Christopher J Osborne

Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8

Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 lens mounted on a Sony A7II camera with a K&F Concept adapterHere you can see the Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 lens mounted on a Sony A7II camera with a K&F Concept adapter.

The MD 35mm f/1.8 is very compact by today's standards… it weighs a mere 233 grams and takes compact 49mm filters. As soon as I bought this lens it immediately became a firm favourite and you'll find this lens sitting on my Sony A7II more often than any other. It is a fairly rare lens and not particularly cheap (I paid £180 for my copy), but for me the results make it fantastic value for money and well worth looking out for.

I always say that if you're buying a classic manual focus lens in the hope of getting a bargain basement way of beating a modern lens in the sharpness stakes you going to be sorely disappointed. Instead you should be buying a classic lens to get a unique way of rendering a scene that is quite different to the the sharp, if somewhat clinical, rendering a modern lens will typically give you. But this is one of those cases where your getting the best of all worlds: this lens is both beautifully sharp and, particularly when it comes to the bokeh (or out-of-focus parts of the images) quite unique. This is especially so when it comes to close focus images (see the flower photographs below).

Would I recommend this lens as a practical day-to-day alternative a modern autofocus 35mm f/1.8 lens? If you're happy with manual focus… yeah… I think (unusually) I would! Expect to pay £150-250 for an example in good condition from a respectable dealer.

Examples

Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 1 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 2 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 3 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 4
Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 5 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 6 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 7 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 8
Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 9 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 10 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 11 Minolta MD W.ROKKOR 35mm f/1.8 gallery - Image 12