I was first introduced to the GR1 when a well-loved copy was posted for sale on Instagram by an analog photographer who I deeply admire. He had gone through his collection and decided it was time to make room. His price was reasonable, and I simply couldn’t say no. The GR1 was a camera that I had often heard about, but never personally experienced. My first outings with the camera were in downtown Toronto, as I picked the camera up while visiting some friends there. I flew through a few rolls, and quickly fell in love.

Specifications of the Ricoh GR1

• Camera Type: Premium compact 35mm film point and shoot
• Lens: Ricoh GR 28mm F/2.8 (7 elements in 4 groups); Multi-coated aspherical glass
• Focusing: Passive type multi-autofocus (with focus lock available), Automatic auxiliary AF light in low light; Focusing from 0.35m (1ft) to infinity; Single AF mode, Fixed Focus mode
• Shutter: Electronic shutter, speeds from 1/500th to 2 seconds
• Exposure Modes: Aperture priority and full Program modes; Exposure compensation +/- 2EV available
• Light Meter: Dual Silicon Photo Diode cell; EV2 to EV17 at ISO 100
• Flash: Automatic flash for backlit subjects up to 3 meters; Slow synchro mode; Red Eye Reduction mode
• Viewfinder: Reverse Galilean type with LCD bright frame illumination in low light; Coverage is 81% vertically and 83% horizontally; Magnification 0.43; Diopter of -1
• Film Speeds: ISO 25 to 3200 (DX Coding); Non DX coded film defaults to ISO 100
• Additional Functions: Automatic film advance and rewind; Exposure counter; Self timer; Auto power off; Bulb exposure mode;
• Battery: 1 CR2 battery
• Size: 117 x 61 x 26.5mm

The camera is small and light despite its durable metal construction. Though point and shoot cameras are often not known for image quality, the lens on the GR1 is nothing to scoff at. The 28mm f2.8 GR lens features seven elements in four groups and is multi-coated to enhance color reproduction as well as reduce flare. The GR1 was succeeded by the GR1s, GR1v (see James’ review of the final film GR, the GR1v). Every version of the GR features the same lens, albeit with updated coatings as the line progressed. A wider GR21, named for its 21mm lens, was also produced.

The Ricoh GR1 is feature rich, especially for a compact point and shoot. Featured prominently on the top of the camera are dials for both exposure compensation (+/- 2 stops), as well as an aperture dial allowing program aperture (automatic), or any aperture in half stops between f/2.8 and f/22. The top also features a self timer button (I never use self-timers, but I suppose it’s nice to have) and the mode button (more on this later).

On the rear of the camera we find a red on/off button, along with a flash switch that allows the flash to be either always on, automatic, or always off. Not only does the switch make the selected flash mode easy to read in an instant, but it also allows the flash mode selection to be preserved even when the camera is shut off. As a frequent user of the Olympus MJU and MJU II cameras (which use a button rather than a switch to toggle modes), the ability of the camera to “remember” our preferred flash mode is a big upgrade. The left side of the camera features a manual film rewind button, along with the film door release switch.

The GR1 features aperture priority mode (by setting the aperture manually on the dial) as well as auto exposure mode (by setting the aperture dial to P). There are five different auto-focus modes available, and users can cycle through them using the mode button.

The first mode is “normal” mode, which acts in the way of any other point and shoot, with the camera focusing on whatever is in the center of the frame whenever the shutter button is pressed. Next is “infinity” mode, which as the name suggests means that the camera always focuses at infinity. Third is the “single auto-focus” mode where the camera focuses on whatever is in the center of the frame when the shutter button is half pressed, allowing the photographer to focus on their subject and then recompose. The last two modes are snap mode, where the camera focuses at a distance of two meters, and fixed focus mode, where a custom focus distance can be manually set.

The GR1 relies on a DX code reader to read the ISO of the loaded film automatically and has a unique pre-winding feature in which the entirety of the roll is wound on upon loading. This means the exposure count display indicates frames remaining, rather than frames shot, and that the film retracts back into the film canister whenever a photo is made. For this reason, if one were to accidentally open the film door mid-roll, the previously shot photos would already be rewound into the canister and no photos would be lost.

Ricoh GR1v Film Camera Review

James reviews the Ricoh GR1v, the last film camera from Ricoh's tiny GR line.

Read More

casualphotophile.com

Shooting the Ricoh GR1

The GR1 is both small and robust, given the shell is made of magnesium alloy. The physical dials mean that it is easy to see and adjust settings on the fly without having to go through any menus or remember specific button combinations. The finder is nice and bright, with critical settings (focus point, shutter speed) being shown on the side and illuminated by an LED. The focusing modes allow you to shoot how you want, in whatever way best suits your style and situation. In my case, most of what I shot was street photography, so I opted to set the aperture to f/11, use the infinity focus mode, which ensured that everything beyond a few meters from the lens would be crisply in focus. Shooting in this way also meant that the lens wouldn’t have to move to obtain focus, speeding up the shooting process and making the shutter-press-to-capture-time lightning fast.

The shooting experience is only one half of the equation though. The other is the resulting images. As good as the GR1 is in terms of use-ability, the resulting images are even better.

The famous 28mm f/2.8 Ricoh GR lens offers sharp images with nice contrast, and the auto-focus was spot on, even in challenging low-light situations. All of my exposed negatives had similar density, suggesting the auto exposure was working as it should. When flash was employed, it had even coverage and made scenes look natural.

Would I replace one of my SLR cameras with a GR1? No, I wouldn’t, but then again, none of my SLRs fit in my pocket, have a built-in flash, or can be used with the simple press of a single button. The GR1 is as close to perfect as I can imagine a point and shoot being for my needs. It’s small, light, fast, and feels nicely constructed, all while delivering excellent consistency and above-average image quality.

The Cost

Sounds great right? Well at this point I’m sure you’ve read the title. So, what is the price of this remarkable little gem? At this point I’m not referring to the monetary cost, though that is steep. For the budget-minded among us, here’s the bad news. In the current market, a nice GR1 will run from $380 to $500 USD. This is a large chunk of change, but truthfully it’s not an unreasonable price for the quality that the GR1 delivers.

But the real price is that this camera is temporary. A fleeting experience. Yours to enjoy, but only for a limited time. The expiration dates of every GR1, GR1s, GR1v, and GR21 are preordained. All of the GR film cameras share the same fatal flaw: all are electronic and rely on very thin ribbon-cables to transfer data and power between components. Time is not kind to these cables, and they eventually corrode, ceasing to function (even the youngest GR is going on 21 years old at this point). What’s more, Ricoh no longer services this camera, and replacement parts are not being manufactured. Even if they were, no one I have spoken to (and I’ve searched high and low) is willing to work on this camera.

