Minolta E.Rokkor 50mm 4.5 Lens Test

[Jonny]

Hi all,

 

found this lens cheap and thought it might work alright in UV, so I gave it a test, its a little silver enlarger M39 enlarger lens, which was designed to be 'dual purpose' in that it was for those on a budget to shoot on and then enlarge their images on. I cant measure the FFD but I believe it is around 45mm as it reaches infinity just inside my Nikon. The mount has a longer thread than other M39 lenses, so on my adapter it can only focus to around 0.7m

 

has no filter thread but a 34mm adapter could be glued in or a rear filter mounted as there is a good amount of space back there (3mm?)

 

I tested it outside in fading sunlight, and it was 8 Stops slower than daylight

 

vis, S8612 1.75mm, ISO 200, F11, 1/60, Manual WB

 

UV, U-340 1mm + S8612 1.75mm, ISO 200, F11, 2", Manual WB (+1 EV in post)

 

WB was done in Photoninja, same processing used, the UV shot was then given +1 EV in Photoshop before exporting to JPEG

 

I then tried out a flower, a wild strawberry from my yard, using approx 21mm of additional extension

 

Vis, S8612 1.75mm, ISO 800, F11, 1.3", Manual WB

 

UV, U-340 1mm + S8612 1.75mm, ISO 800, F11, YN560 UV Flash, Manual WB

 

The falloff is due to me handholding the flash and the filter to take the shot, and not vignetting.

 

Looks like a good lens for macro work, probably useful on m4/3 and Non-Nikon cameras for everything else

[Alex H]

I would strongly advice to add the picture of the lens itself to your post. I am trying to make it a "tradition" for such posts. While other people will have no problem finding Minolta E.Rokkor 50mm 4.5, looking for something like "Soligor 135mm F/2.8" may prove difficult without the picture - case when the same designation was used for lenses produced by different manufacturers and having different optical formulas, but sold through the same distributor.

 

There was also 75mm E.Rokkor that should have sufficient flange distance to be able to focus to infinity on your Nikon.

[nfoto]

A good find. Glad you added a picture of the lens as this will make identifying it in searches a lot easier.

 

Most modestly fast, and hence inexpensive, 50 mm enlarger lenses appear to be triplet variations. They can be surprisingly capable in UV, provided they are stopped down a bit. The JML 50mm f/3.5 springs to mind.

[Andrea B.]

Thanks, Jonny. I will add it to the Lens Sticky next time I update it.

 

Enlarger triplets are an excellent area in which to search for UV-capable lenses. Some may not be optimized for wavelength shifts in focus and most may not go "too deep" into the UV, but for most of what we do we do not need that anyway.