The Minolta Maxxum 28-135mm F4-4.5 Macro lens holds the legendary secret handshake lens title. A perfect landscape photogapher one-in-all lens, with practical zoom ranges, and sharp all the way down to F22. Combine this with Minolta lens coatings that enhance the coloration of each photograph to cinematic standards. – Definately a must have for Minolta / Sony Alpha photographers.
This Minolta Alpha / Dynax / Maxxum Mount lens also fits Sony Alpha A-Mount cameras, for both 35mm Full Frame as well as all Crop-Frame Cameras.
Sample Photos:
The minimum focus distance of this lens is less than 10 inches in macro mode. It has 16 coated elements in 13 groups. The intentional lens flares that can be achieved with this lens are limitless.
One drawback of this lens is that you have to order a lens hood for a whopping 72mm lens diameter, and it has to be much larger to not cut off the corners when zoomed all the way out to 28mm.
With seven strait aperture blades, I don’t think it was intended as the ideal portrait lens, but more the perfect nature / landscape photographer lens, for someone who likes to cover every subject in one lens.
There are various versions of stories where the name secret handshake lens may have come from, but this is up to you to research and decipher which one is the least likely to be untrue.
At 0.8 Kilorgrams or almost 2 lbs, this makes the perfect lens to ensure that you know you did not leave it at home. It’s basically a reinforced tank, made out of steel, using only better glass and coatings than all competitors. Lean, or in other words, cheap, does not jive with this lens, think of terms like, rich, abundance, extra, overwhelming, far superior, much better, cannot be improved, built to last, etc…