Only a few short months ago, I traveled to my hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba to attend my sister’s wedding. Though a truly lovely experience, and a very happy evening, it was a bittersweet event for me. While documenting the proceedings of her reception, my GR1 suffered the same terrible fate that they are all destined to suffer. The images from this final roll are some of my favorites I have captured with this little marvel, and will never be topped given that I now possess a Ricoh-branded paperweight.

I will always cherish the time I spent shooting this fantastic camera, but I’d be lying if I said the experience hasn’t since been tainted with the knowledge that it’s not “if” but “when” with these cameras. I have been tempted to repurchase a GR, but can’t, knowing that I will once again be forced to say goodbye long before my time with the camera is through.

The Ricoh GR1 is the camera I wish I could keep forever, my perfect point and shoot. The fatal flaw they all share makes it so that this can never be. You can be a steward of this camera, but never truly own it. This is both a love-letter, and a cautionary tale. If you can stomach the eventuality of its demise, maybe it’s perfect for you too.

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The post Ricoh GR1 – Perfection Has a Price appeared first on Casual Photophile.

All of these uncommon features and upscale buzzwords noted, there exist a few other premium point and shoot cameras that I’d choose to use over the 28Ti. The Ricoh GR1 series offers everything that this Nikon does, but it’s significantly smaller. The same can be said about the Minolta TC-1. The Fuji Natura Black F1.9 has a significantly faster and slightly wider lens. Most surprisingly, each of these apparently better cameras costs less than the Nikon does today!

That’s not to say that the Nikon isn’t a great choice for the point and shoot enthusiast that’s looking for a fast, wide, premium compact camera. It’s a fantastic photographic tool and I adored using it during a recent family vacation. It’s a dream camera for many film photographers, and rightfully so. But in the end, it’s not my first choice.

Specifications of the Nikon 28Ti

• Camera Type : Premium point and shoot for 35mm film
• Image Area : Full frame 24 x 36mm in normal mode; 13 x 36mm in panorama mode
• Lens : Nikon Nikkor 28mm F/2.8 made of 7 elements in 5 groups
• Shutter : Programmed electronic shutter with available aperture-priority semi-automatic mode; speeds from 1/500th of a second to 2 seconds; long exposure mode up to 10 minutes
• ISO Range : DX-code reader for ISO 25 to ISO 5000 films set automatically; non DX-coded films automatically set to ISO 100
• Auto Exposure Range : EV2 to EV17 at ISO 100
• Exposure Compensation : + or – 2 EV in 1/3 stop increments
• Flash : Built-in flash, automatic for low light and backlit scenes; Anytime Flash and Flash Cancel modes available; Red Eye Reduction mode available
• Viewfinder : Illuminated optical viewfinder with 0.35x magnification; coverage 82%
• Viewfinder Information Display : Shutter speed (or aperture dependent on mode), flash ready light, exposure compensation active indicator, image area frame lines, parallax compensation frame lines, autofocus spot
• Analogue Needle Display : Shows focus distance for each shot, aperture, frame counter, film rewind, self-timer and exposure compensation data, and counts seconds for long exposure times
• Top LCD Display : Shows imprint data, frame counter, and battery status
• Focusing Tech : Autofocus; Infinity focus preset mode; Focus lock. Minimum focus distance 0.4 meters (1.3 feet)
• Additional Features : Automatic lens cover; self-timer; illuminated viewfinder in low light; illuminated analogue needle display; data imprint functionality
• Battery : 3V lithium battery (DL123A or CR123A type)
• Dimensions : 119 x 66 x 36mm
• Weight : 310 grams (without battery)

Feel and Finish

I don’t buy a vintage camera unless I can convince myself that I’m buying it on the day that it shipped from the factory. The Nikon 28Ti had been on my film camera bucket list for seven years before I finally bought one, and when I did, I made no deviation from my habit. I made sure to buy one in like-new condition, barely used, with its original box, packaging, paperwork, etcetera. In instances such as this, in which the camera that I’m buying is decades old, finding one in the required condition can be a challenge. But I overcame the challenge. Doing so was easy. All it took was opening my wallet rather wider than I’m accustomed.

As I awaited arrival of my like-new, (nearly) thirty-year-old premium point and shoot Nikon, I considered my expectations. I expected that the 28Ti would be finely crafted and precise. The mechanisms would whirr and hiss and snap with electro-mechanical surety. For the price that I paid, the fit and finish would be top shelf. And when it arrived these expectations were mostly satisfied.

I say mostly satisfied because while the Nikon 28Ti is indeed a premium point and shoot camera, let’s face it, it’s a point and shoot camera.

From the day that they were conceived, premium point and shoot cameras were hyped and marketed as more than they really were by teams of smarties working in the highfalutin-est camera companies of Europe and Japan. The Contax T series, the Leica Minilux and its predecessor, the Leica CM, Minolta’s TC-1 are all examples; camera companies learned quickly that if they pulled their standard point and shoot camera tech out of its plastic shell and stuffed the same into a titanium one, that people would pay a lot more money than they would on, say, the average Canon Sure Shot. But all of these premium point and shoots truthfully aren’t as special as they’d have had us think, and they’re not really very premium, either. Not really.

By this I mean that there’s simply no comparison between what I consider to be an actual premium camera (something like a new Leica M or a Nikon SP or a Hasselblad or Rolleiflex) and a ‘premium’ point and shoot. I’ve owned and used (without hyperbole) every premium point and shoot that a person can own and shoot, and not one of these was as awe-inspiring as the zeitgeist asserts.

The body panels don’t line up perfectly. The film doors feel flimsy, or the battery covers do. The screws that hold things in place are usually proud of the body, rather than being flush or recessed. The viewfinders are weak. The knobs are connected internally via plastic, creating wiggle in their actuation. Under that titanium shell, all of these premium point and shoot cameras are simply point and shoot cameras with fancy clothes and improved lenses (and only some of them have improved lenses).

People on the internet mostly talk or write about premium point and shoot cameras in histrionic exclamations or hushed reverence. They’re titanium wonder-boxes with other-worldly lenses that will change your photography and your life. But they won’t. What they will do is cost you a month or more of disposable income and give similar photos to a $100 Pentax IQ Zoom.

Now that I’ve removed our collective rose-tinted glasses, dropped them onto the ground, steam-rolled them, gathered the dust into a vacuum sealed canister and launched that canister out of our atmosphere, through space, and into the fusion reactions occurring at the core of our Sun, let’s talk about the Nikon 28Ti directly.

It’s pretty nice. The brick-like little device is as solid as any other premium point and shoot. The paint (this model only appears in black painted titanium) has a gorgeous satin sheen which is perfect for my taste. The Leather (is it leatherette?) grip material is beautifully textured, and while it doesn’t fit perfectly against the elevated edging which surrounds it, it looks good. The lens looks gorgeous and the automatic lens cover flicks open with wonderful rapidity. The Nikon logo is nice. I like Nikon. The analogue gauges… I’ll get to them.

