Camera Company that Rocked the Industry - Minolta vs Leica
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- Quick bio on Minolta & how they forever changed the camera industry and teamed up with one of the leaders, Leitz! Then a showdown between the Minolta Rokkor 24mm f2.8 vs Leica Elmarit R 28mm f2.8
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:37 - TopCon
01:04 - SR T 101
01:28 - MC Rokkors
01:43 - LEITZ
02:03 - Lecia Minolta Collab
02:19 - MC Rokkor mkiii
02:50 - MC W. Rokkor SI 24mm f:2.8
03:17 - Leica Re-House
04:43 - Will a Rokkor cut?
05:09 - Coatings Issues
06:46 - Minolta Vs Leica Showdown (sample footage)
08:41 - The Verdict
Gear featured in this video:
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Leica 28mm: ebay.us/YZJYQG
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I love this video!! gear and history in 1 👍🏽 great great content. You really did your homework keep them coming
The 28mm Elmarit-R v1 is one of my favorite lenses, goes well with the 50mm Summicron 👌
Ive been shooting with Leica r recently on Sony. Also in LA! 24 almost never comes out of the case since I got a 19, but this made me want to revisit. Great video, thanks dude
I have felt that way about the 24mm and 28mm focal length for years. I went with the 24mm because I like the 35mm as the next step up.
Great video and informative, between what version of the minolta 50 1.4 and 35 1.8 showed in the video?thanks
I had a minolta disc camera in 1984 and in 1989 bought a used x-300 & 35-70 3.5 which I used until 2011 , I still have my minolta lenses and will be in use again when I get a fuji xt camera , apart from the 35-70 I have 28mm 2.8 md , 50mm 1.7md , 50mm3.5 macro , 135mm2.8mc & 200mm 4 .
Great video mate! 🤟🏻
The glass of the Leica R 24mm f2.8 has been produced by Leitz from the S/N 35xx (that's my copy) but it still looks 100% like a Minolta 24mm f2.8 ahahah.
If you still have the Zeiss Classic 21mm f2.8 ZF, that lens is a better match for a good set of Leica R lenses 😉
Nice! Thanks for the tip!
Hi Justin, at 4:30 you said that the lens without the SI got a new rehousing and redesign. Does the lens get any worse with that or is it still a valuable member of the MCiii Rokkors?
From my short research, it is still a 9 - 7 elements lens and goes well with e.g. the 50mm 1.4 MC-Rokkor PG. What do you think?
How do Leica R compare to Contax Zeiss (& Canon FD)?
Can i use a minolta mc lens on a leica r4?
Well you talk the truth. As an old photographer the only thing I dispute is that I had a ttl prisim on my Exakta varex in the mid sixties, it was not made by exakta but was available. Mind you do not need ttl as you learn exposure by trial and error, I did astronomical photography and you cannot point your weston at the sky and get a reading so you take lots of different speeds, using a telescope you are stuck with one "F" no! Oh also there is a difference between a 25 mm lens (zeiss didn't do a 24) and a 28mm for me anyway. Keep up the good work! derek.
So whats the difference between the SI and non SI if they both have the same elements and groups ?
My Gear List: kit.co/jpOnFilm
My Leica-R set currently includes a Summicron-R 50mm SN: 230...., Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm SN:289...., Summicron-R 90mm SN:240...., and Elmarit-R 135mm SN:284...., I would like to get something on the wider end to round out the set, but the 19mm is way out of price range and I've heard the 24mm is a bit wonky then there's the 28mm and 35mm, but all are still a bit out of range right now. Would a Minolta work well as a faux Leitz? and which one specifically if it would? Also, I'm using these on my Lumix S5...
only the 24 or the 16 of the minolta rokkors were sent to Leitz for rehouse. The 28 Elmarit, if you get the version one, is IMO one of the best Leica Rs. Everyone thinks the older one is different from the Vii, but its not, they never updated the 28mm R optically.
So how do you think I feel born in the sixties? I'm real vintage.
Ha ha like me - not vintage but antique!
I born 1960 in comunist system and we just dream about these cameras so I feel different then you
Hey Justin, In the beginning of the video you make a case for why the Leica R and the Minolta Rokkor MC are basically the same lens, then you do the test and basically say the Leica performed better and listened a bunch of downsides to the Minolta. What’s up with that? I must have missed something?
currently have the 28 2.5 and 58mm 1.4, what other minolta glass would you recommend? Im definitely looking forward to the 16mm review I would love to add a wide lens
Minolta Buying Guide coming soon!
