Minolta Celtic 50mm f3.5 macro

LostLensCap · Feb 28, 2015

I had one of these back in the 90's that I didn't use much and ended up trading it for a zoom of sorts. The other day I was cruising eBay when I ran across one in MINT condition so I bid on it and won. It came yesterday and I am shocked at the build quality of the BUDGET lens. The fit and finish of this lens is as good as anything Zeiss has to offer. All metal, crisp aperture and butter smooth focus. IQ seems good but I really haven't had a chance to test it much. My point is that this lens was marketed as a budget model. Things really aren't built like they use to be. (I feel old).

dxqcanada · Feb 28, 2015

Yeah, back in the days I remember that all lenses were metal with the exception of the rubber grip.
Even the cheap stuff was built pretty good (not optically though).
The AF camera's really brought in the age of plastic ... though it did lighten the load in a packed camera bag.

Derrel · Feb 28, 2015

"Zeiss by Cosina" is made in Japan...a lot like Minolta's old lenses were...same basic stuff. As dxqcanada mentiones, today's lenses have become so plastic-y that even cheap lenses from the manual focus era have come to be regarded as feeling luxurious.

LostLensCap · Mar 1, 2015

I did some tests with it today. Page from the newspaper. f3.5 is good for focusing but that is about it. f5.6 is sharp in the center but soft on the edges. f8, f11, and f16 are sharp edge to edge with f22 being a little soft edge to edge. I'm impressed that it is as sharp at f16 as it is at f8. f16 is where I like to shoot 3d subjects.

Dave442 · Mar 5, 2015

I had a couple Celtic lenses for my Minolta while in high school. They were usually a stop or so slower and a cheaper rubber focus ring than the Rokkor-X, but gave me good results. Nice to see you picked one up.