But the various body panels don’t fit flawlessly against one another. There are little edges here or there which are proud from their mating edges. The On/Off switch doesn’t click solidly like a metal mechanical switch would, which leads me to believe that the innards are plastic. The same can be said about the control dial, which feels wiggly and light. The film door, true to form, worries me; it flips open loosely and doesn’t feel very solid. The battery cover seals well, but it feels too similar to the many plastic point and shoot battery covers that I’ve used and which have inevitably become stripped in time.

Don’t be scandalized by my scrutiny of the Nikon. All of these complaints are coming from the brain of a microscopically observant camera freak, and they can be equally leveled against any premium point and shoot film camera. Other camera-likers don’t tend to say these things, possibly because they don’t want to admit to themselves that they spent $1,200 on a point and shoot? But I don’t mind. As far as point and shoots go, this one is as nice as it gets. Just don’t expect it (or any premium point and shoot) to feel like a Leica M.

The Nikon 28Ti in the Real (and Disney) World

When testing cameras, it’s important to push them to their limits. We’re looking for weaknesses which are often exposed by stress; challenging environments, difficult lighting, pressure and fatigue. All the better if the photographer doing the testing happens also to be suffering. In my experience, there’s no better place to test a camera than Walt Disney World. Which is where I used the Nikon 28Ti over the course of four days and nights.

Practical use of the 28Ti will be familiar to anyone who has used a point and shoot film camera. We load the film, turn it on, point, and shoot. Where the 28Ti differentiates itself from a lot of other cheaper point and shoots, is in the amount of creative control that it gives. This most obviously presents through the camera’s aperture priority methodology. By setting the mode dial to A, we can now adjust our aperture via the control wheel. Open the aperture for lower light shooting or to create subject isolation, or close the aperture to increase depth of field. This happens to be my preferred shooting mode in any camera, point and shoot or otherwise, and it works as effectively on the 28Ti as it does elsewhere. Just don’t expect bokeh, even wide open.

We also have access to an exposure compensation mode. This adjustment isn’t as effortless as the aperture adjustment, as it requires us to press the exposure compensation dial on the top of the camera, but it works well enough, especially in instances where we may want to over- or under-expose and entire roll of film (say, in the name of push/pull processing or when we’re shooting expired film and want to over-expose).

In addition to these options to adjust our exposure, we have access to focus and flash adjustment.

The AF button on the top of the camera allows us to set our focus mode. We can leave the camera in auto-focus mode, which most of us will do, or we can lock the focus to infinity (useful for landscape or touristy shots). We can also use manual focus. When in this mode, scrolling the wheel will adjust our focus from infinity to minimum focus distance. The set focus distance is then displayed on one of the two larger analogue gauge needles on the top of the camera. This is useful for scale focusing, or to minimize time needed to take a shot in situations such as street photography, or in instances in which the AF system might struggle, such as low light photography or when shooting through highly reflective surfaces. On paper, great stuff. In actual use? Eh. I used manual focus once or twice. The rest of the time it’s auto-focus for me.

The flash adjustment is located on the front of the camera, and pleasantly, it is a hard switch. This means that the camera will not reset its flash mode every time that the camera’s turned off and then on, a common annoyance with point and shoots. Set the switch to Flash Off, and it’ll stay off. From there we can set the flash to automatic, or to red-eye reduction mode. These work as expected. People who dislike the aesthetic of direct point and shoot flash will find no comfort here. Of course, this also means that people who love the look of a 1990s direct-flash portrait will enjoy the Nikon.

The analogue gauges on the top of the camera are neat looking. If you enjoy mechanical watches you’ll likely enjoy that they were designed by Seiko, and that the needles click mechanically between increments. They display critical information that “lesser” point and shoots display with uncivilized LCDs and lights. How many shots we’ve taken, our set aperture and focus distance, whether or not we’re using exposure compensation, and the time we’ve been exposing long exposures; all of that (and a little more) is shown in glorious needle displays.

But they’re not that great. They’re kind of hard to decipher for the first few days, and never really become first nature. They do the job, but they’re needlessly complicated and possibly a liability. Who, I ask, can possibly fix these when they break?

The viewfinder is fine. Nothing special. Small, but it illuminates in low light and there’s enough information displayed to be useful at the decisive moment.

Shooting the Nikon 28Ti as its designers likely intended, as a point and shoot, there’s virtually no effort involved. If we believe all of those premium point and shoot marketers from thirty years ago (and the YouTubers and bloggers of today), this zero effort experience will give us shots that rival any of those made by the Canon EOS1v and an L lens (or a Fuji X Pro 3 in film simulation mode).

With the Nikon 28Ti and its Nikon Nikkor 28mm F/2.8 fast prime lens, the claim is generally true if we’re working within the camera’s capabilities. The Nikkor is a great lens, and combined with the Nikon’s capable metering system and relatively well-specced shutter, it makes images that are punchy and sharp and beautiful. In generally easy shooting scenarios (bright, soft light with the right film loaded), the camera is an excellent one.

But this premium point and shoot also struggles, and it does so in all of the same scenarios in which far less expensive point and shoot cameras also struggle. When the light gets low, it has a hard time making sharp, well-exposed photos. It fails to freeze fast-moving subjects. The auto-focus system is pretty basic. The lens vignettes. The flash is direct and lacks subtlety, and it’s sensitive to proper subject distance.

Final Thoughts

Despite the camera’s available aperture-priority mode, its exposure compensation adjustment, its user-selectable flash modes, and its analogue gauges, the Nikon 28Ti didn’t blow my mind. Its wide angle lens is somewhat uncommon in the class, and yes, it’s as premium as a point and shoot camera gets. But it’s still just a point and shoot.

At the end of the day, the 28Ti didn’t give me anything that a Nikon AF600 or a Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70W couldn’t at a quarter the price (that last one, by the way, is a total sleeper right now). Stretch the budget a bit more, to around $600, and we could have the Ricoh GR1 or Fuji Natura Black, which are actually my favorite wide angle prime lens point and shoots. That’s a lot less than the 28Ti costs.

Don’t mistake my realism for negativism. I’m not claiming that the Nikon 28Ti isn’t a great camera. It really is very good, and luxurious, and fancy, and beautiful and quirky. It’s just not earth-shaking, and buying one takes a lot of money. And sadly, nothing that I experienced while using it convinced me that the 28Ti is worth more the many less expensive point and shoots that I’ve mentioned a few times now. Which is too bad. Because I’m a Nikon collector, and I really wanted to keep this one.

Buy your own Nikon 28Ti on eBay here

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post Nikon 28Ti Point and Shoot Film Camera Review appeared first on Casual Photophile.

