Thinking Beyond 50mm, I: Going Wide with the Minolta MD W Rokkor 24mm f2.8 

I’ve spent much more time testing cameras and lenses than trying to produce art. My still-life ambitions and desire to shoot North Georgia landscapes haven’t lessened. However, casual shooting has made it clear that I need a better understanding of the tools of the trade.

A fundamental question for those like myself who are still in learning mode is what focal lens to use in specific situations. While 85mm seems to be the most common FL for portraits, I often read articles where the writer swears by 100mm, 135mm, or 70-210mm zooms. One can learn but so much from other people’s opinions, so I decided to experiment.

Still-life photography remains my main goal, but landscape and macro photography have their attractions. Of course, I will continue doing around-the-city images (I won’t call it “street”). After four years of testing gear, I’ve developed lens and camera preferences based on image quality. However, since I don’t yet have a specialty or niche to call my own, learning the pros and cons of various focal lengths seemed the next step in my education. Having lenses of 24, 28, 35, 50, 85, 100, 135, and 70-210mm focal lengths makes experimenting a matter of selecting a lens and subjects.

Moving away from 50mm has not been as straightforward as I expected. Usually, I go out the door with an MD 28-85mm or AF 28-105mm. Even though both are zooms, I rarely wander too far in either direction from 50mm. Zooms make it easy to go long or wide without thinking past that specific situation or scene. I didn’t realize how much I thought in 50mm terms until I went out with a 24mm. It was jarring.

Judging distances was the first “gotcha.” I could not determine how far away to stand to capture a subject. Nearly every time, I was too far away. The MFD for the 24mm is only 12 inches, so one can get really close—what sometimes seemed ridiculously close. The image of the painted post was taken only a few feet away. I’ve shot that with a 50mm lens and stood back about 15 feet to get it in the frame. With the 24mm and eye to the viewfinder, I kept walking until extraneous objects disappeared from the viewfinder—I was only six or seven feet away. I stood there for a few minutes trying to recalibrate my perception for 24mm.

Keeping unwanted objects out of images is the companion challenge of judging distances. I learned this lesson with the bell tower. Using a 6×4.5 camera with a 75mm lens while standing about 30 feet away allowed me to capture the bell tower and no unwanted objects. With the 24mm, eliminating those objects required me to stand so close that the image would have been unacceptably distorted. I could stand back and crop the photo, but I avoid cropping with 35mm film, so the image is vertical. It still has too much parking lot for my taste (but I don’t think they will move the tower to a better location to make me happy).

Lens flare and ghosting rounded out my 24mm introduction. Shooting at 50mm in similar lighting did not yield so many light artifacts. There have been times when I shot into the sun purposely to get flare. However, with the 24mm, in situations where flare/ghosting did not seem likely, it happened. The image of the flowers shows significant ghosting, and I thought I was well out of direct sunbeams. Images anywhere near the sky on sunny days are out. I have a hood, and it will be on the lens in the future. After a few more outings with this lens, I’ll do a proper user experience report. In the meantime, I’ll practice thinking wide.

4 Comments

  1. PS: Other topics:
    Cleaning MD Rokkor lenses
    MD 35-70 f3.5 macro
    Tokina ATK (or Vivitar Series 1) 90mmf2.5
    Macro in general… 1:4 re: your MD Zoom 28-85 1:3.5-4.5
    XD vs. X-700 Program modes
    film
    Filters: CPL, ND, UV
    Cheers!

    1. Author

      Thanks for these as well. I keep a list of potential topics, and now I have about 70. I’ll see about adding yours to that list. Gardening season is arriving, so more of those will appear.

  2. Nice writing style…The top photo…x-700? I like the 24/2.8. (I almost always use the hood outdoors.Yes…kind of tedious, but it looks nerdy-cool. I also live in N GA. It is the tail end of the Morel season. Another great muse for your still life. (N GA has a lot of photogenic mushrooms IMHO). Also, when foraging, you see other things, like tortoise and the occasional copper head. (Still fun) Light post photo (and tulip, and bell tower) are perfect application for a tilt/shift
    adapter. My digital is a7 iv, using the Fotodiox Pro, MD-Sony E Mount). So many other topics so I will be brief: Rangefinders…No CLE? …(I just bought one, Japan, it is being CLA’d) I thought rangefinder tech was obsolete…however, my brother uses a rangefinder for 35mm and was talking about buying a new Leica…one thing lead to another and I decided the CLE is the one rangefinder for me. Plus it is a Minolta. Another topic. Using your Rokkor glass with the Techart LM-EA9. ( plus Fotodiox MD to Leica M adapter)
    Autofocus for manual focus lenses, eye tracking, target tracking…I am buying it tonight. The other synergistic reason for the LM-EA9 is that I can use my CLE Leica M mount glass on the Sony. Closer focus than rangefinder coupling, and auto focus. Confession, I bought the Voghtlander Ultron 28mmF2 Ultron type 2 (Leica M ) for the CLE, and the Sony. I know…rambling a bit so I will sign off. But I have several other topics for discussion

    1. Author

      Wow, this is quite a comment!

      Yes, that is an X-700. I wish I had used the hood–it is a nice lens. I have used it with an 8MP Olympus e300, and the pics are great.

      North Georgia is beautiful, but I haven’t been in a while. One of these days, I will do a waterfall tour with my Pentax 645. I find tilt/shift intriguing, but I still have about 30 cameras and 40+ lenses to go in the VMLP, so I won’t be adding anymore to the back log.

      I am intrigued by the Sony A7 as a second camera for my manual lens reviews. I’ve been pricing them. The prices seemed to drop at first, now they seem to be rising. I’ll sell extra gear to pay for an A7. We’ll see how that goes.

      A CLE is not on the horizon, maybe when I get down to owning just 25 cameras, I’ll spring for one.

      Sounds like you have a full docket or projects. Thanks for the suggestions!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *