It was almost like a revelation. Like something that I really didn’t think could ever be possible. I first got a whiff of what was coming on a facebook forum committed to all things Fujifilm GFX. There were a lot of first movers from Hong Kong that had access to fast luxury glass, and prototype adapters.
First was the Sigma ART lenses and Zeiss Otus. They seemed to cover the Fujifilm GFX sensor with minimal vignette or falloff! Of course these are lenses that have been designed for optimal IQ on full frame, so the fact that they are “over engineered” to cover the 135mm sensor using only the center of the optic is a plausible cause for the coverage of the 44x33mm GFX sensor.
At this point I had been testing the GFX during two different time periods, going from: “I will never buy this” to: “I think I might find this useful”. But when I found out that you could mount your 35mm lenses to achieve a completely different look to your images, I was completely sold.
So, just like with the X-Pro1 almost 5 years ago, the prospect of adapting vintage glass in front of a Fujifilm camera was the absolute selling point for me.
I have written countless articles on vintage glass here at the blog (just search for “vintage” and you’ll see what I mean). My Helios 44m-4 article from 4 years ago keep at the top of Google searches and keeps getting traffic in staggering numbers, so I know that I’m not the only one with a fascination for this combination of “old and new”
Going back to the post at hand – I have been a huge fan of the Minolta Rokkor lenses for a long time. I have been an avid user of especially the 55mm f/1.7 and the 58mm f/1.4 on my X-series cameras. They have a lot of great things going for them, the top two being excellent IQ and a low pricepoint. Since the Minolta lenses were the ones that I had most of, I decided the first adapter to buy for my GFX was the Fotodiox Pro MD-GFX. I didn’t get my hopes up, since this was basically trial and error to see whether they would cover just a little bit, or be completely useless without cropping.
To my absolute joy, surprise and delight I found both the 55 and 58 to not only cover, but to cover the sensor so good, that I could easily get rid of the remaining corner vignette in post processing! NO HARD VIGNETTING!!
So just as I had hoped, these old Minolta lenses were also over engineered to maintain high quality output! And now, they were the perfect match for my GFX50s!
Now, what has happened during the last 3 months is not something that neither I nor my wallet is proud of. I have bought a lot, and I mean A LOT of old Minolta Rokkor lenses. It was an itch I simply had to scratch!
This blog post I will try to give you a bit of a heads up on what works well and what doesn’t work too well in the world of Minolta X Fujifilm. I will tell you my experiences of the different lenses that I have tested. I have collected a lot of Minolta Rokkor lenses, but certainly not all. I have nothing longer than a 100mm and nothing wider than a 28mm.
Coverage
The best sensor coverage is achieved at or around the full frame standard 50mm focal lengths. This means that the
58mm f/1.2,
58mm f/1.4,
55mm f/1.7,
50mm f/1.4,
50mm f1.7,
45mm f/2
all cover the sensor so well that you can correct the remaining visible vignette using light rooms vignette correction tool set to +80 to +100. This is of course when shooting wide open. When stopping down to f/5.6 to f/8 most vignetting is gone in camera.
At the wider end of the spectrum the coverage of the
35mm f/1.8
and
28mm f/2
requires a full correction +100 in lightroom and sometimes a slight crop of about 2%. Mind you that these are my findings shooting white surfaces and clear skies. In real world usage this vignetting is really a non-issue.
At the medium tele end of the spectrum I have tested the 85mm f/1.7, the 100mm f/2.5 and 100mm f/3.5. The 85mm has a flawless coverage. the 100mm’s vignettes slightly more than the standard primes, but not as much as the wide angle lenses.
If I was to pick out the best lenses in terms of coverage only it would be the following 5 in order of best coverage:
- 85mm f/1.7
- 58mm f/1.4
- 55mm f/1.7
- 58mm f/1.2
- 50mm f/1.7
Image Quality
Well, this is a tough one to describe, but of course there are differences between the lenses. they all have different characteristics that are either augmented or diminished on the Medium Format digital sensor of the GFX50s.
