Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8

Minolta's 28mm f/2 has the stronger optical pedigree, with a floating-element design and a full stop more light. Yet the f/2.8 is the 28 most Minolta shooters actually ended up owning. Rokkor Files reckons it probably the most readily available wide-angle in the whole system, sold in the tens of thousands, and part of the reason is how little it asks of a camera bag. The first 49 mm version weighs 180 g. On an X-700 it adds so little bulk that you stop thinking about whether to pack it.

That small barrel arrived a year late. Minolta's first MD 28mm f/2.8, in 1977, still used a 55 mm filter thread; the 49 mm front came with the MD II redesign, which Minolta's own data lists at 180 g from April 1978. What the MD generation brought was the MD lug, a small tab that tells the body the lens's minimum aperture (f/22 here). It is the reason an XD-11 can run shutter priority and an X-700 can run program. In 1981 the Rokkor name came off the front ring and the lens carried on as the plain MD.

Inside, it kept seven elements in seven groups through the rename. Then came a five-element, five-group design, which the eazypix database dates to 1983. Both plain MD formulas wear the same MD 28mm 1:2.8 legend, so a listing with that name tells you nothing about which formula is in the box. Neither is a showpiece. Rokkor Files' author used his too rarely to judge sharpness, but the consensus he found across several Minolta discussion groups was "very good, but not stellar". His sample frame, an atrium at the National Gallery of Victoria metered with a Minolta Auto Spot II Digital, shows flare on the right side, and he flags it himself. So expect a good 28 rather than a special one, and keep a hood on whenever hard light sits near the edge of the frame.

Most of its working life goes to ordinary jobs. The 75 degree view suits landscape and street work, and focus down to 0.3 m lets a foreground rock or a doorframe fill the bottom of the picture. For street shooting, f/8 at the hyperfocal setting keeps everything from under two metres to infinity acceptably sharp, which means you can leave the focus ring alone for a whole afternoon. Anyone coming from the wide end of a cheap kit zoom, Rokkor Files adds, will see the gain even in a 6x4 print. When that review was written the lens fetched about US$60 on eBay and around US$100 in a camera store, and the verdict was that there was no excuse not to own one.

The 49 mm thread is the catch if the rest of your kit is older Rokkor glass. One online history of the MD Rokkor-X years calls Minolta's switch away from its standardised 55 and 72 mm filter threads "the really bad news", though a 49 to 55 mm step-up ring is a cheap cure. Whatever you screw on, a handheld reading never sees it, so pick the ND in Zone Light Meter or enter your filter's factor and the app folds it into every reading.

Rokkor Files' author eventually replaced his f/2.8 with the f/2, preferring, among other things, its floating design. The old one moved on to a close friend, who has taken many fine photographs with it, which is about the most honest review a small wide-angle can get.