History, Specifications, and Reasoning Behind my Choice

Nikon has a history of revising lenses which might not have needed revisions. No surprise than, that this lens has a lot of history and a ton of brothers and sisters as well. The earliest of which is a pretty famous lens, the 2.8cm F/3.5 H Auto Nikkor, which at the time carried a reputation for being the very best that Nikon (or Nippon Kogaku, as it was then known) had to offer.

The H Auto first went on sale in March of 1960. It was a time dominated by rangefinders, and SLRs were still considered a very niche market. Having developed the Nikon F in 1959, Nikon wanted to offer the first all-around camera capable of catering to every shooting condition. For that dream to become a reality, a wide-angle lens was direly needed in the portfolio. It was under these conditions that Zenji Wakimoto found himself at the helm and took charge of the development of this new generation lens.

A common way of approaching the wide-angle lens made for SLRs back then involved a technique known as retro focus technology. This was first pioneered by Angenieux in their 35mm lens. Carrying this same focusing methodology over to the 28mm focal length proved to be disastrous in terms of optical performance, especially in the departments of coma and flaring. Mr. Wakimoto would go on to solve this problem by rearranging a few elements in the retro focus configuration and the rest is history.

The lens we have in question today is the spiritual successor of this original design. Encompassing all of its characteristics but re-imagined for the new age SLR market with the AI/AIS technology that Nikon was developing in the late 1970s. 

As for my journey to finding this lens, I knew I needed a wider focal length Nikkor to bring along on my mini-adventures but not something overly wide and overly fast (and thus, expensive). I needed a fresh perspective, one that would be vastly different to my usual 50mm. I must admit at this point, as Sroyon so eloquently puts it in his article of the 28mm Voigtlander Ultron, I too am somewhat of a victim of the anti-Goldilocks principle; I tend to use only the extremities of any zoom lens that I happen to get my hands on. And after reading Sroyon’s review (and some other 28mm lens reviews here on CP) I decided that 28mm would be the focal length for me.

The F/2.8 variant of the Nikon 28mm has a few minor advantages over the F/3.5, mainly in the areas of corner sharpness and distortion, but the more obvious difference between the two is the faster aperture. A wider aperture tends to create a more versatile lens, usable in more scenarios. For me, the applications for my would-be 28mm lens were mainly focused on landscape and a few fun portraits mostly taken in the broad of daylight, so the advantages of the wider aperture weren’t so obvious. Lastly, and importantly, there was the price difference; the F/2.8 version costs far more for not much of a performance increase. So, after some thinking, there I was a few days later (and just 70$ poorer) with my Nikkor 28mm F/3.5.

Specifications –

• Focal Length (on 35mm): 28mm
• Maximum aperture: F/3.5
• Minimum aperture: F/22
• Minimum Focus Distance: 0.3m
• Optics: 6 elements in 6 groups
• Aperture blades: 7
• Filter thread size: 52mm 

Build 

When I held the lens for the very first time, I was just blown away by the quality. It was essentially my first look at a “mint+++” category lens. My 50mm, while being my trusted old friend, is quite the beater in terms of look and feel. The focus ring is quite stiff and not so discreet. This 28mm on the other hand is silky smooth, making focusing just a breeze with one finger. The paint is immaculate with detailed prints designated for aperture and focus scales. The aperture ring moves with a very distinct click with one-stop differences. One difference to note is that my copy is the older LMIJ (Lens made in Japan) variant instead of the latter MIJ (Made in Japan) variant, and therefore the focus scale indicators are on the black lens barrel instead of the knurled silver ring. Optically there are no changes between the two models, just their serial numbers. 

The lens mount is metal as is the case with every Nikon lens from the era, and the fit and finish of the lens are of the tightest tolerances. It has a 52mm filter thread that accepts screw-in lens hoods as well. Apart from a few notable differences between other ais lenses, this one is pretty much on par with the Nikon’s bulletproof- like build quality. 

The build quality has also held the test of time, even when exposed to the natural elements. Over the time that I have had the 28mm, the lens has been through a lot. At an instance even having survived a flash flood, which caused all of my gear to be soaked in the muddy waters of a river. The lens was good to go after a tear-down and giving all the parts a thorough clean-up. The only visible scar from this adventure was the wearing off of the internal coating in one of the glass elements. You can be rest assured that this lens can take all you can throw at it and then some. 

Image Quality and Shooting Experience 

Shooting with the 28mm for the first time was like a breath of fresh air. Not able to take it out much at first, I resorted to a shoot in my home with one of my mom’s plants, swapping out between the 50mm and the 28mm to see the difference in perspective.

One immediately noticeable difference was the closer minimum focus distance of 0.3m compared to the 0.45m on the 50mm. As a result of which I was able to play around a little more with composition creatively, which did need some shifting of things as often there’s just a lot going on in the frame. On the other hand, an accurate focus was not the easiest to achieve as the subjects appear to be further away from you when compared to longer focal lengths. For example, the 50mm has a much clearer distinction between the out-of-focus zones, which helps a lot when shooting on the go. This was particularly more difficult on the horizontal split prism focus screen that is standard in my FM2n. It is definitely something which requires getting used to.

I was eventually able to take the lens on a short hike where it did quite well as a landscape lens. Occasionally I did notice some viewfinder darkening issues, especially near the center of the frame. This would hinder focusing as one-half of the split prism would completely blackout. I suspect this is due to the lower aperture which struggles in difficult lighting conditions, but that’s just nitpicking. 

Image quality is very good with strong performance even wide open. Center sharpness is more than adequate at F/3.5, with pin-sharp photographs. The corners are slightly affected but that does seem to go away with stopping down the lens. Contrast is consistent and adequately present. There is some vignetting at the very corner of the image at F/3.5. Barrel Distortion is present but it’s to be expected when shooting a wide-angle lens. Portraits taken on this lens have a slightly funny look to them due to their wide perspective. It does lend the lens a unique character that works in its favor. Having taken the lens out recently after a long break in photography for some general landscape photos, I was left pleasantly surprised with the image quality on digital systems. Chromatic aberration while still very much present around sharp edges, is definitely controlled and can be easily corrected in post. 

Overall this lens is spectacular for daylight shooting and for a general walk-around lens the experience is quite pleasing. My initial dismissal of the significance of the smaller aperture did come back to bite me later. A faster aperture does go a long way in making the lens more friendly to use while maintaining versatility over different scenes. It is just something to actively consider when choosing to go with a slower lens. The strong build quality and small form factor do contribute to a very confident feeling lens. The wide frame opens up a host of different creative outlooks and perspectives for streets and our own surroundings. 

