes - or batteries die, all the while monitoring the scene for changes in light and adjusting exposure time accordingly. In the scene below - Hoover Dam at night, I used Kodak Ektar 100 with the Pentax LX that was about a >40minute autoexposure.

 

[yessammassey]

That's a nice one. I've heard similar things said about the Nikon FE2 wrt long exposure metering capability, but the LX is more interesting to me because in addition to the long metering it has, as you say, full time MLU. 'System' cameras with interchangeable finders and focusing screens like the LX are pretty cool too, and by some accounts an LX with adapter is pretty much the best m42 camera with MLU short of a Bessaflex TM. It's a road I might have gone down if I hadn't ended up with some Nikon and Minolta stuff basically falling into my lap.

Regarding long exposures with AE cameras like the LX and FE2; what about reciprocity failure? I normally use portra 400 with my medium format camera, and since I'm mostly doing long exposures in urban areas my exposures tend to be around a minute or less. There's no AE on an RB67 or Kiev 60, so when I've needed to make multi-minute exposures on rare occasions I've consulted a reciprocity failure curve chart for portra and calculated the exposure time, using a locking cable release and smartphone timer. However with 35mm I expect that I'll be using slower fine grain film (like ektar) and reciprocity may become a factor more often. Do you just dial in exposure compensation? Or has it been an issue for you?

 

[Alan Gales]

Just my 2 cents.

I'd go with the 24mm. I owned a Contax with a 25mm Zeiss lens for many years. It was one of my favorite lenses. I think it's the sweet spot for wide angles. Any wider and you have to be careful about perspective issues. A 20mm would be fun but I think you would use a 24mm more.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The 28mm and 58mm are a good set. I used them for years when I was using Minolta SLRs. My experience [and philosophy] is that 35mm is too close to 50mm so I prefer 28mm and 50mm. I owned the f/2.8 21mm Minolta lens and loved it. I recommend the 21mm lens. The 21mm lens can be some work to avoid distortions and when I have gone wider with 35mm SLR lenses the lens behavior problems began to dominate enough that I did not enjoy using them nor did I find them especially useful as they were too limited.

 

[Les Sarile]

Regarding long exposures with AE cameras like the LX and FE2; what about reciprocity failure?

I have conducted multi hours long autoexposures with the LX with a variety of films and found no reciprocity issues to deal with. Most likely these days, color issues from color C41 films will be due to ambient light and scanning. Kodak Portra is so versatile with huge latitude that multi stop errors will not be noticed. For the kind of exposure times you are using, I highly doubt you will will encounter any reciprocity issues and certainly most all the AE cameras will suffice.


This one on Kodak Portra 800 using the LX autoexposure for about 15 minutes.

Since I always have my smart phone/cam, I took the same shot but it wasn't smart enough to achieve the correct exposure. Good thing I brought the LX . . . ;-)

 

[yessammassey]

That's interesting. I post on another forum and most of the users there are pretty obsessive about testing for and calculating reciprocity failure... and Portra 400 is held up almost religiously as the C41 process film. It's mostly MF and LF users, though. I agree that there's a good amount of latitude in digitized scans of modern film.

Either way, what you've posted looks just fine to me!

20mm is perceptibly wider than 21mm; I can see that from comparing photos from the Nikon 20 and Minolta 21. I think the Minolta 21 and 24 are both on my list now. I can probably pick up an SRT-X0X with mirror lock up for some small percentage of the lens cost, for when I need MLU. Although an XK would be fantastic, they're rare.. and sets in good condition with working 'Senswitch' meter switches and accurate shutters are probably even less frequently found for sale, let alone the various prisms. Medium format is my money pit right now, anyway.

 

[MattKing]

Reciprocity failure actually arises as a result of the light intensity being lower than a certain threshold, not because the exposure time is longer than usual.

I wonder if the metering circuits of the LX (and OM-2/4?) also have threshold issues? If so, they may actually compensate for the reciprocity issues.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Reciprocity failure actually arises as a result of the light intensity being lower than a certain threshold, not because the exposure time is longer than usual.

Good point and it is a point often forgotten when people focus their attention to the exposure time.

 

[Alan Gales]

My experience [and philosophy] is that 35mm is too close to 50mm so I prefer 28mm and 50mm.

I can understand why you feel that way, especially since you don't shoot portraiture.

I had both a 50mm and 35mm for my 35mm camera. I used the 50mm quite a bit but rarely used the 35mm. The 35mm did come in handy when shooting people in a small house and my back was against the wall with my 50mm. The 35mm was also nice for shooting large groups of people where my 25mm was just too wide.