They all seem to do a fine job resolving the sensor. Not like the dedicated Fujinon GF lenses of course, but close enough. Their sweet spot in terms of sharpness and resolution is almost without a single exception found around f/5.6 to f/8. They suffer somewhat with sharpness at the far distances, so these lenses are definitely best used for portraiture, street or lifestyle work. For landscape they do work, but your resolution will suffer at the horizon.
They also have different color casts. This can easily be seen when using custom white balance on the GFX. Some renders warmer like e.g. the 45mm f/2 and some cooler like the 100mm f/2.5.
IQ wise in order of quality of sharpness and resolution I would rate the top five as
- 55mm f/1.7 (from wide open, great sharpness and detail)
- 85mm f/1.7 (From f/2. A little soft at f/1.7)
- 58mm f/1.2 (From f/2. A little soft at f/1.2)
- 35mm f/1.8 (great resolution in the corners as well)
- 100mm f/2.5 (great center sharpness throughout range)
DOF and bokeh
One of the first things you need to learn about adapting these lenses to a larger sensor than what they were intended for is that you alter the equivalent perceived focal length and depth of field. That is because your 135mm sensor is 0.8x the size of the GFX sensor. So you have to multiply the focal length and f-number on your Rokkor lenses by 0.8.
So as the extreme example, for you to achieve the same field of view and DOF as the Minolta Rokkor 58mm f/1.2 mounted o the GFX you would need a native full frame lens of 46mm f/0,95.
So by using the Minolta lenses on the GFX you get a wider percieved field of view than if you had mounted it on your full frame. Just think of it as looking out a window thats a little bigger.
This of course means that you have some creative possibilities of playing with very narrow DOF. It can be a pain to focus, and it requires that you zoom in your GFX, and mostly turn off focus peaking, since it will trick you into thinking you’re in focus while you’re actually back focussing.
The narrow DOF combined with the wider FOV possibilities is great for achieving a look not too far from what you can achieve on the much bigger 6×7 film cameras like for example coupling the Pentax 67 with the 105mm f/2.4 takumar. You get amazing subject isolation while including a lot of surroundings in our frame. Again, this is just another creative expansion of the GFX as a creative tool.
For the bokeh portion of of the show this rating is a bit obscure, because how do you rate such a thing. Is it better to have a unique rendering? Swirl? Soap bubbles or just great creamy bokeh. Well in 1st place there can be no other than the über luscious bokeh machine the 58mm f/1.2 – It has some of the most creamy bokeh I have ever seen in a lens. It’s just that good.
- 58mm f/1.2 – The king!
- 85mm f/1.7
- 100mm f/2.5
- 45mm f/2 (controversial, since some would say its “busy” – but I like it)
- 55mm f/1.7
I got a few questions regarding the 58mm f/1.4 vs. the 58mm f/1.2. Mainly it’s about value for money. Is the 1.2 really that much better than the 1.4? Obviously the 1.2 has earned a reputation as being one of the best lenses ever made for rendering OOF areas. This holds very true. But because of its good reputation, prices are set accordingly. The 1.4 has no such rep, nor is the bokeh that it produces anything out of the ordinary.
So to sum up. If you want some extremely gorgeous bokeh and a very shallow DOF possibility go with the expensive 1.2 – If you just want something fast and versatile and save a lot of money, go for the 1.4. It will still give you an f/1.1 full frame eq. DOF, so you’ll have plenty of OOF stuff to play with!
Size and handling
The Rokkor lenses are built to a high standard, so finding them in great condition is easy. There are differences between the MC and MD versions, but the mount is the same. There are some differences in coating and also some differences in optical design among some of them. As a general rule the MD lenses should perform with higher contrast and less flaring because of the newer/better coating.
I like the build of the MC lenses better though. They are the versions without the 80’s rubber grip, but instead have all metal barrels. They look nice!