After using the lens for some time it comes as no surprise that the 28mm is a favorite amongst the writers at CP and its readers too. The wide perspective has a lot going for it, in terms of creative compositions and changing your shooting style. For me, the ability to place your subjects closer than usual lends a very intimate look to portraits. At the same time adjusting the elements in your composition for landscape photography makes you think actively, enabling you to be more engaged with your surroundings. These few things paired with the wide availability of 28mm lenses do seem to answer the question of its popularity. 

My lens, the Nikon Nikkor 28mm F/3.5, though not as impressive or as coveted as its faster older sibling, does provide an affordable entry point into the whole new “wide” world. A unique look at photographs I didn’t know I was missing. A perspective I happily find myself just getting started with. 

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

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I’ve written elsewhere about the trajectory of film camera development throughout the hundred years between 1900 and 2000. For those who missed it, the trajectory was continually up. There was never a period of time where camera technology went backward for a decade as has happened at times in other industries, for example, the times when excessive government legislation has temporarily checked the U.S. automotive industry’s technical progression. Film cameras simply got better and better, year after year, until digital imaging technology disincentivized investment in film camera development by the camera companies.

For this reason, it’s easy and correct to say that the latest film cameras were (and remain) the best film cameras. And toward the end of film camera development in the late-1990s and early 2000s, compact point and shoot film cameras were the most popular and best-selling film cameras being made. They were, incidentally, also the class of camera which benefited from the greatest amount of research and development.

One of Nikon’s final compact 35mm film cameras, the Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS from the year 2002 enjoys all of the (significant) advances inherited by compact film cameras throughout the 1990s. I shot one for a few months this past year during a vacation to New Hampshire, and again during a vacation to Walt Disney World. Here’s a quick look at the Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS.

What is the Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS

I feel like you should know this by now, but for those who’ve not had their morning coffee… The Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS is an advanced and compact point and shoot 35mm film camera. As such, it’s made to fit in a pocket and be ready whenever you need to take a photo. And it’s made to make those photos with virtually zero effort from the photographer. It’s an auto-everything camera. Auto-focus, auto-flash, auto-exposure, auto-film advance and rewind, auto-ISO setting through DX coding. Surely you get the idea.

Load film, flick open the sliding lens cover (which doubles as an On/Off switch), point it at whatever it is you want to photograph, and press the shutter release button. That’s how we use it, and that’s how it works. Like many point and shoot film cameras from the early 2000s, the Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS defies flowery descriptors and excessive prose. It’s just another point and shoot. At least, that’s how it appears.

The main feature that sets the Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS apart from the myriad similar cameras which happily flooded the market (and occupied the fanny packs and purses of Disney dads and soccer moms of the ’90s) is the lens, which offered a better-than-average range of focal lengths. It was mostly this lens, capable of shooting 28mm wide angle photos on the wide end of its zoom, which made the camera special in its own day, and its this same lens which makes it a relatively uncommon and relatively desirable camera today.

Specifications

• Lens – Coated Nikon Zoom Macro 28-70mm, f/5.6 – f/10 (5 elements in 4 groups)
• Focusing – Automatic
• Viewfinder – Real-image zooming finder with 80% coverage. Includes parallax marks and autofocus frame, LEDs for ready, flash charging, focus achieved
• Auto-exposure – EV 5-15 at 28mm, EV 6-15 at 70mm
• Self-timer – 10 seconds, cancellation possible
• Built-in flash with four modes – auto, suppressed, forced and slow-synch, plus red-eye reduction; Range of 3.3m at 28mm and ISO 100
• ISO Range – ISO 100 and 400 set automatically by DX coding. Non DX-coded and 200 ISO films will set camera to 100.
• Power – 3V CR2 battery
• Dimensions – 117x63x42mm
• Weight – 200g (without battery)

Controls and Ergonomics and Shooting

When the Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS was released almost twenty years ago, it would have been a sleek and capable camera among the very best point-and-shoots to ever grace a Circuit City camera department. The compact champagne body, the cutting-edge LCD display, the glimmering gold accents hinting that the owner certainly paid attention to their 401k when not listening to Enya’s Only Time. What a time to be alive and taking pictures.

And even though 2002 was a long time ago, I think this camera still looks gorgeous. It’s a charming camera that makes all the right noises and looks good doing it. It’s cute.

Held in the hand, it fits well enough. A bit thicker than the Olympus Mju II, a bit smaller than the Nikon L35AF. It weighs so little that users won’t notice it, even after an eight hour hike up a literal mountain.

The top of the camera is as simple as they come – there’s a shutter release button to take a photo, a zoom toggle to zoom in and out, a mode button for flash control and another for red-eye reduction and self-timer settings. The only mode adjustment that I ever seemed to make was to turn the flash off whenever I wanted a longer shutter speed or to not blind my subjects who may have been too close to the camera (such as when I was on a lake with my family in a tiny, leg-powered paddle boat which, for some reason, only I was paddling).

The buttons actuate nicely. They’re not as spongy as some other point and shoots, and we know for certain whenever we’ve pressed a button. The LCD readout is large and bold, and ensures that we always know what’s happening in the camera before we take a photo. The zoom actuation is fast and fluid and precise.

The back of the camera features nothing, in regular models, and on Date Back models it features some data controls.

The viewfinder is small (show me a late ’90s and early 2000s point and shoot whose viewfinder isn’t). But it gets the job done. The viewfinder zooms its perspective in real time along with the lens, so that if we zoom in or out the viewfinder coverage keeps up, rendering an accurate (enough) representation of what our final image will be. There’s parallax correction lines and a focus dot, and LEDs tell us when focus is achieved, when the flash is charging, and when the flash is ready to fire.

Snapping the camera up from a pocket, sliding the lens cover open, and taking a shot is rapid and effortless. We can go from lounging on a mountainside rock to shooting a shot of a distant lake in about two seconds. And the shot will turn out pretty great.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using the Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS

I can make this pretty easy. If you want a wide angle-capable point and shoot film camera and price is no concern, sure, go and buy a wide prime compact. They’re great. Cameras like the Ricoh GR1 pack an incredible 28mm f/2.8 lens into a tiny body, but it’s an expensive camera. The Fuji Natura does the same with an ultra-wide and ultra-fast 24mm f/1.9, but it’s an expensive camera. The Nikon Lite Touch AF is one of the smallest cameras with a 28mm lens attached, but it’s (you guessed it) an expensive camera. In a used market which over-values prime lenses and under-appreciates zoom, these relatively rare and very good wide angle-capable prime lens-equipped point and shoots are going to be expensive.

If you want a wide angle-capable point and shoot film camera and price is, in fact, a concern, skip the primes and look at the Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS (or one of the few other wide zoom compacts that exist). The Nikon that I’m writing about today is cheap. The images it makes are very nice. They’re sharp enough, and punchy, with some interesting “vintage” qualities which we film shooters tend to gravitate toward. It’s a stylish camera that looks great. It fits comfortably in the hand or in a pocket. It works quickly and effortlessly, and offers versatility that users will eventually come to appreciate.