 

[Les Sarile]

That's interesting. I post on another forum and most of the users there are pretty obsessive about testing for and calculating reciprocity failure... and Portra 400 is held up almost religiously as the C41 process film. It's mostly MF and LF users, though. I agree that there's a good amount of latitude in digitized scans of modern film.

Either way, what you've posted looks just fine to me!

Since the exposure times I am using are undocumented, I do have to conduct controlled testing myself. As you can see in the example from Fuji 100 below, the results are predictably uninteresting because there are no reciprocity effects. This is the same for all the other color C41 films I have tested to date. For the lower exposure times, I can compare with a Sekonic. Of course for the much longer exposures, only the LX knows.

Incidentally, from testing I have done with the XK's aperture priority mode, I don't believe it reliably autoexposes past a few seconds.

 

[yessammassey]

I would wonder about the xd-7's potential ability to make correct exposures at low EVs/over long intervals, but it's a moot point to me since I don't believe in making long exposures without mirror prefire/lock-up. So I guess if the XK doesn't, then effectively no Minolta will. That's OK for me right now. As I said, I mostly do long exposures that don't go past a couple of minutes, and I'm happy to wait there with a locked cable release and count down. (Especially since I wouldn't leave a camera sitting out unattended at night in a lot of the places I shoot anyway!)
...
This is going back to something from the original post, but I think it's funny; it's my fault for not doing better research, of course, but I was really under the impression that when it came to old 35mm SLRs, that Nikon was pretty much the pinnacle of optical quality. The cost of the Ai-s lenses even today, and the fact that Nikon still makes some of them, gave meet the impression that they were (on the whole, barring a few outliers) the 'best' lenses from that era.

I guess it goes to show that a) you don't always get what you pay for, and b) the most successful products on the market aren't always the best. I mean, these are cliché truisms, but sometimes you don't realize how applicable they can be.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I

...​

This is going back to something from the original post, but I think it's funny; it's my fault for not doing better research, of course, but I was really under the impression that when it came to old 35mm SLRs, that Nikon was pretty much the pinnacle of optical quality. The cost of the Ai-s lenses even today, and the fact that Nikon still makes some of them, gave meet the impression that they were (on the whole, barring a few outliers) the 'best' lenses from that era.

Minolta's Rokkor lenses are not slouches. Do not turn your nose up on them. The optics and coatings compare will with those of Canon and Nikon. I owned Minolta cameras and lenses for decades and now I use Nikon instead for 35mm because my girl friend won a f/3.8 28mm to 300mm AF zoom lens that could onky get with a Canon or Nikon mount. Minolta had been swallowed by Konica and then Sony and the lens mount choices did not include Sony.

 

[Les Sarile]

I would wonder about the xd-7's potential ability to make correct exposures at low EVs/over long intervals, but it's a moot point to me since I don't believe in making long exposures without mirror prefire/lock-up. So I guess if the XK doesn't, then effectively no Minolta will. That's OK for me right now. As I said, I mostly do long exposures that don't go past a couple of minutes, and I'm happy to wait there with a locked cable release and count down. (Especially since I wouldn't leave a camera sitting out unattended at night in a lot of the places I shoot anyway!)

A "trick" you could do - when using cameras with no MLU, is to cover the front of the lens after you fire the shutter and removing it after you feel it has settled enough. This will work for manual mode types but won't work in AE mode with cameras that meter at the time of the shutter release except for the OM2, OM4 and LX.

BTW, all Canon AE capable cameras (past through present) are all fixed to 30 second max autoexposure.

Regarding leaving the camera unattended - specially for the extended times that I do, obviously the settings are extremely dark. In a busy area, people could potentially bump into it. So recently I added an LED+coin battery device plugged into my LX's X sync port. In idle mode the sync port is open and the LED is off, but after the shutter fires the sync port closes and the LED stays on for the duration and goes off after the exposure expires.

My primary use for it is a convenience to see when exposure has expired but in a busy area, I found that people walking by my setup can see something going on and have walked around it. I believe this would also work on other cameras.

Extremely dark setting on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. You can see on the bottom right, the LED is lit behind the LX as seen by my not so smart phone.

The scene captured on Kodak Ektar 100 as taken by the LX.

 

[ac12]

I put a blinking red bicycle light on the leg of the tripod. That calls attention to it so people keep away from it.

 

[yessammassey]

I'll have to remember those. Great tips.