No. The confusion comes from the corporate history of Minolta, Konica, and Sony. Back in the 1980’s Konica and Minolta were separate companies with separate, incompatible camera systems. Sometime after 2000 Minolta bought Konica, but by that time Konica had long discontinued its cameras, and made mostly film and specialty devices (like copiers and printers).… Read More »
I recently acquired a lens that looked brand new. How much dust is inside a brand new lens? With the naked eye could see only one particle, a tiny fleck on the element that was immediately in front of the aperture. Then I took a really bright light, held the aperture open and shined it… Read More »
Yes and no. It is important to distinguish between the high-end lenses and the sub-$500 consumer zooms, both from Sony and from Minolta, and to understand sample variation. The high end lenses are essentially the same lenses, built in the same factory, to the same standards, and are essentially comparable. The differences are in the… Read More »
In terms of overall build quality, Minolta’s xi power zoom lenses from the early 1990s may represent a high water mark. Minolta’s lenses, like the cameras and lenses from all makers, have gotten cheaper over the years, in more ways than one. The upholstery in 1930’s Mercedes cars was made to last 100 years. Today… Read More »
Back in 2001 I wrote an article titled “Can you use Minolta manual focus lenses on an autofocus body?” That was before Minolta released their first digital SLR, and before they sold their camera business to Sony. The information, however, is still valid, and applies to the Sony Alpha digital SLR cameras for the same reasons. The… Read More »