Konica Minolta Maxxum AF 28 mm-85 mm F/3.5-4.5 Lens

I had to repair the lens even though it was listed and sold as EX condition. The guide pins were loose and just about falling out. Disassembled and moved pins one over each and tightened. By moving them, the plastic guide is not worn so much in there new locations and the lens tightens up nicely. Tested it, and still need to rotate the front element slightly to get infinity focus spot on. Otherwise, a great lens and happy to have it. Glass is clean and provideds excellent shots. Best zoom for snap shots and walking around. Resolution and sharpness equals 35mm prime and the other focal ranges are close enough for me to primes to use this lens when I can't decided on a prime.

Since I bought this lens to replace the 18-70mm kit lens, I have not taken this lens off my Sony A200 camera.The color and quality of the optics are far superior than my kit lens. This is a heavy all metal lens not plastic and weighs more than a pound so their is more weight to carry around. The only drawback for this lens is that if you are using DSLR with APSC sensor, this lens will become a 42-127.5mm for the Sony. On the low end, 42mm is not wide enough for Landscape pictures in some situation. The lens is cleaned and free of any scratches, mold and dust. It does not come with front and rear lens caps. The lens hood it comes with is for the 29-100mm Minolta lens and it very loose and does not stay on very well. There are 2 nicks with metal exposed on the front screw threads, but that is okay since I can hide them when using a UV filter.

Overall, this is a good deal for $65 including shipping and I got it in 2 days.

I bought this lens to fill a gap in my wide range zoom coverage. It's aperture maxima are F3.5 @ 24, F4 from 25 to about 43 and F4.5 from 44 to 85. It is a sharp lens. Sharpest above F5.6 above 70mm. Wide open it is sharper stepped down once. Nice bokeh and very good build. I haven't regularly got CA or flare from the lens, but that happens with many lenses when you let direct sunligtht or strong light/dark contrast in the frame. I like the lens. It works well for the price and looks good o the camera. It was a good buy. i would recommend it.

I just got this lens a couple of days ago, have to say this lens is as good as everyone says it is. This lens has a good zoom range, nice f4- f4.5 range (f3.5 is only available from the 24mm to 28mm range), and when you stop it down to f5.6 to f7.1 you still get a good, sharp results. The only thing I don't like is that you can't get too close to the object yr trying to shoot, would have loved a macro feature on this lens. Either way, I would definitely purchase this lens as it is a great value ( I paid less than $100) and a great lens!

I used this site www.dyxum.com to do my research on this lens, and anyone wanting to research Minolta lenses should do the same.

I am not a professional photographer but I would advise all owners of Sony Alpha DSLR to seek and obtain old Maxxum lenses especially 1st gen. It shows great foresight on part of Sony to keep Minolta amount and design Alpha’s to accept old lenses. Which perform better than ones that come with DSLR i.e. like mine 18-55mm SAM. That was the main reason I decided to buy Alpha. Sony has Zeiss lenses and if money is no object than by all means get them. Had previous life experience with Zeiss on old Praktica camera and lenses made then in DDR – unbeatable quality. I got my 1st gen Maxxum when it came out and quickly traded stock 50mm lens for what I think should be called ‘mini beercan’ 35-70mm, later got 2nd gen ‘beercan’ 70-210mm. Both great lenses and both produce amazing pictures. In retrospect I should have gotten ‘secret handshake’. Well, there is eBay for that and I will be looking for a deal. This one, I call ‘medium beercan’ 28-85mm it is extremely versatile and build like a tank – metal parts and glass lenses. Some minor inconveniences of old design are easily compensated by quality of images. Sony should get those designs out of mothball and they will have sure hit on their hands. it is old and, surpirse, it is better than new.