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"Minolta Colors" - urban legend or reality?
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
dan_ wrote:
As I remember, back in their time Minolta lenses were known not principally for a special color rendition, but for having a consistently equal color rendition from lens to lens, regardless of the type of lens. You could change lenses and have exactly the same colors in your photo. In the film time you had no Auto White Balance and film was not forgiving - that's why having consistent colors between lenses was very important, leading to the fame of "Minolta colors". Probably a test on film could better reveal if the "Minolta colors" label is a fact or an urban legend.

Based on my experience with the Minolta lenses I too think that they have a distinct rendering, especially for greens and reds. I like their colors but I can't say I like them more than the colors from other lenses.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 11:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Like 1 small Indeed excellent...
and nowadays, the auto white balance is unique to each Camera producer... which means the camera, not the lens makes the difference...


PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Antoine wrote:
Like 1 small Indeed excellent...
and nowadays, the auto white balance is unique to each Camera producer... which means the camera, not the lens makes the difference...


Nature has a wide variety of color creation processes. Color constancy between two greens that you see as equal may differ for another person or for artificial observers like a camera. This happens even for one and the same camera used with different lenses. White balance will not help there, your 18% grey card may yield the same neutral values after white balance, the green RGB numbers could still differ. Camera/lens profiling with a Color Checker card helps but even there the algorithms may create different profiles and most cards do not have more than 8-12 different pigments in their patches while there are thousands of colorants and other color creating phenomena in nature.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Some interesting thoughts raised here. While I only have one Minolta SR mount lens at present (MD Rokkor 50/1.7), so cannot comment on the consistency of these lenses. I would, however, be surprised if any of the majority manufacturers lenses were not designed to a specific and measurable colour reference. Canon, for example make a play in Lens Work and even the small Lens Wonderland booklet about the colour consistency of their FD lenses. They cite the 50mm f/1.4 as the reference standard.

What, I would say is that from my experience generally;

Contax Zeiss lenses are warmer than Canon...
Canon are warmer than Yashica ML which are quite neutral...
Olympus OM lenses have a mild cyan tint + high overall contrast which gives slightly harsh colour transitions...

I also suspect that Veiling not only lowers contrast but makes the image appear slightly more neutral.

As a lot of this is perception YMMV.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 3:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
We are discussing vintage lenses here, used in analogue times on color film, you may wonder what the lenses with a higher UV light transmission did on color film despite the claims of color constancy between lenses. There is a Nikon E type in this short list: https://kolarivision.com/uv-photography-lens-compatibility/ There are more lists out there that mention the UV transmission of vintage lenses as found by trial and error, many totally blocking, some quite transmissive.

On sensors there are UV and infrared blocking layers but I wonder how sharp at the boundary of violet and ultraviolet they cut. There is a nice list somewhere that shows the result of UV camera filter's efficiencies. Enough that cut on the visual part of the spectrum as well. Could not find that one but Lensrentals has some numbers on transmission. https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2017/06/the-comprehensive-ranking-of-the-major-uv-filters-on-the-market/

In analogue times the combination of the film type / lens / UV filter already made the claims for constancy in color between lenses doubtful. Light spectrum indoors and outdoors not mentioned. Now in digital times with most UV and infrared blocked in front of the sensor we should have less surprises but I expect there are still color shifts in different combinations of sensor types and vintage lenses.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 11:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
barryreid wrote:
I also suspect that Veiling not only lowers contrast but makes the image appear slightly more neutral.


Good point! As I pointed out in my previous post, veiling is caused by stray rays due to reflections on lens surfaces. In many old lenses, the coating thickness was calibrated to minimize yellow-green reflections. As a result, the reflections have a bluish hue, as those familiar with old single coated lenses know. In these lenses, the veiling is bluish, what in certain cases can counteract the warm tone resulting from a coating adjusted for minimal yellow-green reflection. Note, however, that the bluish veiling only affect significantly the dark areas of the image. High light areas have color rendering basically given by the spectral transmission, which typically favors warm colors in old lenses.


PostPosted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Reading this thread , I remenbered ,that when I bought my Sonnar FE 35mm f2.8, I made those two shots WO to compare it with my Rokkor MD 35mm f2.8 W.
For this thread I equalized the WB and tried to adjust exposure. There is a second version of the Rookor shot with a bit more contrast and clarity.
Note that the vignette of the Sonnar has been corrected . Don't watch the corners.

Sonnar

Rokkor

Rokkor +


PostPosted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 3:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Really interesting posts from everyone.. I agree that this argument is very subjective. I notice with my modern very well corrected lenses the colors just aren’t the same as some of my vintage lenses, maybe because of the number of elements or correction. When I use the modern lenses I get good shots but they are missing that something special even after editing. The Tokina 90 2.5 also gives great shots but seems to lack the dynamic look of other vintage lenses, perhaps because it is so well corrected and sharp.

I did notice much more pleasing colors from my Minolta 58 1.2 vs the canon 55 1.2 and that is why I kept the Minolta, I could never really pin down what it was but the images were just so much more pleasing. Strangely enough the lens that I have found the closest to the 58 1.2’s “look” is the Nikkor 105 1.8.
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