The 45mm f/2 becomes a super cool 35mm f/1.6 ff eq lens. It’s small and pancake like, and perfect for street photography because of its small size.
The 100mm f/2.5 becomes a very compact 80mm f/2 ff eq, and even though the quality is not at all up to par, it’s definitely a lot smaller than Fujifilms own Fujinon GF110mm f/2 that will render about the same FOV and DOF.
But instead of me explaining how they look, I have put together a small gallery of the Rokkors I own, mounted on the GFX50s.
Image Samples
I haven’t used the lenses in equal amounts. Obviously I have my preferences and shooting style, and that won’t change just because I use the Rokkors. My preferred focal length is the “standard 50mm’ish” focal length as well as the 35mm focal length. That means that the 58mm get the most camera time as well as the 45mm f/2. – I have only recently bought the 58mm f/1.2, so most of the images are taken using the 58mm f/1.4 which I have owned for many years.
I have obviously processed all the images in this post. I always do this when I write about gear. I get some complaints that it makes the posts invaluable as a comparison tool, but I disagree wholeheartedly with this. I’m not a review magazine. I’m a photographer that happen to like testing stuff out. I share this knowledge so maybe someone out there don’t have to go through needless investments to get the lens they really like. So even though you can’t pixel peep when looking at my stuff, you can clearly get an idea of where the gear will take you.
So take these images for what they are: An exhibition of what I get out of using the Minolta Rokkor lenses on the GFX.
Make sure to click on the galleries to bring up the lightbox viewer, to see the images properly!
Minolta Rokkor 45mm f/2
With the 35mm ff eq FOV this lens is made for street photography, so no wonder it’s one of my favourites. The quality is awesome. The size is small. It’s nice and sharp. The only thing one might complain about is the rather “busy” bokeh. But I don’t mind much. It soft-vignettes a bit, but can be corrected easily in post, or left as-is for the effect it gives to the image. This is a must have Rokkor for the GFX if you ask me.
Minolta Rokkor 58mm f/1.2
I just recently acquired this lens, so I still have a long way to go with it. But all I can say is that it’s a perfect lens! The rendering is so beautiful. It’s sharp with creamy creamy bokeh (did I say creamy?) – It’s expensive, but it really is worth every penny if you ask me. If you have the cash, then this lens is definitely the king of the Rokkor lenses.
Minolta Rokkor 58mm f/1.4
The “little sister” of the lens above, this lens is much cheaper than its 1.2 sibling. This lens is the perfect compromise between cost and quality. You get almost the same maximum aperture, but in a smaller package. You get good bokeh, but not as special as with the 1.2 – It has a more “busy” type bokeh.
If I could only recommend one lens from the Rokkor series for use with the GFX, this would be the one. I have used this extensively for many years, and on the GFX it just got a nice revival.
Minolta Rokkor 55mm f/1.7
This, along with the 85mm f/1.7 is the sharpest of the bunch when shot wide open. It has fantastic coating, so it will give good contrast and it is less prone to flaring. It covers really well and it rarely needs correcting.
Minolta Rokkor 85mm f/1.7
This lens is a beast. It’s tack-sharp. Has amazing bokeh, and it has full coverage. It looks a little like the 58mm f/1.2 with its huge front element and shining of the barrel close to the mount. This lens covers the GFX sensor with no issues. For portraits this is the golden lens!
Minolta Rokkor 35mm f/1.8 and 28mm f/2
I haven’t shot with these as much as I would have liked. I have never gotten around to it. But they’re fantastic lenses. They’re very sharp edge to edge. Minimal distortion and great resolution. They do suffer in the coverage area, and wide open they have quite a hefty vignette. I need to crop the images a little bit from time to time, since the outermost vignette is a hard vignette, and is not correctable in post.
