Konica Minolta AF 28 mm-80 mm F/3.5-5.6 Lens

This was purchased to replace a lens used for the last 15 yrs. Although the company has been bought by Sony, the lens is still of high quality and universally fits Minolta, Konica/Minolta, and Sony A series cameras. Highly recommended and I would not hesitate buying another, as opposed to purchasing a Sony brand lens.

This is one of the 'kit' lenses from the latter days of Minolta. It is very lightweight, of a plastic barrel construction. It also has a plastic Mount - which is often criticized as 'not being as strong' as its predecessor metal mounts, but I haven't had a problem with them.

The Optics are good, as we all expect from Minolta......except for one little detail. This lens (and its 28-100 cousin), when used on Film cameras, have a problem with vignetting (shadowing) of the corners at 28mm. From about 35mm on up, this problem disappears.

If using it on the Sony Alpha 100 (or a Minolta 5D or 7D), this problem shouldn't show itself, thanks to the '1.5x crop factor' (the Digital uses a smaller portion of the lens's 'image circle' than a film camera would).

Great glass to have on your camera, if you can find one, GET IT, you wont be sorry, especially for the price you can find them for on Ebay. Much better than the Sony A series 18-70 kits lens.

Merits:
Good walkaround zoom lens, even for digital minolta SLR with a cropped view angle. Decent sharpness attained all through the zoom range when stopped down half stop. Fast auto focus response.

Weaknesses:
Color a little bit dull (not quite enough saturation).

This has proven to be a very good workhorse lens for the maxxum camera. It does exaclty what it should do. I find that I use this lens a bit more often than my 70-300 mm lens because most of my shooting is closer in. Not good for long distance shots, but takes a decent panorama landscape. all around a good lens for the money.