The 35mm F2.8 Shift CA VFC (Variable Field Curvature)
The 35mm F2.8 (9/7) Shift CA VFC bears a very strong resemblance to the very fine 24mm F2.8 (9/7) (non shift) VFC of a few years earlier vintage...and there is a very good reason. It is merely a scaled up longer focus version of the 24mm F2.8. The lens design team at Minolta realized the very interesting potential that would be realized by magnifying the linear dimensions of its 24mm F2.8 VFC by a factor of approximately 50%. This results in a resultant area coverage in excess of 200%. The resultant formulation projects an effective 46mm by 52mm rectilinear image for offset for architectural applications. Nine elements in seven groups in a truly unique optical formulation from Minolta's golden age when it was actually real competition to the two other Japanese optical titans: Nikon and Canon.
The lens covers a much larger area as do other "shift" lenses. What makes it unique is a floating optical group just behind the front group that achieves a vastly variable concave or convex field of focus curvature. Instead of having a very flat field, which it does achieve at its center/neutral position, the field curvature can be varied continuously from very planar to slightly convex or concave to highly convex or concave by simply adjusting the ring which can be seen by clicking on this icon
According to
The Rokkor Files*, "the 35mm f/2.8 Shift CA Rokkor is one of the rarest and most expensive lenses made for the Minolta manual focus system." It is indeed rare — it is one interesting piece of engineering.
For many real world applications this set of optics is much more capable of dealing with difficult photographic situations than other "TILT-SHIFT" arrays. In addition to fitting a great many curved photographic situations that conventional "TILT-SHIFT" optics cannot adequately address, it does address many that they do in its the offset mildly curved region.
*We have found this site one of the better sources of information on Minolta equipment on the WWW and we have employed information from it extensively here.
