Minolta 50mm f/1.7 auto focus lens

My dear chums, Analogue Wonderland, recently branched out into selling vintage cameras and lenses and I was curious to see what they had on offer. There was a few things I was interested in, a Minolta 50mm f/1.7 auto focus lens caught my eye and I took the plunge and bought it. Why? To put on my Dynax 4 and round out my Minolta A Mount lens collection. I have a 35-70mm f/4 and the famed 70-210mm f/4 "Beer Can" lens, it made sense to have a 50mm prime in the kit and it only cost me £30.

In my manual focus Minolta MD kit I have a 50mm f/1.7 that is sharp as a pin and delivers sweet photos when my brain is in gear and I get my exposures right. I am told that the AF 50mm f/1.7 is the same lens design in an autofocus body and I set about finding out if it was as good as its manual focus sibling. I loaded a roll of Kodak Gold into my Dynax 4, fitted my AF 50mm f/1.7 prime lens and went for a wander to find some autumn colour.

October started with a bang as Storm Amy powered across the North Atlantic and caused mayhem in the UK, Northern Europe and Scandinavia. I feared that most of the Autumn leaves had been stripped from the trees by the powerful winds, but my fears were allayed by the time I had reached my preferred location. I set my camera to shoot in Aperture Priority and let Minolta's legendary metering look after my shutter speeds whilst I concentrated on bokeh and sharpness. 

Autumn is, for me, the best time of year to shoot colour film. Despite my enjoyment of the annual Sakura display not far from my home, I love it when the trees have their "hold my beer" moment in autumn. They light up in a multitude of bright warm colours before their leaves go brown and fall to the ground. 

I was spoiled for choice and took my time to choose compositions as I made my way around my preferred location, Mesnes Park in Wigan. Sadly I didn't get the sunshine I wanted, but I persevered and gave my new acquisition a good work out. I took a few shots between the Bus Station and Mesnes Park as autumn colour was everywhere I looked. 

When I got to the park, the Parks and Gardens staff were busy attending to the last of the flower beds that day. Their hard work makes sure the park is a blaze of colour between early spring and early winter, the lawns were getting possibly the last mow of the year too. I appreciate their effort in keeping Mesnes Park looking good for the people of Wigan to enjoy all year round. 

I was having a lot of fun exploring the colour in the park on a dull, grey, overcast autumn afternoon. The trees were ablaze with gold, orange and red foliage whilst the flower beds were a riot of autumn blooms in red, yellow and plenty of shades in between. before I had got to the Pavillion, I had used one roll of Kodak Gold 35mm colour film and loaded a second into my Minolta Dynax 4.

Using Aperture Priority was a good choice as it meant I could shoot reasonable shutter speeds without having too shallow a depth of field and therefore too much blur in my photos. Every photographer loves a bit of bokeh, but you can go overboard, depending on your personal taste of course. By the time I had almost got through my second roll of Kodak Gold, the light had really started to fade and I headed home.

I finished my roll a couple of days later on a dark, wet, cold, dull and gloomy day when I also shot a roll of Gold in my Agfa Isolette and a roll of Kentmere 400 in Baldy The Baldax for #FolderWeek.  I'm not too sure of the weather sealing of my Minolta Dynax 4, so I only took it out of my bag when I found a shot I liked. 

When I had finished my colour film, I sent it off to Analogue Wonderland for developing and scanning. Oddly enough I posted them on the day I shot my Frugal Film Project film from my last blog. Analogue Wonderland have looked after me over the years and just celebrated the 4th birthday of their in house Film Lab, Analogue Wonderlab! 

It doesn't seem like it's been that long since Marina joined the team and set up the OG Wonderlab upstairs at Analogue Wonderland. Now Wonderlab is in it's own unit two doors down and is thriving thanks to the team that has been assembled and taken Wonderlab onwards and upwards. I will leave a link below.

A few days later I got my scans and straight away I could see the autumn colours in the park in my photos, despite them being slightly muted by the flat light on what was a dull day. To be honest i wasn't disappointed or even slightly peeved. It is the time of year when we get whatever comes our way and make the best of it. I am pleased that my photos turned out well exposed and as sharp as I was going to get on a dull day in darkest Wigan.

Here's a few of my favourite photos from my two rolls of Kodak Gold shot with my Minolta Dynax 4 and AF 50mm f/1.7 lens. As always I have placed them and more in albums on Flickr that you can visit using the links below. I hope you enjoy them.

Kodak Gold 1 - Minolta Dynax 4 - AF 50mm f/1.7
Kodak Gold 2 - Minolta Dynax 4 - AF 50mm f/1.7 
Analogue Wonderland 

Autumn Colour for #FolderWeek with Kodak Gold in my Agfa Isolette I

 Whilst out and about finishing a roll of Kodak Gold with my Minolta Dynax 4, I decided to load a 120 medium format roll of Kodak Gold into my Agfa Isolette I, to see how it copes with dark, wet, cold, dull and gloomy Wigan for #FolderWeek. Capturing Autumn colour using a modern SLR with lots of bells and whistles is nice, but capturing Autumn colour on a rainy day with a fully manual, medium format bellows camera and my Gossen Trisix is a challenge I enjoy. 

October has been wet here in Wigan and I haven't been able to get out and about as much as I would have liked. With it being #FolderWeek, I threw caution to the wind and went for a walk in the rain. I had to finish my second roll of Kodak Gold 35mm in my Dynax 4, then I switched to my Agfa Isolette I and got stuck into some juggling between that and Baldy the Baldax, which had also come out to play. 