The rest
This is a mixed pile of images. The remaining lenses have seen limited use. Just enough for me to have an opinion on sharpness, coverage, bokeh etc. Some of these shots have been shot with a 36mm extension ring. The 100mm f/2.5 has a close focus limit of more than a meter, which is horrible with the bigger sensor, so using an extension tube is recommended. Then you can get really close, and it works quite well for macro type shots as well. There are also some shots from the 50mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.7
So there you have it. This was my little run-through of some of the Minolta Rokkor lenses. As I mentioned in the beginning, mounting these lenses on the GFX opens up a world of creative possibilities. It’s not always about the sharpest lenses or the fastest autofocus. These lenses have soul and can bring that certain something to your images. The GFX sensor is a great companion to these old lenses.
So go ahead, buy an adapter and get your vintage Rokkor on.
Agree, old lenses gives a lot character and feeling. Fujinon’s are outstanding but almost too good/clinical. An old USSR or a Canon Fd or a Leica gives the old feeling and colors one saw in the Ectachrome days..
What you show here is just mouth watering, indeed an new perspective to shallow DoF..
Good work!
-J!
Thank you so much Jørgen!
I completely agree. It’s fantastic mixing this stuff.
/J
Excellent review, thanks!
Thank you Joseph 🙂
Just love your posts, so thanks for taking the time to review these wonderful lenses. I was given a 55mm 1.7 from my wife’s father’s old camera gear. Using it on a GH5 and Olympus EM5 MKII. Just love the lens and the bokeh. It also came with the Vivitar Automatic Tele Extension. Have you ever used that before?
Thank you very much Matthew.
I remember when I got my 55 f/1.7 back in the day. I was so surprised at the quality. I think we both agree that its a very capable lens.
Never tried any old tele extender. I know there were alot of them back in the day. Is it any good?
Absolutely phenomenal work sir. So much that I have to come back and read again. This is considering that I have zero intention of even buying the MF Fujifilm. I just appreciate the amount of thought and trial.and error that went into both testing and writing this up.
Super!
Thank you so much Scott! – Your kind words are very appreciated!
/J
Vintage lenses are a great reason to admire Fujifilm cameras, and seem to perform very well on the GFX. Fujifilm may have lost a few fans by not including leaf shutter lenses on the GFX, but images like these show the versatility of this camera. Plus, the vignetting is something most of us would probably add anyway!
Thanks for the info/images,
Rob
Yeah. They took the clever choice. Look at how versatile the system is because of the focal plane shutter and adapted lenses. Hasselblad X1D is kind of stuck in 2016 😉
And with the recent advances in HSS where especially GODOX makes lights where you have almost zero powerloss when using HSS, you can now sync up to 1/4000s with a regular focal plane. – So leaf shutter is not really required anymore.
Next advance will probably be global electronic shutter, and THEN it will be really fun! 😀
Nice write-up! Surprised by “For landscape they do work, but your resolution will suffer at the horizon”, though.
I used to put this down to my a6000’s APS-C sensor, but it looks like I was mistaken…
Yeah. That is definitely a lens thing, and not an a6000 thing 🙂
Thank you for reading
Very exciting and interesting. Thanks!
thank you man!
Very nice. Hey, so when you go to grab one of your many lenses, what do you pick? And Why? I ask, because I often drift toward one or two lenses. Or, my latest purchase. I’m just wondering if you have a system for using more of your glass, or if it’s just random?
Thank you Jake. Yeah, it’ getting increasingly difficult. – I tend to mix it up a bit everyday to keep me on my toes. Sometimes I have elongated periods, where I use the same focal length, but different lenses within that focal length. I also switch according to assignments of course 🙂
Oh man, every time I shake the itch to buy a Fuji mirrorless camera I read another one of your vintage lens blogs and I’m right back down the rabbit hole.
Which Fuji model would you recommend as the best way to get into this on a budget, Jonas? Do you think having the option for red focus peaking is a deal breaker? Or would white be okay?
haha. Sorry Dan! 😀 I can’t promise I’ll stop though.
