A friend gifted me a Minolta SRT201 and some lenses. Another friend gifted me a Minolta XG-M. I got around to noticing that in the first gift set there was a Minolta Celtic Macro 50mm lens. The barrel extends out with markings down to 1/1 and 1/2 side by side and the outside lens element is way down a deep cone of a hole so you know just looking at it that it's not a "normal" 50mm camera lens. The contradiction in max macro is because you need an magnifier attachment to get to 1/1, but mine didn't come that way. Since I know to never look a gift horse in the mouth I was happy all the same and I was determined to try it today.
Well, when you get down to the closest 9 inches away with the 6 element 4 group lens you better be squared up with what you want to photograph because even with a 3.5 largest aperture there is only a very thin dept of field. Any slight tilt and your image will get fuzzy fast at some point in the result. However, considering it's also doing double duty as a more or less normal 50mm I was impressed. Would I trade it for my Yashica Dental Eye for macro? No. But I'll not forget it next time I go for a film adventure with one of my earlier model Minolta cameras.
Minolta Macro lens from 1981
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