Minolta Maxxum AF 100-200mm f4.5

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I’m always on the lookout for interesting new/old lenses – particularly old Minolta AF lenses which will work on my Sony DSLR. I was browsing around and I came across this lens, which had good reviews. I managed to find an inexpensive example so I snapped it up.

Even from a relatively short test I really like this lens. It produces the typical Minolta really good colors and is generally sharp especially when stopped own a bit. It’s small and light and feels well made. I like the fixed f4.5 and the reasonably fast focus as well as the decent out of focus areas. On the negative side the minimum focusing distance is rather long at about 6ft. I’ve read that it flares badly but havent’ experienced this in my admittedly limited test. All things considered a pretty good lenses and bearing in mind what I paid for it extremely good value for money.

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Sails on the Lake.

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One of my wife’s roses – nice out of focus areas.

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Chrysanthemums

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Another flower – don’t know what kind. I liked the out of focus areas.

Emi brings out the watermelon

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In an earlier post I mentioned that we had been invited to a get together at an apartment on Central Park West. This is the owner of the apartment bringing watermelon to some of the younger guests. I loved the way the children were jumping around. The one on the left seems to be almost airborne and the one on the right seems to be really focused on the watermelon. It was certainly a wonderful party with lots of good food and interesting company. My compliments to the hostess!!!

A Walk in the Fountains at the Palais des Nations, Geneva

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Taken in Geneva, Switzerland, August 2010 with a Panasonic Lumix ZS-3. This fountain is on the plaza in front of the Palais des Nations, the European HQ of the United Nations. It was a hot day so I knew that eventually someone would run through the water and sure enough someone did. This woman ran by with her pushchair. I have another picture very like this one taken around the same time. In that picture there’s more of a sense of movement, but the woman’s face is pretty much hidden. In this one you can at least see a little of the face and from what you can see she seems to be laughing. So I have a very slight preference for this one over the other one.