Best entry if you ask me is finding a used XT1 – That will give you all the benefits of the big EVF and nice focus peaking.
I was hoping to see Minolta 50mm f1.2 on the list too. Have you sold it on? Great article, shame about the price of this big Fuji…:)
Hi Timothy. Yeah I sold that one on a couple of years back. I never really got around to really liking it. It was too soft for my liking, and I had to do way too much post processing afterwards
amazing photos. 58mm 1.2 is my favourite bokeh machine / lens from the rockers. are you able to say what the equivalent FOV on 35mm would be when looking at an image taken by the 58mm 1.2 on the Fuji gx
Multiply the full frame lens focal length by 0.78
Cool stuff. Never thought the old Rokkors would resolve well enough for 50 MP. But the images look stunning. I have some older ones here, now I only need a GFX. 😉
Yeah, I have really been taken by surprise about that as well. Its great!
I am looking to buy a gfx used.
Need to know about the Minolta rokkor lenses as far as manual focusing. Easy or difficult to do
Everything gets easier with practice 😉 – I have been using manual focusing for many years extensively now. But you need to train your hand/eye coordination 🙂
Aren’d manual focus lenses a blast to use on mirrorless bodies! I’ve had fun with old Canon, Minolta, Pentak and Nikon adapted glass on my Fuji XT2. I have the Minolta Rocker 58 1.4 and had excellent results out of it as well. Great write-up!
Thank you Adam. Yes! It’s so awesome!
Hi! I’m glad that someone finally appreciated my favorite lens, the Minolta MD 45mm 2.0.
What a lens! Rendering and sharpness is phenomenal.
There’s something special about the glass that is hard to explain.
This is my beloved Minolta lens.
Great, great article!
Bloody fantastic lens, that one!!
To bad Minolta is no more. Minolta even manufactured their own glass for their lenses in a factory on a mountain called Rokko which might explain way the old Rokkor lenses were such good glass.
What do you use instead of focus peaking? I have shallow depth of field with my Minolta AF 100 f/2.8 macro and I have noticed that trail and error with no focus assist seems better than peaking when getting close. Using X-series cameras instead of G-series. Another fun thing with this lens – sunstars. :p
Helios 58/2, CZJ 50/2.8 works fine with GFX when shooting objects in near distance. Shooting at infinity is different story, you need to step down to f16 to have a sharp image cross frame. I wonder is this is the case with Minolta lenses as well?
I have both those lenses, and I have tried them on the GFX as well. And yes, they’re quite inferior to the Minoltas. At 5.6 they’re sharp cross-frame.
Great post!
I love vintage lenses, I have a couple of Minolta myself although I haven’t used them enough, after reading this, I’ll test them out more!
I like your results, and I agree about post-processing the images.
I searched here with the hope to find a post where you talk a little about your post-processing workflow, but I didn’t find any.
Do you already have something posted? Or do you plan to write something?
One last question: have you ever tried the old Fujinon? I heard they are beautiful.
Thanks, and keep up the great work!
Best,
Andrew
Love your blog and its the reason I’m going to buy a few vintage lenses, but working offshore I wish I could read offline 🙏🙏🙏🤘
Hi Jonas,
Have you ever tried the Contax Zeiss lenses on the GFX such as the Contax Distagon 28mm F2 or Contax Tessar 45mm F2.8 ?
(I guess the 28mm would be 24mm equivalent while the 45mm would be 35mm equilvalent) I’m interested mainly for shooting landscape.
Hi sir Jonas, love your work! I also have the 58mm f1.2 on my X-Pro2 + lens turbo. Do you have samples shot wide open using the said setup? Mine is soft and has less contrast but when I stopped to f2 then it’s reasonably ok. More power to you!
Great article, thank you very much!!
Thanks Jonas, for your nice articles and intimate and creative photography. You are an inspirator.
I very much enjoy using the Fuji-X series of camera’s and lenses and I have an A7 to use with a big collection of vintage glass with over fifteen 50 to 60 mm’s , some bought after reading your articles.
