Birthday Week in Boston: Pairing the Sony A7C with Vintage Minolta Lenses
Sunset in Boston. Sony A7C + MC Rokkor 58mm F1.4 @ F8, 1/160s, ISO200
The first time I was in Boston was around 10 years ago, when I was doing a road trip with my siblings across NE USA at the end of my exchange semester with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I remember finding Boston to be a very beautiful city—and very cold too, seeing that we went in late December. It was much warmer this time when we went in early May and we were very lucky with the beautiful weather, although I still found the wind very chilly!
A Canadian goose by the lake at Boston Public Garden. Sony A7C + Tokina AT-X Macro 90mm F2.5
As I was one-bagging (well, 1.5 bagging) I wanted to keep my camera gear as light as possible. Instead of bringing a film camera like my Minolta SRT-101, I brought my Sony A7C with an Urth MD to FE adaptor, and three Minolta MD mount lenses: Minolta MD Rokkor 24mm F2.8, Tokina AT-X Macro 90mm F2.5, MC Rokkor 58mm F1.4 (borrowed from my friend). I used the Matador Camera Base Layer to carry a camera with an attached lens, a spare lens at the bottom, and the third lens in my pants pocket. I didn’t want to worry about transporting and carrying film during the trip, but I still wanted the pleasure of “slowing things down” by being forced to manually focus and expose each photo.
Outside of the Boston Public Library. Sony A7C + Tokina AT-X Macro 90mm F2.5.
We did a little scavenger hunt picnic on the day of my birthday that we purchased from AmazingCo—it was an amazing way to walk around downtown Boston and get to know the city better, plus we got a lot of delicious food as a reward of our hard work at the end of the hunt! (PS, if you’re interested in purchasing a package from AmazingCo and you’d like a discount, my referral code is ‘intan-t44k’!).
Inside Boston Public Library. Sony A7C + Minolta MD Rokkor 24mm F2.8
My preferred street focal length has always been 35mm, but I decided to give myself a fun little challenge by getting the Rokkor 24mm F2.8. It’s not exactly a popular lens even among Minolta aficionados it seems—I’ve seen online advice to not go wider than 28mm with vintage Minolta lenses. I’m really glad I went through with my purchase though—for the price I paid and considering the age of the lens, I have no complaints whatsoever about the sharpness or quality of the images this lens produced. It can be prone to ghosting and the sun flares are not ‘classical’, but I think everything that can be considered its flaws simply add character to the lens. Here are some of the photos taken by the 24mm lens.
Another favourite street focal length is 85mm. I got the Tokina 90mm because of its reputation as a bokeh lens, and its macro capabilities are also another plus! I didn’t really test its portrait or macro capabilities during this trip and instead I used it mostly with smaller apertures to catch these shots:
My friend lent me the 58mm lens and I chose to bring it over my 55mm 1.7 Rokkor as it’s marginally faster—not that I ever got close to using the lens wide open!
At a Shake Shack in Seaport. Sony A7C + MC Rokkor 58mm F1.4.
As this is the ‘normal’ lens, it’s also the lens that spends most of the time mounted onto my camera. It’s light, it’s sharp, and it’s got—wait for it, character. Like the other two lenses, it makes shooting very fun, and I love being made to ‘work’ harder at making photos instead of relying on (and eventually blaming) the modern comforts of auto everything. It also makes capturing spur-of-the-moment photos like the above feel so rewarding!
We left Boston after almost a week for Chicago suburbs! I didn’t take many photos then as it was mostly family time—here’s one shot taken during an ice-cream break, again with the 58mm:
Around the Lake County area, IL. Sony A7C + MC Rokkor 58mm F1.4.
Some of these photos are available to be purchased for personal prints or for commercial licensing. If any one of these strikes your fancy, please feel free to contact me!