How many SI lenses are there? I see a 24mm and a 28mm.
Im not sure. The SI just is nomenclature for the optical design.
Is it just me or there is a small green hue on leica lenses in general that makes it look more cinematic? PS don't mind me... I'm trying to develop "the cinematographer eye" myself.
I see the same in the guitar test with the leica having more warmth/green and the minolta more cool/magenta. did a screenshot side by side in premiere and it was only a 1 point adjustment in lumetri temp and tint to make the minolta match the leica close enough.
@@Timist025 👀 Nice! Yea i didnt make any adjustments. Just an exact simple color space transform on both.
The colour tint, on the Leica R lenses, is all random...some lenses are more green, some more magenta, some more cold or warm...and this is happening even with lenses with similar serial number. That's the Leica R curse 🤣
Does this AF lens also operate as a manual focus lens? I don't like auto anything.
Im not sure, ive never checked them out
Pentax Spotmatic released 1964 with through the lens metering and viewfinder display.
Pentax had the first SLR with TTL metering, didn‘t they?
Nope, it was Topcon with their RE Super
Didn't know Minolta was so unique in the camera industry, hope you make some follow up videos on Minolta. Gone but not forgotten yet. Well I guess technically not really gone for printers and scanners.
😆 Yupp. This video is a little old now, lots of Minolta content on this channel 🙌🏼
How does the 28mm SI stack up to the 24mm SI?
Well if its the 28mm f/2, it already has an advantage because of the extra stop of light gathering. But it can’t even come close to the Contax Zeiss 28mm f/2 nor the Leica R 28mm Elmarit. I at one time had the Rokkor 28mm f/2, it is a solid little lens, but i also have owned the Contax & the Elmarit, and the Rokkor just doesnt have the rendering of the Elmarit. It could be a good competitor for the Zeiss however. But i still personally prefer the 24mm Rokkor over the 28mm. The 28mm doesnt have the character nor the the flares the 24mil has.
I bought it last night on eBay. The Minolta MC W.ROKKOR-X SI f2.5 28mm $69
I couldn't find that many 24mm versions. Well, I can keep looking for the 24.
I am not building set of lenses for CINE. Although, I will shoot video HD with them for RUclips product videos.
This is my random Minolta MC collection so far:
Minolta MC Rokkor PG 58mm F1.2 Hawk Eye MF Lens MC II 1967-72
Minolta 50mm f1.4 MC Rokkor-X PG
Minolta MC W.Rokkor-SG 28mm f3.5 SG (MCII)
Minolta MC W.ROKKOR-X SI f2.5 28mm
You know, I totally get the prices. If you are making money with the lenses then you can pay for a Leica R 28mm Elmarit over time with your income. I make a rackmount Pro Audio vacuum tube mic preamp that lists for $4,200. Starting in 1980, I used to rent $30,000k 2" 24 track Studer tape machines to studios on 5 year contracts, and these were used machines. The studios just made the money back on the studio rental time rates. eBay seeks out the highest prices for these items. That is all cool. If you know people in the business (like I do for studio recording) then when these people need quick cash for some reason, there are then some deals to be had. On top of that, you are helping out your friends in a crunch. You just have to be in the cash when this happens.
One more thing. At 2:52 you are showing us a Minolta Rokkor 28mm f2.8 yet the label on the guitar video with a bad capo is marked 24mm. What is the story on that?
nope, that is definitely the lens i'm talking about. the 24mm f/2.8 Rokkor
I might just get one fo the Rokkor SI lenses to check out. I only have 38 vintage lenses now. The 28mm are cheaper than the 24mm versions. Is there something under 24 that is a SI? I think I have enough 645 lenses for the time being. I like using them on my Sony A7R2 with only a dumb adapter as it uses the center of the lens glass.
I am a simple man, Justin uploads and I click
😂😂
Now if we can just get everyone to do that…😅
You get a new Leica R set?
👀
Fabulous. Any chance of a video on the Minolta CLE & Leica CL?
Not that I am stirring the pot of the red dot fan club..... not me, no, sir.
So, what does MTS mean? You said that Leica was stressing over the MTS cycles? What is that?
