Then and Now ~ part two

Thinking a bit further about the size of the gear we used to have compared to what we have today, I remembered there were some wonderfully compact interchangeable lens cameras.  One in particular attracted my attention, though I never could afford it, even on the used market, and that was the Minolta CL and CLE.

So I thought I'd have a quick look at the lenses and camera body for that small Minolta and compare them to Sony APS-C.  The thing that attracts me, even now, to Sony APS-C is that this series remains smaller than Fuji, Canon, and Nikon devices of equivalent sensor size.  

I noticed years ago just how big Fuji, in particular, is.  Check around and you'll see that Fuji with the small sensor is as big as a Sony full frame.  Makes me wonder what's taking up all that space in those cameras.  Canon makes me wonder the same thing.

Continuing with compactness, it's easy to see just how light and small the Minoltas were.  Then I remembered another camera I never owned and that is the Contax G1.  It's rather modern and the lenses are AF.  It could be interesting to compare AF film lenses with digital.  For this I choose a couple Sigma EX DN and a Sony OSS.

Compact Cameras	Weight	Length	Height	Depth
Contax G1	450grams	133mm	77mm	35mm
Minolta CLE	380grams	124mm	77.5mm	32mm
Sony NEX-5T	276grams	111mm	59mm	39mm
Sony A6300	404grams	120mm	67mm	49mm
Lenses
Contax
Biogon 21mm f/2.8	200grams	35mm	59mm
Planar 35mm f/2	160grams	29mm	56mm
Planar 45mm f/2	190grams	39mm	56mm
Zeiss Sonnar 90mm f/2.8	290grams	54mm	59mm
Minolta
28mm f/2.8	135grams	35mm	51mm
40mm f/2	105grams	24.5mm	51mm
90mm f/4	250grams	60mm	51mm
Sony APS-C
Sigma 19mm f/2.8 EX DN	140grams	46mm	61mm
Sigma 30mm f/2.8 EX DN	135grams	39mm	61mm
Sony 50mm f/1.8 OSS	202grams	62mm	62mm

Just as with full frame, the big changes from then to now are the increased capabilities of digital over film.  And in terms of compactness I'm happy to see certain of today's APS-C devices aren't much different than back when we used film.  I wish Sony still offered the NEX series APS-C.  The versions without EVS are truly compact and light.

Onward.