On Sat, 09 May 1998 13:33:23 -0400, "Steven K. MacLeod" wrote:

>I have an 85 mm f1.8 Hexanon lens which has provided me with incredible
>pictures for many years on a Konica FT-1.
>
>I'm looking for some of the features that a new camera body can bring
>(notably TTL flash related).

You have hit the ONE new feature of value...;-)
(Not that a good auto flash doesn't work well for
general photography on the older camera - but TTL
flash sure helps with tele and macro work!)

>While I could purchase another fixed 85 mm lens, I'd like to know the
>quality of today's zooms compared to my fixed Hexanon? I know that
>today's zooms are still inferior compared to today's fixed lenses, but
>are today's zooms still inferior to my older lens or have they caught up
>and surpassed the quality of the early 80's?

I would have said, "NO!". Your lens is probably still
up there with the best, and even the best zooms aren't
better at f1.8! ;-) But then you mentioned a couple of
very good zooms...

>In particular, I'm interested in the 24-85 Minolta, 24-120 Nikon or the
>70/80-200 of either brand.

I'm not familiar with the Minolta lenses mentioned (though
I was not impressed with the 35-105 and 100-300 AF Minolta
lenses I tried...), but the Nikkor 24-120 can about equal
the 85 prime at f11-16, and the 80-200mm f2.8 can about equal
the 85 from about f4... If you are concerned with maximum
sharpness, especially at wide stops, with the exception
of the Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8, I would stick with non-zooms.
BTW, you may find my Nikkor evaluation list interesting,
under "I babble" on my web page.