The camera does demand some compromise. Being capable of zooming from 28mm to 70mm means that the lens is more complicated and less optimized for each individual focal length than would be a prime lens. It has to perform well enough at all focal lengths, which means that it never excels at any one focal length. So sharpness takes a hit compared with point and shoots which have a 28mm, 35mm, 38mm or any other focal length prime lens. That said, the compromise isn’t terrible. By 2002, Nikon had pretty effectively figured out how to make a zoom lens work as well as a prime. The elements are coated to reduce flares and ghosts and other unwanted aberrations, and the optical formula does whatever magic it does effectively enough that I can’t really complain too loudly about image quality.

The ISO range (DX coded canisters set the camera ISO to 100 or 400, with 200 ISO and non-DX coded canisters defaulting to ISO 100) seems limiting on paper, but it’s really not. 400 ISO film will handle nearly everything you throw at it, and in other cases we’re just overexposing or shooting with the flash.

For what this camera does, it’s a great value and I certainly value it as a photographic tool when I’m away on vacation or running into the city to pick up some food from the North End, or playing around in the yard with the kids. It’s a great camera. The only real problem is this – the year after Nikon released the Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS they released the last compact film camera they’d ever make, the (frustratingly rare) Lite Touch Zoom 100 W. And that one goes from 28mm to 100mm. Damn!

Get your own Nikon Lite Touch 70 WS on eBay here

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post Nikon Lite Touch Zoom 70 WS Point and Shoot Film Camera Review appeared first on Casual Photophile.

Here’s everything that I learned shooting my vacation on film.

Expired Film is Terrible

Here I am, complaining about expired film. This is nothing new. I complained about it here, in a hyperbolic fever dream of pain and suffering. In another fun article I satirically skewered expired film with my rapier wit (and only one guy in the comments missed that the entire article was a self-deprecating joke). Even when expired film didn’t totally ruin every photo I made, as when I shot it for this article penned last summer, I made sure to whine and cry about shooting the stuff.

Every time I shoot expired film I think I’ve learned my lesson. Why, then, did I think it would be a good idea to bring nothing but expired film on the first vacation that my family and I would take in over two years? Oh, that’s right, because I’m very stupid.

And so it was last month that my few brain cells and I packed my carry-on bag with ten rolls of various types of expired film just prior to boarding a plane to Florida. Slide film, C41 color, black-and-white; I brought it all and shot it all during my time away with the family. Just yesterday my scans arrived from the lab by e-mail, and you’ll never guess what happened next!

You probably guessed.

I was disappointed.

The lab technician’s notes said it all – “You were working with some old film here, so expect the usual; low contrast, tons of grain, color shifts and bad exposures.” I opened the folders and, sure enough, found low contrast, tons of grain, color shifts and bad exposures.

Over the next five hours I did everything that I could to salvage the best of the shots in Lightroom, and some of the photos have ended up… fine. I might even like some of them – wow! But getting these shots to where they are now took major adjustments. And there’s no escaping the truth that the shots that I like would’ve been liked a lot more had they been shot on new film or with a digital camera. They’d be crisp and sharp and pop with vibrancy and beautiful colors and tonality and show ultra-fine grain and – oh, can you imagine? Well, you’ll have to imagine. Because the shots I got, ain’t it.

Expired film can, of course, be a beautiful medium. But its unpredictability and unreliability, its extremely low hit rate, and its high cost (why are people selling expired film for more than fresh film?) make it a no-go for me in any but the most frivolous situations. I should’ve learned my lesson years ago, and maybe I have by now – expired film sometimes, but never when the photo matters.

One Lens Only, Please

From one hard lesson to one which I’ve finally internalized after seven years of shooting cameras professionally. I only need one lens.

Over the past seven years I’ve packed my bag for trips like this one with way too many cameras and lenses. I’d bring the wide-angle prime for that perfect landscape photo. The standard fast fifty for when the light gets low and I need that bokeh. I’d pack the telephoto zoom to take a specific shot of a specific lion on the Animal Kingdom safari, knowing well that the lazy king of the jungle would be sleeping under a shade rock just out of sight every time our ridiculous safari truck rambled on by. I recall one year I even brought a tilt-shift lens, which sat unused in the air-conditioned hotel room for the entirety of the trip.

Well, this time I brought one lens. Just one. For ten days away from home. And I couldn’t be happier with that choice.

Less to pack. Less to carry. Less to worry about. And as long as I chose the right lens, the right focal length, I’d miss nothing by bringing just one chunk of glass on a family trip away.

It took me a while to find my single favorite lens from within my favorite focal length. But now that I have, there’s no going back. I’ll never travel without it. But more importantly, I’ll probably never travel with anything else.

Slide Film is Best Film

Experience has taught me, as mentioned, that expired film is bad. And in my experience, the worst of the bad is expired slide film. I don’t think I’ve ever made a single good photo from a roll of expired slide film (and I’ve tried many times). Which is why, when I was shooting the single roll of slide film which I brought with me on this particular vacation, I actively thought with every shot “Ahh, another terrible photo.”

The phrase became my mantra, repeated with a psychotic, unhinged smile. Click! “Another terrible photo…” Click! “Another terrible photo…”

Well, time has once again proven that I’m a moron. The best photos from my ten rolls of expired film all came from that single roll of expired slide film – a roll of Kodak Ektachrome E100VS (Vivid Saturation) which expired in 2014. Who could have guessed?

I can’t explain it. But I do know this – slide film is great! Even the shots from this long-dead film are great! Which leads me to think that, had this been fresh, new slide film, the shots would be damn-near stunning, even with a ham-fisted, brainless sack of oatmeal like me holding the camera.

Next vacation I’ll consider bringing nothing but new slide film and see how we do. The operative word in that sentence being “new.”

One Camera Only, Please

There’s nothing better for creating great photos than to have a perfect understanding of the camera in your hands. I don’t care what camera it is, if you don’t know how to use it fast and without conscious thought your photos will be bad (or at least not as good as they could be).

I’ve written before about how to cheat at film photography. And the biggest cheat is to use a camera that gets out of your way and lets you focus on making the photo. That’s what I did on this vacation (for the most part). I brought my favorite camera, the one that I use when I want to make a good photo, the one that feels just perfect in my hands and does everything I need.

There were no instances during the trip in which I was looking down at the camera in my hands wondering how to make it do this, or that. I never accidentally shot in the wrong mode, never accidentally forgot to set the ISO, never picked the wrong shutter speed or aperture, and never took a photo with the lens cap still on (because lens caps are for nerds and I didn’t use one – also, it’s an SLR).