A lens that I am missing in your Minolta line-up is the MD 50mm F/2. This is the one with the lowest specs but the colors, the bokeh and especially the edge to edge sharpness of this little fellow at full aperture keeps amazing me and it also works excellent with extension tubes. It does not have the build quality of the earlier MC’s but I picked mine up for 5 euro’s. So If you ever stumble upon it at a flea market my advise is to buy it, there is something very satisfying to getting such results from a 5 euro piece of glass.
Hi Jonas, Thanks for the great article. I was looking at the 85mm f1.7 and it looks there is also an 85mm f2. What made you decide on one over the other?
Hi Joseph, do you know if I can use my rokkor lenses on a fujifilm xt20?
Thx!
Jonas
A few weeks ago I bought my first fuji, the x-t20
One of my old cameras is an Minolta Srt101 with the rokkor mc 55 1.7 lens
I bought an adapter and I am looking at a few other rokkor vintage lenses, but wondered if you did test your vintage collection at one of the X fuji cameras as well. And how that did work out for the sharpness and DOV.
So in fact I have a bit the same question as Pablo
Thanks
Frank
Lovely review and images. Making me looking forward to when I can justify a GFX. Particularly as I’m slowly collecting Minolta and bodies glass because of my father’s X-700 I grew up with.
I am wondering if you’ve tried the 45mm F/2 on the Lens Turbo with an X-Mount camera. Just been wanting a fast option in that equivalent focal length for my X-Pro2 and figured I’d ask about it.
Do you have any experience using Minolta’s zoom lenses? I ask, because zooms typically project oversize image circles, especially toward the longer end of their range and for my (admittedly unique) purposes, this has me pondering both Minolta’s 24-35/f3.5 and 24-50/f4 zooms for use on my Sony A7R. The easy way is to buy them and try them, but as I will first need to fabricate a lens mount adapter for my FrankenKamera, I’m researching this aspect of their performance first.
Thanks in advance for any info regarding this aspect of their performance that you can share!
keren gan…
I have been using Rokkor lenses on Sony digital bodies since 2011 and I was never happy with the sharpness wide open.
Used to love them on film and I was a huge fan…but on they are just not sharp enough. I’ve had almost all of them from 16mm fisheye, 24mm which is great, 28mm, 35mm,45mm, 50 1.4 and 1.7 ,58 1.4,85mm 1.7 and 2.0, 135 2.8 and 3.5, even some md zooms….just not sharp wide open. They do have great bokeh and colors but when you use a7r2 or similar it feels like a waste of pixels.
Now I use some Canon FD lenses like 50mm 1.8-much better than 1.4, I do use Minolta 28mm 2.8 but my main lens is Voigtlander 15mm 4.5 III on Sony A7 II.
Searching for wide lens for GFX. What you can say about Minolta 28/2 in case of landscape photography?
Appreciate the time & effort put into writing this post. Will love to see an updated list of lenses you have found to be working so far.
just wondering if the minolta md 50/1.2 would work properly on the GFX? thanks
Hi Jonas. I’m new to gfx and hoping to adapt some lenses to this body. I don’t understand this statement:
It can be a pain to focus, and it requires that you zoom in your GFX, and mostly turn off focus peaking, since it will trick you into thinking you’re in focus while you’re actually back focussing.
Why can’t I use focus peaking? What technique do you recommend I use instead? Thank you.
Focus peaking is lousy. Magnification works MUCH MUCH better.
for the 45 f2 is that the x version you have tested?
Hi Jonas, just wondering what you thought of the 50mm f.14 compared to the 58mm f.14 ROKKOR. I have the 50 f1.4mm ROKKOR PG (using on X-Series – but know that one day I will scratch that itch and buy a GFX) and am wondering if the 58 f1.4mm is also worth buying or if its so close to the 50mm f1.4 that it wouldnt make that much sense. Thanks