Another Minolta New MD 20mm F2.8 lens review.

Personally, it’s my choice among other ultra-wide options. I love this lens because geometry, sharpness and shape of hull, or may be because I’m feeling it in my hands better than others. Of course it is possible to get lens with better sharpness, but in most case it will be a lens ugly, or huge, or overpriced. It isn’t about this MD 20/2.8 – very fit ‘chan’.

After getting a new lens, I always take a few technical shots to understand its strengths and weaknesses – usually it helps me a lot to start using unknown lens with much less of doubt. One day I decided that my data might be interesting for someone else and this site has been made.

Minolta New-MD (MD III) 20mm 1:2.8 parameters:

Minolta MD 20mm f2.8 optical design

Lens exterior:

(forgive me the dust on the lens, I never have the patience to clean objects for close-up photo sessions)

Lens code name – Kay ケイ

Kay – is a student from Saunders Girls High School. She is the overall commander of her school’s Sensha-dō team and she operates a U.S. M4 Sherman.

Resolution – close distance:

Test description: target is a 10×15 cm picture (printed, glossy photo paper), fixed on the wall by scotch. Distance – about 10% longer than minimal focus distance marked on the lens. Camera Sony A7II (24mpx, full frame) was fixed on the tripod and managed remotely with computer display as a viewfinder. All groups of shots were repeated 9 times for every target position on all apertures from fully opened up to F16, ISO-100, WB – same for all shots. SteadyShot – OFF. Focus was manually corrected for each shot. After all needed shots have been taken for one target position – I moved  the target to the next place.

Main idea – to exclude the field curvature affect on so close distance.

Of course, I can’t be absolutely accurate, but so many repeats of shots – 4 for corners, 2 for long side, 2 for short side are giving me insurance that test results are correct.

Finally, pictures were converted from ARW-files in Capture One with default settings (Some single files have a slight light correction, for better visual convenience in comparison), then cropped for 300×200 px elements, combined into diagrams and exported into JPEG-files.

Scene preview:

Test results (selected version, easy to compare – 4 positions):

Test results (full version – all 9 positions):

Resolution – long distance:

Test description: Camera Sony A7II (24mpx, full frame) was fixed on the tripod and managed remotely with computer display as a viewfinder. Targets (buildings) were fixed by gravity power on the distances in more than 200 meters. All shots have been taken with apertures from fully opened up to F16. ISO-100. Shutter Speed – depends on light (camera A-mode), WB – fixed and the same for all shots. SteadyShot – OFF. Focus was manually corrected for each shot to exclude focus-shift affect.

Finally, pictures were converted from ARW-files in Capture One with default settings (Some single files have a slight light correction, for better visual convenience in comparison), then were cropped for 300×200 px elements, combined into diagrams and exported into JPEG-files.

Scene preview:

Test results:

Vignetting:

(frames scaled – 300×200)

Geometric distortion:

(frame scaled 1200×800)

Coma aberrations:

(100% crops – 300×200)

Chromatic aberrations:

(100% crops – 300×200)

Close distance bokeh:

Test conditions: lens was focused on to minimal distance (0.25m), plants were fixed in 2m distance from camera in front of the window with bright light from outside.

(frame scaled 1200×800, bokeh covers the frame partially)

Long distance bokeh:

Test conditions: lens was focused on half distance on the scale (0.5m), houses were fixed in infinity distance on the ground.

(frame scaled 1200×800)

Light dots bokeh:

Test conditions: lens was focused on to minimal distance + 10% of scale (about 0.27m), diodes were fixed in 2m distance at the dark background.

(frame scaled 1200×800)

Another resources with tests:

• minolta.eazypix.de
• phillipreeve.net

Demo Photos dedicated article

Some of examples:

Greece – Crete – Agios Nikolaos, Minolta MD 20mm F2.8, Sony A7II, Capture One, 2x resized

Greece – Crete – Agios Nikolaos, Minolta MD 20mm F2.8, Sony A7II, Capture One, 2x resized

Greece – Crete – Agios Nikolaos, Minolta MD 20mm F2.8, Sony A7II, Capture One, 2x resized

Greece – Crete – Agios Nikolaos, Minolta MD 20mm F2.8, Sony A7II, Capture One, 2x resized

My overall conclusion about the Minolta N-MD 20mm 1:2.8F (Minolta MD III 20mm F/2.8):

Real wide lady. As I said – I very rarely shoot with lenses wider than 35mm. But if I do it – I do it with this beauty. Nice geometry (even better than popular MD 24mmF2.8), has a quite sharp corners after F5.6 which is enough for landscapes or interiors, and beautiful design and feeling in hands. This is my choice in wide angle diapason up to 35mm. Auto-focus isn’t necessary for such focal distances.