MTF - Modular Transfer Function. Here’s some info on it:
MTF curves are plotted with the sharpness (Modulation) vertically, in percent, from 0 to 100%.
The Transfer Function we're measuring is plotted horizontally. The two completely different aspects we see plotted horizontally are either:
1.) The fineness of the detail, or modulating frequency, in cycles per millimeter (plotted usually for film), or,
2.) The distance away from the center of an image, usually plotted for lenses.
Leica, for whom Minolta made lenses, elements, prisms and focusing screens (nothing to do with the G series which came long after Leica and Minolta ceased to work together) had never attempted to match colour or contrast and you will find radical differences between (for example) a six-element and seven-element Summicron. What they attempted to do was balance microcontrast and overall contrast (boosting MTF figure finer than 60 cycles at the expense of the important 10-30 cycles range). They also taught this concept to Minolta. It tends to produce a 'liquid, three-dimensional' look because overall tones are quite soft, but textures and surfaces are rendered far better.
OK, I had Calculus too. So you are describing the way they measured and looked for issues, but what did this lead to. Did they reformulate the glass or regrind it or what? What was Minolta doing regarding their glass when they developed it. There had to be some science other than coatings? Plus, if Leica had such poor consistency from lens to lens, how did all this MTF'ing help them. They needed repeatability, which you said they didn't have. The Leica lenses I have seen in RUclips videos seem to a slight blue green tint their images.
MC-X is the preferred collector's classification of the third series of MC lenses; I have never heard them referred to as MCIII lenses. Not so much because they were marketed as ROKKOR-X lenses in America, but because they were introduced with the first X-series camera bodies, the XK/XM, later followed by the XE / XD / XG / X700 etc.
Re. the Leica lenses made by Minolta; there is a lot of speculation no-one really seems to know the answer to. The optical calculation was by Minolta, as well as the actual chemical glass formulations for the individual elements. But how much of the manufacturing and assembly was done in Japan, and how much of it was finished off and/or recalibrated in Germany shall probably always remain a mystery. E.g it makes sense for Minolta to have produced the glass, the coatings, the lens-cementing, the focus helicoid & aperture assemblies etc, and for Leica to do some of the final assembly, quality control, and cosmetic Leica finishes.
👌🏼
I love Minolta but that Leica looks a lil bit better
Great video! Born in the 1950s, Cold War baby-boomer. Should have gotten into photography during the '60s and early '70s but I wasn't interested, unfortunately. Been shooting digital as a late bloomer for over 20 years and have only recently, in the past year and a half, began shooting with vintage 35mm film SLRs. Two of my favorite (out of eight) are my Nikon F (Ftn photomic prism head) and my Minolta SRT-303. Absolutely love it!
Very very interesting subject and delivery. However, I found the explanation slightly confusing. Different but the same, the same but different. Not a language issue, btw.
Leica definitely gives a more darker vibe than Minolta in my opinion
more micro contrast for sure
We are splitting hairs here. Both are excellent. With today's software, ANY imperfection is cleared up in a click. Maybe for slide and film it surely counts, but not today in digital. $2,000 per lens extra to get what every software package does naturally - besides, almost all take stock footage and alters it regardless, color correction, flare, dirt and dust, contrast, brightness - the magic is in the computer today - has been for 2 decades so why the big hype and cost to get a so called "perfect lens"? Leica is behind the time and anyone who buys into this mindset is behind the times as well. Leitz may go bankrupt again if people wizen up. Then they will need to partner with Sony~!
As I see it, hype and ego keep Leica going. Besides, if your story is good, you can film it on an old cell phone and make money!! It is all about the story, not the glass. Sorry g.a.s. heads, that is the reality.
Let's compare a 3 elements lens with a 15 elements one with lead and thorium, even some Aspherical lens and more hype tech. Then bring the soft. You do the job. We wait.
Sony was lucky ,they bought the sensor factory from Toshiba (who bought it from Fujifilm). I admire them for starting the revolution In digital photography, they are getting better in color science and menus.... They are an electronic company with a camera division.
@@vivianvaldi7871 I'm not comparing 3 to 15. I'm comparing Sony, Canon, nikon, Zeiss, Tamron, etc. Sony's glass is becoming a world standard in everything, sharpness, color, focusing and speed, boketh, ... Put that on a Sony camera and Leica cannot do better. it is as good as it gets. And certainly mot worth an extra 1 ro 2 000.