My trusty Gossen Trisix ensured my brain had a great work out as I switched between 200 iso for Kodak Gold and 400 iso for Kentmere 400 I was using in Baldy. One reason I love folding cameras is the ability to slip it into my pocket when out and about. Sometimes I don't even need a bag, but I did on this day. My folders don't mind the rain, but my Dynax 4 needs a bag to carry it in and reduce the chance of it getting wet. 

I was concentrating on distance with my Agfa Isolette whilst going for close ups with my Dynax 4. It may have been a dull day, but there was plenty of opportunity to get cloudscapes that appeared between showers. The 85mm f/4.5 Agnar lens on my Agfa Isolette I really does render beautiful colour with Kodak Gold. The mottled skies contrasted nicely with the green winter grass that had begun to sprout in the fields that grew corn in 2025. 

I was having fun and time flew by, even the rain abated and left me to enjoy the rest of my walk and finish my film. Getting two rolls of film completed for #FolderWeek, one in my Isolette and one in Baldy is a good return on any day, but especially a damp day. I packed my cameras into my bag and headed home for a well earned brew.

I sent my colour medium format film, together with my 2 35mm rolls shot with my Minolta Dynax 4, to Analogue Wonderland for developing. A week later I received my scans and saw the difference a dull day makes to this film. Would I have preferred a sunny day? Heck yeah, but it's autumn and we appreciate what nature allows us here in darkest Wigan. The beauty of having a digital darkroom is I could have a play and bring out the beauty of the autumn colours that standard scans leave muted.

Here's a few of my favourite photos shot with on Kodak Gold medium format film with my Agfa Isolette. I didn't enjoy the weather on the day, but I think I got a decent set of autumn photos. As always I have placed these and more in an album on Flickr that you can visit using the link below. I hope you enjoy them. 

Kodak Gold - Agfa Isolette I 

 

Frugal Film Project 2025 - October

 October came around quick and I managed to get out on a sunny afternoon between rain storms. I didn't go far, just around Mesnes Park and Wigan town centre to enjoy some photography. I had loaded my October roll of Type 517 Cine Film into my Kodak Retina 1a a few days previously and then had to wait until the skies cleared and the sun shone.

October has been pretty wet with a couple of North Atlantic storms dropping a couple of months worth of rain on the UK. First we had Storm Amy at the beginning of October, followed a week or so later by another storm, not named, but still dropping a lot of rain. I was glad to get out on the first sunny day I had seen for a week or three.

Mesnes Park is beautiful in Autumn and I have a lot of colour photos of this years display as the trees shed their foliage. As I made my way through the park I saw a wedding party taking advantage of the sunshine to have their wedding photos with one of the bride and groom rubbing Sir Francis' foot for luck. I hope they enjoy a long and happy life together. 

I didn't want to intrude on their special day and made my way into town, taking photos as I walked and just generally enjoying my day. I visited my usual haunts, but tried to find different compositions rather than my tried and trusted views. I also visited a couple of locations I haven't visited for a while too. It's good to mix things up and it wasn't long before I finished my film and made my way home.

I developed my film later in the week with Bellini Euro HC 1+31 dilution B for 12 minutes and 20 celcius and soon had it hanging to dry. I digitised it with my Nikon D700, Tamron Adaptall 2 90mm f/2.5 macro lens, Valoi 35mm film older, Pixl-Latr and A5 sized led light pad. I processed my RAW files with Affinity Photo 2.

Oh how this film worships sunlight! Way back a year ago when I used this film for the first time, It was a dull day in Liverpool with little in the way of bright light. 12 months on and I have learned so much more about it's strength and weakness that I can almost use my Mk 1 eyeballs to meter the light for it. Almost... 

Yes, it's based on Ilford's finest FP4 125 and yes it loves bright light, but it also loves a yellow filter. It just evens out the exposure, when I get it right, and leaves me with little to do in post production. I still have much to learn and to explore what it can do. Once this years Frugal Film Project is done I will still be using it for as long as stocks last.

Here's a few favourites from my October roll of Type 517 Cine Film shot with my Kodak Retina 1a and yellow filter. As always I have placed them and more in my Frugal Film Project 2025 album on Flickr that you can visit via the link below. I hope you enjoy them.

Frugal Film Project 2025 - October 

Vivid - The new book from The Photozine Collective

 Long time readers will know I am involved with The Photozine Collective, a group of photographers who gathered to celebrate John Whitmore, one of the presenters on the Sunny 16 Podcast who passed away a few years ago. John was so enthusiastic about film photography, it was infectious. His knowledge was always given freely to anyone wanting to learn this wonderful creative process. It didn't matter if you used a pro camera or a point and shoot, 110 film or large format sheet film, he loved it all.

Vivid is our fourth offering in this endeavour and it's name is perfect for our chosen film, Kodak Gold colour film. The Photozine Collective has stepped away from Black and White and hit colour film hard. Boy, did we shoot some film for this zine! My fellow contributors, 15 of us in total, put their own interpretation of Vivid into their photography. Some tell a story, others display a particular theme and all have put their heart and soul into it. John may not be with us in body, but his spirit shines strong in our work. We are incredibly proud of what we have managed to achieve with Vivid and I know John would be too.

Vivid is on sale right now from our Ko-Fi site and again we are supporting Asthma & Lung UK. For details on how you can purchase a copy of this wonderful Photozine Collective display of Vivid colour, please click the link below. We hope you enjoy it.

Photozine Collective Shop
Photozine Collective website