The camera just worked, which in turn allowed me to just work. And more importantly, it allowed me to take pictures fast so that I could get back to having fun with my kids. When picking your next camera, eschew complication and style and instead use the camera that just works (for you)!

The Last Lesson

2020 was not a great year. Despite a positive attitude and a generally forward-marching personal philosophy, I suffered major setbacks. I won’t complain or repeat what I’ve already written about previously, and I acknowledge that plenty of people have had a harder time recently than I have. But I’d be lying if I pretended that the past year wasn’t a killer.

Political upheaval in the country where I live, natural disasters, societal unrest, doom and death and end of days, a chilled bag of misery intravenously drip-fed into us by a destructive industrial news complex where numbers mean everything, conflict means clicks, and bad news sells big ads. And all of the turmoil somehow harder to take during an isolating pandemic which replaced friends and family with the cold unfeeling screens of our computers and phones.

Worse than anything, for me and my wife, was a jarring personal loss.

It’s easy to lose sight of what matters in life, with the crowding crush of the world relentlessly pressing in from all sides upon our own tiny lives. And when the strength to push back leaves us, when we’re tired and sad and depleted, it sometimes feels like there’s nothing we can do except to be crushed under it. We suffocate. Or we find some strength and push back.

This vacation, one where I took 360-odd photos, 70 of which might be decent, has helped me push back on the saddest year of my life. The trip was magic, the photography (a hobby which I’ve not engaged with in any real capacity in over a year) was fresh and useful. And looking through these photos for the first time last night reminded me of a lesson I’ve known for years, but had nearly forgotten. The last lesson learned shooting my vacation on film; photography is good, and family is everything.

The post What I Learned Shooting My Vacation on Film appeared first on Casual Photophile.

It took nearly two centuries before European gardeners learned to cultivate the prized fruit in hothouses, and even then, they were rare, difficult to grow, and fiendishly expensive. Inevitably, pineapples became a symbol of wealth and status. As this BBC article relates, “Concerned about wasting such high-value fruit by eating it, owners displayed pineapples as dinnertime ornaments […] to be seen and admired but surrounded by other, cheaper, fruit for eating.” There’s an almost irresistible parallel here with how some people treat expensive lenses – but this article is not about that. Let’s resist that unworthy temptation, and press on.

As cultivation and transport became easier and less expensive, pineapples became cheaper.  Today, you can buy a “medium pineapple” for £1 at Sainsbury’s. Indeed, you could argue that the modern pineapple is so ubiquitous that it is actually under-priced, and consequently under-appreciated. Much like the Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8, the excellent but rather unglamorous lens which I’ve been using for the past three years.

Minolta 28mm lenses in SR-mount

The Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8 is a manual-focus lens for the SR-mount (colloquially called “MC/MD mount”). There are multiple versions of this lens; mine is the late-model MD-III introduced in 1983.

Minolta’s earliest 28mm was the Auto W.Rokkor-SG 28mm f/3.5 (1963). The SG in the lens name was a code, further explained here, for the number of groups and elements in the lens construction: ‘S’ denotes 7 groups (septem in Latin) and ‘G’ denotes 7 elements (7th letter of the alphabet). A nice system for naming lenses!

Subsequently, faster 28mm lenses were introduced with maximum apertures of f/2.8 (my lens), f/2.5 and even f/2. Each of these had multiple variants, known to collectors by esoteric codes like AR-II, MC-X, MD-III and so forth. In some cases the variations are merely cosmetic, while in others they are more significant – like differences in the minimum focus distance, filter size or lens construction. I won’t go into that level of detail, but if you’re interested in the minutiae, knock yourself out with the SR Lens Chart on eazypix, Ad Dieleman’s page on SR mount 28mm lenses, or minman’s pages on the f/3.5, f/2.8, f2.5 and f/2 versions.

The f/2 was one of Minolta’s premium offerings, with nine lens groups and a highly-corrected, floating element design. It is a full stop faster than the f/2.8, and image quality is reputedly better. At least, that’s what the internet says; I’ve not tested it myself, so I can’t say if the difference is practically significant. Anyhow, used prices for the f/2 are four to five times higher, and as such, it was outside my budget.

The f/2.5 is only one-third stop faster than the f/2.8, but significantly more expensive. It also has an older lens formula and coatings, and contains mildly radioactive rare-earth elements.

The f/3.5, on the other hand, is cheaper than the f/2.8, but only by a few pounds. So unless you get a cracking deal, I don’t see a good reason to give up a half-stop of speed (and remember that with an SLR, you’ll also be looking at a dimmer viewfinder).

That brings us to the f/2.8 28mm, the subject of this review.

Minolta 28mm f/2.8 versions

There are multiple versions of the Minolta 28/2.8, the main ones being the MC W.Rokkor, MD W.Rokkor and MD (sometimes called the MD-III or “plain MD”). These designations appear on the front of the lens, which helps with identification. Other variants include the Celtic (budget line, usually with the same optical formula but cheaper construction and coatings) and the Rokkor-X versions with orange lettering (identical to the corresponding Rokkor versions without the X, but produced for the North American market).

In general, later models are slightly smaller and lighter, but also have more plastic in their construction. The filter ring changed from 55mm in the earlier versions to 49mm in the later ones – this may be a factor if you sometimes use the same filters on different lenses, as I tend to do. All versions focus down to just 0.3 meters (1 foot) which is a nice feature to have.

All but one of these versions have an optical formula of 7 elements in 7 groups (7/7). But the plain MD has two variants. The first, introduced in 1981, is a 7/7 formula like its predecessors, while the second – my version, 1983 – has a 5/5 design.

Externally, the plain MD 7/7 and 5/5 are almost indistinguishable. There is a tiny cosmetic difference in the front ring which you can see on Ad Dieleman’s page (the 5/5 has an extra inner ring). And on the 7/7, the red IR dot on the depth-of-focus scale is slightly closer to the 4, while on the 5/5, it’s slightly closer to the 8.

Come to think of it, I have no idea why I know this stuff, because the difference in image quality between the 7/7 and 5/5 (which I will come to in a later section) is negligible. I need to get out more.

Specifications

The specifications given below are for the lens I own, the plain MD with a 5/5 construction. For other versions, please see the eazypix chart and Ad Dieleman’s page.

• Mount – Minolta SR mount (MC/MD)
• Year introduced – 1983
• Focal length – 28mm
• Angle of View – 75°
• Aperture range – f/2.8–22 (half-stop detents)
• Aperture blades – 6
• Lens construction – 5 elements in 5 groups
• Minimum focus distance – 0.3 meters
• Dimensions (L×D) – 40×64mm
• Weight – 170 grams
• Filter thread diameter – 49mm

Look and feel

The lens is compact, not much bigger than a golf ball. Like other MD series lenses, it has a rubber waffle grip for the focus ring, and mostly white lettering (orange for feet, and green for the smallest aperture, f/22). It also has the “MD lock” designed to be used on the Minolta X-700 in Program mode, so that the lens does not accidentally switch away from minimum aperture. A clip-on hood (screw-on in the older versions) was sold separately, but I don’t have one.