@@qwiklok Talking about lenses you will like to use in cine. This is a place where you add extras elements, extra distortion, extra everything to get glass beauty vs everything else. So it's an art in itself, but some vintage photography lens were already in that path... You can find these things in cheap modern lens too, even Sony premium if you make your research. But dont take a random Sony lens and say : I'm making a work with that, then the soft will do the rest. So cine logic only.
@@vivianvaldi7871 Cine is different. The lenses eliminate focus breathing, stay in focus while zooming, eliminate chromatic aberrations in out of focus boketh areas, and are very careful about boketh . That's a whole new ball game and very expensive
Sorry bro, the Minolta lens just doesn't have the same magic. It's not about the coatings, it's the optical glass formula. Leica's optical glass formula is super secret and it's only produced for them by Schott or Hoya. Just because the lenses where made by Minolta and are the same design, the Leica has superior optical glass. Minolta used their own made glass. The magic is all about the refractive properties of the glass. That's why for a period, lenses where made with radioactive Thorium Oxide. Because the properties of Thorium in the glass formula allowed manufacturers to make simpler lens designs that worked as well as more complex.
i never knew that - fascinating. OK, makes sense. Can one actually tell the difference when Sony or Zeiss glass is up against Leica or Nikon, Canon etc? I mean the images today are unbelievably good. Any thoughts?
Cap
bullshit. You do realize lenses like the 35-70 F3.5 had the exact same glass and formulas? Also you can't even tell the difference at that point mate.
So you are describing the way they measured and looked for issues, but what did this lead to. Did they reformulate the glass or regrind it or what? What was Minolta doing regarding their glass when they developed it. There had to be some science other than coatings? Plus, if Leica had such poor consistency from lens to lens, how did all this MTF'ing help them. They needed repeatability, which you said they didn't have.
What I said is Leica has no consistency in the coatings (of their vintage stills glass). MTF has nothing to do with coatings. Minoltas obsession with coatings and colorimetry is why their stills lenses match more than Leicas. In terms of how they render both color & contrast. However, Leicas lenses are better performers because the way they are designed internally, So they were swapping ideas. But some lenses Minolta actually were able to design better, hence why the 24mm, the 16mm, and the first generation of the 35-70 were simply just adopted by Leica and they put their own coatings on the glass.
Color rendition is not the same. The Minolta 24mm looks dull in comparison.
From Konica MINOLTA know how ' to Sony G Master Lens ..........!!!!!!!!!!
😳
Well about this... There is a lens I would think twice & twice again before using it... Guess which one !!!! It's like it makes your hair stick to the roof all the damn time. Man are we so poised with German quality ? Think the Rokkor needs so much extra work in those shots... It's almost useless.
What is the deal with the AF lenses? The prices are very cheap. Are they dog shit or something?
nope, some say those are the best ones. They still make the Minolta A to Sony E Mount adapters, made by Sony. Or, some of them have been being bought up by lens houses and being rehoused in cine glass. So the prices wont stay cheap for long!
Good to know. Thanks.
There are lot of those 20mm lenses on eBay and my last purchase was number 39. Everyone is telling me I should make another purchase to get to an even 40. When it gets dark in the winter I buy lenses. Most of my video that I have shot has been between 1997 and 2007 with what was modern at the time, the DVCam PD150. We didn't have the kind of tech that is out there now. I just shot my band at performance or here in a controlled environment for lesson DVDs. What I have edited so far is all on my channel jmoss99.
Not a big enough difference to matter to anyone at the end of the day. The Leica only clearly won because of the internal reflections...
The Minolta 14mm and 17 mm were made by Tokina
and rebadged to Minolta Rokkor.
Who is fooling who?
A lot of nonsense on the difference in quality ?
Show me two 50 x 60 cm colour prints.
Forget the coffee and the guitar.
This is a bit of a weird comparison because the Leica R 24mm barely cuts well with the others in the set. It’s known as the ugly duckling not just cus of its Minolta origins but because it’s straight up not as good as the others. The 28 looks like the 35 like the 50 like the 19 etc etc, but the 24 Leica doesn’t. so obviously the 28mm footage looks that bit nicer. What would have been very interesting would have been the Leica 24 vs Minolta 24, to see if there really is this magical difference in Leica assembling it or using their own glass in later years
Rubbish !