Vintage Minolta lenses that shine on Fuji GFX
Vintage Minolta Lenses on FUJI GFX
So the Leica lenses didn’t work so well for me on the FUJI GFX, so I looked for other options. I found some guy mentioning old Minolta lenses in a discussion. I was lucky that some of the lenses named were available at Keh.com – so the only other thing I needed was an adapter.
Oh my, who would have thought that this will be the trickiest part of the whole story, but I found one on amazon, I will give you the link, since I tested quite a few and this one was the only one that fitted tight and works perfectly.
But lets name the lenses first that I ordered:
- Minolta MC Rokkor 58mm F1,4
- Minolta MC Rokkor 55mm F1,7
- Minolta MD Rokkor 45mm F2
Using 35mm lenses on Medium Format brings different view of field, since the sensor is bigger, our
58mm turns to a 46mm
55mm turns to 44mm
45mm is about 35mm
The best thing first: all these lenses cover the whole sensor, and they are crazy cheap – if you find them!
Minolta MC Rokkor 55mm F1,7
Lets start with my personal favourite!
On the plus side we have:
- tack sharp in the middle
- lovely bokeh
- small and light
- only little vignetting
- vintage colours
Downside:
- Skincolours can be a bit shifted into greens
- creates some „swirl bokeh“ at certain distances
Image 1: Unedited, out of cam, Image 2 is slightly edited, Image 3: Unedited, out of cam, Image 4 is slightly edited, converted to BW
The swirly bokeh in the corners…
And its gone. Same lens, different distance. I personally find it rather interresting than disturbing.
The 55mm works extremely well for portraits, if you have time to focus – its of course manual. But with the Fuji I nailed 99% of my images.
I wouldn’t use it for landscape work, or architecture since it lacks a bit resolution and microcontrast, but its perfect for street and portraits.
Minolta MD Rokkor 45mm F2
The street king. Great for low light or if you want to shoot 35mm-ish portraits.
- tiny!
- sharp!
- vignettes a bit more
- very cheap (around 40 bucks)
- no smeared corners, no swirl bokeh
- can be busy bokeh
Minolta MC Rokkor 58mm F1,4
- a bit soft (dreamy) at F1,4
- low contrasts at F1,4
- best corner performance from all lenses
- bigger and heavier than the other lenses, but still small on the Fuji GFX
- pricier (something around 100 bucks)
I have to say it is somehow my least favourite lens from those three, and I havent used it at a shooting so far. Only a few test shots. What I don’t like is the „dreamy“ look at F1,4 – even if you nail the focus, details look a bit blurry, washed or dreamy as I would say. The 55mm somehow does a better job capturing details such as hair, eyes, skin structure and eyelashes. I know, Its complaining about first world problems. 🙂 Despite of this the bokeh is lovely!
1st slide: Image, softly edited. 2nd slide: complete out of cam.
Dreamy Character at F1,4. It lacks contrast and details.
However my copy of this lens is not the best, also the focusring is quite severe. So I would rather recommend getting the 55mm or the 45mm if you like it wider. If you can, lay hands on the 58mm F1,2 (!) This is told to be the king of all Rokkor Lenses. I have no experience, but read a lot about the crazy quality of this beast.
Finally the Adapter
I found it on Amazon, and it works perfect. I ordered three different types, and the third one worked percetly and costed under 50 Euro. So I kept it. Somehow it is permanently sold out, but this adapter linked here is exactly the same, from a different brand. It sits tight and mounts pretty good.
The next thing I am probably looking at is adapting Mamiya 645 and Leica R Lenses to the Fuji GFX System. Exciting things to come!