Build quality and “feel” are on par with MD series lenses – not necessarily mind-blowing, but perfectly acceptable. On my copy the focus ring turns smoothly, with a throw of a little under 180° from 0.3 metres to infinity. The aperture ring is snappy, with half-stop detents except at the two extremes (i.e. no detents between f/2.8-4 and f/16-22).

Lens design and optical quality

The 28mm focal length is significantly shorter than the Minolta SR-mount’s flange focal distance, that is, the distance from the mount to the film-plane (43.5mm). So like almost all wide-angle SLR lenses, the Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8 is a retrofocus (aka inverted telephoto) design. This ensures that the rear element is sufficiently far from the film plane, leaving enough space for the SLR mirror.

As I mentioned, my lens is a 5/5 design (5 elements in 5 groups) while earlier versions have a 7/7 formula. Vintage lens reviews claims that the 5/5 is slightly inferior. On the other hand, Tony at Lens QA Works did a side-by-side comparison and found that the 5/5 is “definitely better”. However, as you can see from his comparison, these differences are really only visible at wide apertures, at the corner of the frame, and at high magnification.

Moreover, bear in mind we’re talking about vintage lenses, used or stored in all sorts of conditions. Three decades after their manufacture, there are a host of reasons why there could be sample variation between copies. If you’re in the market for a Minolta 28/2.8, I would not lose sleep over whether to get the 5/5 or the 7/7. For normal photography, I think the differences are practically irrelevant.

Distortion and vignetting

Most wide-angle lenses exhibit two types of distortion: perspective distortion where objects closer to the camera appear disproportionately bigger, and radial distortion where straight lines appear curved.

Perspective distortion is not a lens aberration, but a consequence of the wide-angle perspective. If you don’t like it, don’t blame the lens; take a few steps back and use a longer focal length. Radial distortion, on the other hand, is a lens aberration, often manifesting as barrel distortion on wide-angle lenses.

A while back I did some “tests” with this lens, taking photos of optical charts and so on. (I do these tests for my own amusement, but I don’t reproduce them in reviews because I think “real-world photos” are more informative and fun. But I wonder if some readers might be interested after all?) Anyhow, in these tests I noticed a bit of barrel distortion, nothing extreme, and filed this information away for future reference.

More recently, I was shooting a series of building facades in my hometown, Kolkata – taking photos straight on with lots of horizontal lines in the frame. I was using the MD 28/2.8, so I thought barrel distortion might be an issue, and I was all set to correct it in post. But the (uncorrected) photos look just fine, as you can see below. If an aberration is mainly visible in test charts and not in real-world photos, I can live with that.

All sample photos, by the way, are taken on film, using a Minolta X-370s or Minolta X-700.

Likewise, my tests showed a bit of vignetting wide open, practically gone at f/5.6. Again, this is not something I notice in real-world photos. If anything, it can add some visual interest to portraits and night scenes – the most common situations where I shoot at f/2.8.

Bokeh and flare

A wide-angle lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 will never be a bokeh monster, but wide open and up close the lens does produce pleasing bokeh. The photo of the sunflowers below shows both near and far bokeh, and you can see other examples in the portraits. Stopped down, background bokeh is only really visible if you focus quite close. The lens has six aperture blades, so out-of-focus highlights appear hexagonal.

Although I use the lens without a hood, flare resistance is surprisingly good. I know this because I kind of stress-tested the lens, shooting in situations most likely to produce flare. In the photo of the single sunflower, the sun was in the frame, partially obscured by the flower. In the photo with the monkey, the sun was just outside the frame at top left. In both photos, there is good contrast and very little veiling flare. There is a hint of ghosting (you can see it on the monkey’s left hand) but again, far less than I expected.

Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8 in use

50mm (or its full-frame equivalent) is my favorite focal length, but 28mm is not far behind. This is obviously subjective, but to my eyes, 28mm is a nice balance – wide enough to look interesting but not so wide that perspective distortion becomes the defining feature of an image. I use (and love) wider lenses too, some of which I hope to review later. But the 28mm focal length is really versatile. I especially like it for street photography where it allows me to get close to the action and still capture a lot of the scene.

With faster film, the maximum aperture of f/2.8 is wide enough (just about) for handheld night photography. A good rule of thumb is that the slowest shutter-speed at which a lens can be safely handheld is the reciprocal of its focal length (so around 1/30 sec for a 28mm lens). This effectively makes it almost one stop “faster” than a 50mm lens which, according to our rule of thumb, has a slowest safe speed of 1/60 sec.

I also use it for portraits, though on photo-forums and Facebook groups you often hear “rules” like “Never take portraits with a wide-angle lens.” But I think wide-angle portraits have their own charm – the unusual perspective, and the fact that you can include a good deal of the subject environment, thanks to the wider angle of view and greater depth-of-field.

Final thoughts

I started this review with a story about pineapples, and also about economics. Rare objects tend to be valuable, and conversely, commonplace things are cheap. In 1986, the Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8 sold new for $140, almost $360 in today’s money. Even at that price it must have been a worthwhile investment, because Minolta sold thousands of copies. As a result, the lens is widely available today, and at the time of writing used copies in good condition sell for around £30–50 on eBay UK auctions.

Here’s another economics anecdote. In 2017, scientists at the University of Bonn found that the same wine apparently tastes better when it’s labelled with a higher price tag – a phenomenon which has come to be known as the “marketing placebo effect.” Participants were given two wine samples with price tags of 6 euro and 18 euro. Most participants rated the 18-euro wine higher, but in fact, both samples came from the same 12-euro bottle.

There’s a lesson in this too – sometimes, instead of being guided by our senses, we allow ourselves to be swayed by price. Online reviews of the Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8 often damn the lens with faint praise. “A very good, but not stellar performer,” says Rokkorfiles. “An ok lens for the money,” says a user on the MFlenses forum.

Now I’m not sure if this is the flip side of the marketing placebo effect – thinking that if something is cheap it must therefore be average – or whether these users are checking corner-sharpness at wide-open apertures and 5x magnification. But in scans viewed at full-screen on my laptop, or 8×10″ darkroom prints I don’t notice image quality issues. The limiting factor, as usual, is not the lens, but my own ability.

Having used the lens for over three years in a variety of situations, here is what I think. The Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8 is not merely “an ok lens for the money”, not even “a very good lens for the money.” It is just a very good lens, period.

Buy your own Minolta MD 28mm F/2.8 lens on eBay here

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

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