When the Random Lens Generator through up the Minolta 135mm f/2.8 paired with the full frame Sony A7R IV I was immediately far more enthused than I was when it offered me the Sony 18-55mm the week before.

I bought the 1985 vintage lens from Ebay for £90 in July 2024. Looking now it seems I got a fairly good price for it good copies are currently on offer for £170+ with most examples coming from Japan at a higher price. The lens has something of a cult following in Minolta circuits, known affectionately as the Pocket Rocket for obvious reasons, this diminutive compact prime has over 100 reviews on Dyxum with a high overall score of 4.72 out of 5. Owners of the lens praise it for its sufficient sharpness, even wide open with classic Minolta colours, making it a great choice as a walkabout medium telephoto lens or a very compact portrait lens.

Most of its use prior to my Grantham walkabout this week was as a portrait lens, mostly pictures of the family around and about the house plus a little commercial work. I like the lens but I often find myself reaching for the 85mm f/1.8 when shooting portraits or taking the Sony AF 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 G SSM when wanting an outdoor telephoto lens. I tend to prefer the rendition of the Minolta 70-210mm f/4 and the resolution / sharpness of the Minolta 100mm f/2.8 is in a different league to all these lenses so its fair to say say the Pocket Rocket has some serious competition when fighting for my attention.

With its small size, working as a walkabout street photography style lens should, in theory, play to the Minolta 135mm’s strengths. A 135mm would not be first, second, or even third choice of focal length for what is perceived as classic street photography but there are plenty of photographers out there who have used that length or similar to great effect. The medium telephoto lens can give a sense of compression on a scene and also isolate a subject very effectively. It also allows for more candid photography than, say a 35mm lens.

Not street photography, but this was one of the first shots I took on my walkabout and it shows an (extreme) example of the biggest failing of the 135mm f/2.8 and that is purple (especially) and green fringing: chromatic aberration and longitudinal chromatic aberration respectively. Given that I was nearly blinded by the intensity of the light bouncing off the water I suspect that most lenses would have suffered to some degree with this shot, especially as I forgot to use the (very handy) built in lens hood on the lens which I would normally always use for such an image. This notwithstanding, this shot showed so much purple and green fringing it almost adds character and interest to the image!

A similar image with (most of the) fringing removed looks far less interesting! Note that I took this at f/3.5 as I did for most of the pictures I took on this walk as the general consensus from the reviews I read was that this was a sweet spot between sharpness, bokeh and minimising the chromatic aberration (CA). I noticed a lot of CA in the photos I took, probably not helped by the low winter afternoon light. I have removed most of it but some has still remained if you look closely.

The metallic bikes, for example, showed considerable CA, but as it was mostly purple, it was easy to remove and wasn’t actually that visible unless you pixel peeped.

It wasn’t long later when I took probably my favourite shot of the walk and it played to the strengths of the lens – it helped a lot that the young lady very briefly turned to look at her dog and both are all white. The lamppost distracts somewhat but it is what it is.

The OG Grantham flag waver has the Christmas special on show.

A shot not possible on your conventional street photo lens – the name of the hotel clearly bought into question by the state of the windows…..

It wasn’t quite as easy as I thought it would be, but it was possible to get some candid images of shoppers in town. I think the colours are lovely – classic Minolta and also performs well when converted to black and white.

Shop fronts, buildings, and statues worked well with the lens, perhaps a little tighter in the frame than I would have liked. The slowly setting sun was offering challenges and opportunities in equal measure.

I headed back home via Wyndham Park. This elderly gentleman followed me along for the ride. Spot the purple fringing in the trees that I forgot to remove! 🤦

The aforementioned gentleman plays a cameo role in the above photo. I lucked the juxtaposition between young and old; mobile; and less so.

He departed a little while later.

The difference between shooting at 1/400sec and 1/13sec. I took a few frames at 1/13sec. I was impressed with how sharp the slow shutter speed shot was – good image stabilisation from the camera considering it is a lens using the LA-EA5 adapter.

The lens handled the setting sun shot quite nicely I think – the sun nicely round; no flare now I had the lens hood properly extended. I also need to clean my sensor – I had two dust spots and a hair that made a smiley face! 🙂

Some more purple and green hues in the picture above. I should probably have cropped it in a square aspect for this and compositional reasons.

The same park path shot in the opposite direction makes for a better looking image.

Self portrait showing off the lovely Minolta greens!

The light was really nice but starting to disappear. The 135mm lens offered a different perspective of the (in)famous Grantham peg.

Not the most artistic shot to end the walk with but I did laugh at the Christmas decorations added to this recently planted tree.

Overall I enjoyed my experience with the Minolta 135mm f/2.8 lens used for a walkabout / street photography purpose. I need more practice shooting in streets at this longer focal length; it would benefit from a more lively town or city than Grantham I think. For an old lens the AF is fairly fast, quiet and accurate. Although a little underwhelmed with many of the pictures when I was actually taking them, the raw files edited quite well and there were one or two pictures I was pleased with – so a walk with a purpose.

The purple and green fringing was by far the worst aspect of the lens. It was put in a stress test environment, lots of backlit images with bright, but low, light, and winter trees and bushes without leaves, and I wasn’t expecting much, but it was worse than I feared. In hindsight for some of the shots I would been better off stopping down to around f/5.6 as by all accounts the fringing improves and perhaps clears completely. It will be a bit of a deal breaker if I have similar conditions again, I’d likely avoid the lens and choose one with more modern coatings that cope much better with chromatic aberration.

I’ve not really shown the lens where it works best – and that is a portrait lens. That will be on the to do list for future episodes. I have though very recently acquired the legendary Minolta 200 f/2.8 APO lens, which I suspect may become my telephoto portrait lens of choice if its reputation lives up to its hype!

Despite its shortcomings the Minolta 135mm f2.8 is a keeper and comes recommended. It seems to be quite hard to get hold of one currently, so if you spot one in good condition, snap it up!