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400mm f45 APO G

G

Guest

I'm dying to get this lens, and have pretty well convinced myself it's great. Maybe some input from people who have actually used it would be beneficial.

Has anyone ever had any problems with it? Ever felt limited by it? Problems with teleconverters? Autofocus? Filters?

Or if you have only great things to say about this lens, please let me know!

Thanks!

CB
 
Chris I have this lens since 3 years. It is great, not too heavy and of a superb quality. I have used it on many occasions with both the 1.4 and the 2 time converters for my hobby: bird photography. The viewfinder gets a little dark with the 2 times though, and with the limited depth of field this can become a problem.

I have proof in many excellent pictures that the 400 mm is better than the 2.8/300 mm, which is a little soft. I have once had the 2.8/200 mm which is just as great as the 400 mm, but for my work (bird photography) not long enough. Since one year I have 4/600 mm as well. Bloody heavy (some 6 kg), brings a little more tele than the 400 mm and with converters it is magic. When you use a converter, picture quality is only top if you shut the aperture 2 or more stops. This limits using the two times: for a 4.5/400mm the converter brings it to f9 and you have to stop it down to eg f13 to get the best out of your lens. Lighting conditions will not always allow you to do this unless you use high speed (more grainy film). Although I can only load "smallish" kind of pictures (and in no way can really represent the quality of the lens optics), I have uploaded one that I made 2 years ago of a European goldfinch: at a distance of 10 meters from a shelter with a 1.4 time converter under good lighting conditions.
Anyhow, nice stuff but expensive. I have bought mine (demo almost new) for about 1500 Euro and have seen many of these lenses second hand in Tokyo photo stores in the last months for about 900-1100 Euro (in mint condition). I have no idea what the prices are where you live, but 1000 Euro/US$ seems like a decent price for a good condition 4.5/400 mm lens. Success.

Peter
2644.jpg
 
Need someone help to understand these tremonalogy, I have bought Minolta max7 Dynax....now i want to have some lenses but i am very much confused in tremnalogy.....
1. Aspehrical Lens
2. with these abbrivation,
a. IF
b. DF
c. APO
d. UC
e. HSM
f. D lens
g. Fixed apature lens

If someone tell me about all these abbrivation and which lens will be better for potraits. I want to buy Sigma 24-135mm 2.8-4.5 Aspehrical IF. Please advise me that if this lens is good or not Thanks you advance everyone for my help.
Rana
 
If you go to http://www2.konicaminolta.jp/english/products/consumer/camera-pus/slr/lens/index.html then you can see all Minolta lenes line - just click on the icons for CIR, SSM, ASP to get some explanation.

I was kind of hoping to find similar information on Sigma homepage as well but without much luck... OK, here's some: http://www.sigma-photo.co.jp/english/lens/index.html

PS. Looks like Minolta has a new website now. Failed to find any information... poor navigation or then some pages missing. Only after I remembered site search could I find info about cameras and lenses.

Cheers,

Siim
 
>Thanks Siim for the help...It really cleared some confusion. Now i am >trying to understand that what is the difference in between these two >lenses (MINOLTA AUTO FOCUS - LENSES 135 F2.8) and (MINOLTA AUTO FOCUS - LENSES 24-105 F3.5-4.5)what is 3.5 and 4.5 ? Thanks all of you. Rana
 
135 F2.8 is a fixed focus lens (no zoom) that has maximum aperture of F2.8 (the bigger the F-number the smaller the aperture). This defines how much light can "get through" to film.

24-105 F3.5-4.5 on the other hand is a zoom lens and it's maximum aperture varies through the zoom. In the short end (when you zoom close) is F3.5 and in the long end F4.5.

I've read good things about the 24-105 Minolta lens and I somehow get the feeling that this is more what would suit you at the moment.

Some great and easy reading about lenses:
http://www.photo.net/making-photographs/lens

Siim
 
> Siim Teller (Siimt) wrote:

> ... 135 F2.8 is a fixed focus lens (no zoom) ...

Peter Blaise replies:

You mean "fixed focal length lens" not "fixed focus lens", as it will manually or automatically vary it's focus from about 1 meter to about infinity.

Trivial, I know, but someone has to read all these posts and keep us on the road to ACCURACY!

;-)

Click!

Love and hugs,

Peter Blaise Monahon Minolta Vivitar Tamron Fujifilm Ilford Kodak Adobe Hewlett Packard et cetera Photographer peterblaise@yahoo.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/minoltaphotography/ and http://www.minoltaphotography.com/
 
Peter, point well taken. My bad and thanks for correcting. This happens when English is not your first language...

Siim
 
> Siim Teller (Siimt) wrote:

> Peter, point well taken. My bad and thanks for correcting. This happens when English is not your first language...

> Siim

Hi Siim,

And English is my THIRD language ... after music and photography, that is! ;-)

Click!

Love and hugs,

Peter Blaise Monahon Minolta Vivitar Tamron Fujifilm Ilford Kodak Adobe Hewlett Packard et cetera Photographer peterblaise@yahoo.com http://www.peterblaisephotography.com/
 
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