Minolta MD Zoom 35-105mm f/3.5-4.5

Before this lens, Minolta's MD zoom that started at 35mm stopped at 70mm (the 35-70mm f/3.5), and the closest one to cover 105mm, the 50-135mm f/3.5, started at 50mm. The 35-105 joined them in March 1982, by Minolta's own dating, as a two-touch zoom in the plain MD line, which had dropped the Rokkor name the year before. Japanese list price: 64,000 yen. Minolta's name is on the barrel, but Wikipedia's list of SR-mount lenses records it as made in partnership with Tokina.

There are two versions, and both were sold under the same name. The original is the heavier lens: 16 elements in 13 groups, about 480 g, with a macro mode that works anywhere in the zoom range. A 14-element, 12-group redesign followed in 1983 at roughly 430 g, and its macro works at 105mm only. In a shop, set 35mm and try the macro. If it engages, you are holding the original. Neither is a true macro lens; the macro setting is a close-up convenience, not a route to life size.

Expect the distortion you would get from most zooms of the period. If architecture matters, check straight edges near the frame before you trust it. For landscapes, stop down and don't expect prime-grade corners. Portraits ask less of it. At 105mm and f/4.5, a head-and-shoulders framing already turns the background soft. Thirteen groups (twelve on the redesign) give a low sun plenty of glass-to-air surfaces to bounce between, so shade the front element.

It works best as the only lens on the body for a day without a bag, 35mm for the room and 105mm for a portrait from a polite distance. Outside macro mode, focus stops at roughly 1.5 m, which puts you a long way back from a cafe table at 35mm, and on the 1983 version the macro cannot help at that end. It is slow, too. At 35mm it sits about two stops behind the MD W.Rokkor 35mm f/1.8, and a dusk interior on ISO 400 film will push you toward shutter speeds nobody holds steady at 105mm.

Metering is where the f/3.5-4.5 label matters. The maximum aperture slides from f/3.5 at 35mm to f/4.5 at 105mm, about two thirds of a stop, and the MINMAN lens tables give the smallest aperture as f/22 at 35mm but f/28 at 105mm. So at or near the long end, the whole aperture scale reads about two thirds of a stop optimistic: f/3.5 marked behaves like f/4.5, f/22 like f/28. A camera that meters through the lens absorbs that on its own. With a handheld reading in Zone Light Meter, either enter the effective aperture or keep the marked one and add two thirds of a stop, not both. On negative film, rounding that correction to a full stop slower on the shutter does no harm.

It sells cheaply now, and its natural rival is Minolta's own MD 35-70mm f/3.5, which holds f/3.5 across its range, weighs less, takes the same 55mm filters and gives up 35mm of reach. Anyone metering by hand who would rather not track a shifting aperture should take the 35-70. The 35-105 earns its extra weight only if you will actually use the long end, which on a one-lens day mostly means tight portraits.