Last week, after months of hoping and searching, I finally landed a Minolta Super Rokkor 50mm 1.8 LTM lens. This lens is rare (only about 3000 were made) and highly regarded for its image quality. The camera it was designed for, the Minolta-35 IIB, was sold for only one year and was never officially exported to the US. Therefore, both the camera and the lens are difficult to find in the US. Obviously, I’ve managed to find the IIB, but the lens had eluded me. The lens is available from Japan, but the prices are steep for clean lenses in good cosmetic condition, usually ranging from 500-700.00. Those prices relegated the 50mm 1.8 to my dreams.
Well, last week, while on one of my daily eBay scans, I noticed a US seller offering the 50mm 1.8 LTM for a decent price, much lower than those in Japan. Naturally, I wondered what was wrong with it. . However, since the seller had a 30-day return policy, I jumped on the lens. It arrived in beautiful condition, looking better than I expected.
Now, the second part of this story starts with the Olympus e300. It is a 4/3 (not Micro 4/3) digital camera from the mid-2000s. Because it has an odd mirror arrangement, I can use my Minolta SR mount lenses on it with no problems, so I use it to test new-to-me SR lenses. I got the bright idea to use it to test my LTM lenses, of which I now have six: Canon 50mm Serenar f1.9, Jupiter 12 35mm f2.8, and the Minolta Super Rokkkors (45mm f2.8, 50mm f2.8, 50mm f2, and 50mm f1.8). I’ve shot film using these lenses, but something went wrong nearly every time (film, right?). Only the 50mm f2 shots came out half decently. Tired of wasting film and getting nowhere, I decided to try the lenses on the Olympus.
After getting the LTM to 4/3 adapter (7.50, so cheap), I discovered (I had not read the seller site completely) that the distance between the lens and sensor wasn’t properly matched, so while the LTM lenses could be used, they could not focus normally–they could only be used for macro photography. At first, I was disappointed, but then I realized that even with macro shots, I could still see how sharp the lenses were and how well they rendered colors.
So far, I’ve only tried three lenses: the Canon Serenar 50mm f1.9, the Minolta 50mm f2, and the Minolta 50mm f1.8. I tried the Canon because it has haze (a lot of it), but none of the images I’ve made with it seemed much affected by the haze. The 50mm f2 images were taken in low light, so only one came out, while the 50mm f1.8 images were simply stunning.
I have five macro lenses that produce 1:1 images, but the macro images using this adapter are greater than 1:1. Even more astonishing is the sharpness and detail in the 50mm f1.8 images. This lens from 1958 produces macro images that are equal or superior to my AF Minolta macro lenses! See for yourself.
