Minolta MD Macro Rokkor 100mm f/4

Minolta's 100mm macro lost more than 200 grams in 1979. The old f/3.5 weighed 602 g by Rokkor Files' figures; this f/4, its lighter successor in the MD II range, came in at 388 g, still with five elements in four groups and a 55 mm filter thread. Minolta's own data lists the Japanese release as August 1979, at 61,000 yen, with a plain MD Macro version following in July 1981. The aperture ring shows what changed. A third of a stop went at the wide end, while the small end gained a full stop: the ring now runs to f/32, where the f/3.5 quit at f/22.

Minolta's 1980s catalogue pitched it as more than a close-up tool. It focuses continuously from 450 mm to infinity, the copy says, and suits standard photography too, so there is no reason to take it off between a beetle and a hillside. Closest focus gives half life-size; reaching 1:1 takes Minolta's matching extension tube. Against Minolta's 50mm f/3.5 macro, the case for the 100 is working distance, which is why Rokkor Files reaches for a 100mm on insects. At the same magnification you stand roughly twice as far back, and your own shadow is less likely to land on the subject.

Rokkor Files could find no sharpness lost to the weight savings. He ran an f/4 against his f/3.5 and had the newer lens marginally ahead wide open, perhaps a little more contrasty in the center, with edges and corners on both that he rated absolutely outstanding. Falloff is close to nil at f/4 and gone by f/5.6, handy for copying flat originals. By f/8 the two looked virtually identical. Diffraction showed its first signs at f/11 in his 5400 dpi scans, and at life size f/22 cost a large amount of resolution. So f/32 buys depth of field and charges you detail for it. His advice is to stay at f/11 or wider whenever you can live with less depth.

Where it gives ground is drawing. Rokkor Files calls the f/4's bokeh neutral: out-of-focus highlights render as well-defined, evenly lit circles, while the older lens blurs their edges through spherical aberration and lays down a smoother background. As a portrait lens it is also slow, a stop and a third behind Minolta's MC Tele Rokkor-PF 100mm f/2.5. Flare, on the other hand, went its way in his tests. His flare-resistant sample was a late MD with a flocked rear baffle; MD Rokkor-era copies kept the older metal one, so a hood is cheap insurance on those.

With a TTL Minolta the close-focus light loss is already in the reading, because the meter sees through the lens. A handheld meter knows nothing about extension. Near 0.45 m the optics sit far enough from the film to cost a little over a stop, and life size costs two. Zone Light Meter works out the factor once you enter the magnification or the extension, so the number you carry back to the camera already includes it.

Camera-wiki warns against confusing it with Minolta's 100mm f/4 bellows lens, which has no focusing mount, so check the listing photos for a focusing ring and a distance scale before you pay. If you shoot flowers and insects on film and want a macro light enough to stay in the bag all day, the f/4 is the easier 100 to carry, and up to f/11 it gives nothing away in sharpness. Want one lens for bugs and faces? Buy the heavier f/3.5, and treat its hood as part of the lens.