What's the best ~75-150mm zoom lens?

[stevemark]

Here's the first part of the test - those six lenses mentioned above at their shortest focal length (70mm or 75mm).

As usual these are 100% crops from the corners of 24 MP FF JPGs out of the Sony A7II.

PLEASE CLICK TWICE ON THE IMAGE TO GET THE FULL RESOLUTION!






At their shortest focal length, theses lenses (apart fro the Olympus and to some extent the Nikon E) are performing remarkably well.

The best image quality wide open comes from the Minolta (very good resolution, good contrast, no CAs).
The Canon and the Konica may have slightly less contrast, and the Mamiya sligtly les resolution - but that's really pixel-peeping, and it may well be due to sample variation: Vintage zooms are more prone to sample variation than the averag vintage prime lens.

The Nikon E has lower resolution in the corners (field curvature?) and more pronounced vignetting, but it's also 1/2 - 1 stop faster than the other lenses.

The Olympus looks quite a bit worse that the others. What makes this lens useless on 24 MP FF cameras, however, is the fact that its resoltion is bad all over the entire image! I have never seen another vintage lens from the 1970s that has similar problems. As mentioned in an earlier posting, I have tested three samples of the Zuiko 4/75-75-150mm, all with very bad results.

Here's a 100% crop from the center of the Nikon E and the Olympus 75-150mm lenses, both taken wide open (f3.5 with the Nikon, f4 with the Zuiko):



Stopped down all lenses (apart from the Olympus, obviously) perform really well - the Canon having a bit less contrast than the others, something I have seen also in other test with other Canon lenses.

I'm a bit puzzled about the Olympus. Is there a common failure mode for these lenses, e. g. a plastic part in the zoom mechanism that fails (bearings, maybe)? While Olumpus MF gear is not common here in Switzerland, the Oly 75-150mm is readily available at any time, usually in several samples, on local online auction platforms. Canon and Nikon are rarer, and Minolta / Konica can't be found easily. This suggests that the Oly isn't really a keeper ...

Results at f=100mm and f=150mm will follow tomorrow.

S

[caspert79]

The results of the Oly are very mysterious indeed. I have a hard time believing that Olympus would produce such a bad performing lens. It must be some kind of deterioration.

[stevemark]

[kiddo]

Thank you very much for your effort and your time , i basically cover most of this focal length with primes ,but sometimes I really miss a zoom, to be honest. Besides , for shooting children around, I've noticed it's easier to shoot at F4, because they are .....kids (exceptions applies to tranquil portraits,I was referring to walking and playing around). Your pics do confirm Minolta should be the way to go, but is not easy to reach nowadays for a good price. What about bokeh on these 3.8-4.5 range, which one is smoother ?

[stevemark]

[stevemark]

Here are the corresponding corner crops at f=100mm:

(CLICK TWICE ON THE IMAGE TO GET THE FULL RESOLUTION)



Quite often zooms are best in their mid-range; corner resolution tends to peak and both CAs and distortion tend to be lowest. The Konica AR 4/70-150mm, the Mamiya Sekor E 3.8/70-150mm, the Minolta 4/75-150mm and the Nikon E 3.5/75-150mm are no exception - they all are remarkably "clean" at f11: good contrast, good resolution in the extreme orners, and virtually no CAs.
The Canon however is a bit inferior, compared to its performance at f=75mm.
The Olympus, again, is far behind - not only in the corners shown here, but in the image center as well, even at f11. Not recommended!!

Wide open, again, the Minolta is best; Nikon and Konica are not far behind, though. Mamiya and Canon lack resoution, and so do the two copies of the Olympus 4/75-150mm tested (silver nose and black nose).

Test at f=150mm will follow tomorrow.

S

[martinsmith99]

I remember my 70-15 Kiron being `good enough'. Certainly for film use.

[ZuikosHexanonsandVivitars]

[D1N0]

Both Tamron (20a/3.5) and Vivitar 70-150mm 3.8 (Kiron) have great smooth bokeh and are very compact and cheap.

[stevemark]

[kiddo]

Wonder how many samples of Minolta have you tested to get this so much better than all the others , at least wide open ,there is quite a lot more details on corner crops

[RokkorDoctor]

[hasenbein]

Yes, the Minolta is a great lens and very practical because it's so small and light.

I had it, but then I got the Contax-Zeiss 80-200. Even nicer rendering, equally sharp, goes to 200mm, has even shorter MFD.

So unfortunately the Minolta had to go (because I simply don't use it anymore).

[kiddo]

I'm familiar with c/y Zeiss ,and I've had a look to that one ,but It seems it's not an light lens to carry around half day here and there . In fact ,for the first time ,135 sonnar 2.8 convinced me that sometimes, it does pretty well for portraits also (not every one, definitely) , as till now 105 would be the extreme limit FL i would go for famility portraits.

[D1N0]

[stevemark]

[ZuikosHexanonsandVivitars]

[caspert79]

[stevemark]

Here's the last series of 100% crops from some of my 70 (75)-150mm vintage zooms:



At f=150mm I would say both the Canon as well as the Minolta are on top. Canon slightly less CAs, and Minolta slightly more detail (especially wide open). The Hexanon has quite a bit of CAs (no wonder - it's much shorter built than e. g. the Canon, and therefore needs higher refracting glass => more prone to CAs). Otherwise it has lots of detail too.

Wide open, the Mamiya and the Nikon E have clearyl less corner resolution compared to Canon / Minolta and Konica, but stopped down to f11 they are as good as the others.

The Olympus, again, doesn't satisfy ... not only in the corners (shown here), but also in the center its resolution simply is missing.


Peronally, I prefer the Minolta and its flawless resolution at all focal lengths and even at f4. The large Canon and the tiny Konica are slightly behind - the Canon especially wide open at around f=100mm, the Konica due to CAs at the long end.

Wide open, the Mamiya as well as the Nikon E have a lower corner resolution than Canon/Konica/Minolta, especially at the longer end (say 100 ... 150mm). Remember that these lenses (ie Mamiya and Nikon E) may be corrected for shorter distances - I simply don't have the means to ensure perfect parallelism between the sensor and a target at closer distances, and therefore I prefer not to publish test results taken at closer distances.

The Olympus is a bit an enigma to me. I've hardly seen any other OEM lens from the 1970s to perform that badly, and I still do not rule out a common failure in all three sample tested. If someone should have a Olympus 4/75-150mm zoom that performs well => please contact me!

S

[bp_reid]

[lumens pixel]

Since we are discussing the MD 75 150, here is a pic showing the monstrous resolution of that lens. Here 135mm f5,6.

[img]L'hiver | Winter by lumens pixel, sur Flickr[/img]

[Knudsen]

[lumens pixel]

[Dejan]

Minolta 75-150mm is on top of my list, it's just that's even harder to decide to buy a zoom that's badly presented in the ad than a prime lens. More places things could go wrong, and probably much harder to clean the lens. I was considering the Canon as a temporary solution (much easier to find, plus comes at 2-3x lower prices so why not), but I didn't expect it'd do worse around 100mm, but rather have it as a sweet spot. These tests were very interesting, thank you! What would you say about distortion (where Minolta's doing relatively badly anyway) with the Canon? I'd guess it's similar. Another thing, would you know if there's visible improvement at 5.6 with the Canon? That'd be nice for handheld situations when using my non-stabilized camera. On the other hand, I'd expect much more copy variation with Canon lenses, maybe even decentering issue (which seems to be much less likely with the Minoltas, never happened to me so far).

[RokkorDoctor]