Minolta AF 28-80 on a A700
Posted on: Tue, 09/02/2008 - 9:35am
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Minolta AF 28-80 on a A700
Spring has arrived in Melbourne so I took a few pictures of the peach tree flowers in my backyard and the bees sniffing around. I used one of my old Minolta lens I bought with my Dynax 505SI long time ago. Pictures shown are around 50% crop of the original. What do you think of this camera-lens association?
1/1250 sec, f/6.3, 80, ISO 200
1/100 sec, f/6.3, 80 mm, ISO 200
1/640 sec, f/5.6, 80 mm, ISO 200
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Calin
Hi Calin, the A700 and 28-80 is an interesting combo. The colours certainly seem nice, and the bokeh seems ok too. I don't know if it is something to do with the processing or compression for web, but the images have a slightly distracting texture to them...
What PP did you do, if any? Or was it just a simple crop to around 50%?
Andrew
Andrew
Head Waiter: AlphaMountWorld.com
Hi Andrew, Thanks for taking the time to comment. I normally use DxO as a plugin to Lightroom 2. In this case I used the Vivid & Sharp profile to load the picture in DxO for processing. Then I used the Default in Lightroom which doesn't seem to change much. I then used another plugin for Lightroom to export to Flickr. I noticed that both the default and the export in Lightroom are adding more sharpening. I presume that is the cause of amplifying the texture plus the 50% crop. Below are the same pictures without any Lightroom sharpening. Somehow in the process of uploading I replaced the previous version (sorry, I still have to learn how to use these tools) so there are no pictures to compare with now. I could convert the originals to jpeg directly without any processing and show them here if you think it's worth while.
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Calin
Hi Calin,
These are much nicer, the sharpening in the first images was rather extreme! How do you rate the lens overall, sharpness seems ok but there is a little bit of fringing/blooming on the bottom image. Nothing serious and probably the result of not having digitally optimised coatings...
I like what you're doing with DXO the colours seem to sing here.
Andrew
Andrew
Head Waiter: AlphaMountWorld.com
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the advise again. I keep learning more things. I never used to look at a picture with such constructive criticism before.
You are probably right about the effect of not having digitally optimised coatings on the old 28-80 lens. I tried various ways to minimise fringing during PP but it doesn't have a lot of influence. Best result seems to be by adressing fringing in Lightroom first before using DxO. It seems to have a slight effect at the expense of some loss of sharpness. I am not sure yet how to rate the lens. I will try to take similar pictures with Minolta 28-80 and Sony 18-250 lens in the same conditions and compare them sometime soon.
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Calin