Father's Day with Sony SEL50F18 - Nikon 18-55 Kit

[ForenSeil]

A day in Germany at which almost without exception young men celebrate that they are still not fathers for some reason
Pretty cruel to see that many drunken young men with hand cart trolleys filled up with beer and barbecues shambling through the parks etc... but it was pretty productive day for photography for me, especially as it's a red-letter day

For a while I had the chance to swap my NEX with a Nikon D40 DSLR with 18-55 Kit from a friend.
BTW I was slightly suprised - the Nikon 18-55 seems to be much better than what I remember from Canon 18-55 Kit and slightly better than the Sony 18-55 Kit at the long end (55mm).

Klick on photos for EXIF Data

Nikon Kit:









Sony SEL 50/1.8 (all wide open @F1.8 ):








Some more pics should follow later... Flickr has some connection timeout problems here at the moment... I can't view my own pics at the moment.

The Sony has an amazing IQ (can be easily compared with modern Zeiss T* 50mm lenses etc.).
The wide-apertures-performance is very excellent if not outstanding (which is the reason for me to keep it). But the AF does almost never hit 100% correctly at wide apertures and manual focus with that lens is a pain in the ass - See what I mean: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54671350@N02/8723730555/sizes/k/in/photostream/
I might swap to (much more expensive) Zeiss Planar 50/2 ZM or Zeiss Sonnar 50/1.5 ZM soon.

[Jesito]

Not bad results at all!.
But for the price of that lens (Sony 50mm 1., would'nt be better to get a couple of legacy ones, like a Planar and a Pancolar?
For sure you won't have AF, but who cares?.

[ForenSeil]

I would actually cleary prefer MF over AF! I got mine for comparable little money - so I won't have any loss when reselling it.
But as far as I know Planar 50/1.4, 50/1.7 and Pancolar are optically not as good as the modern 9-element Sony.
Planar T* 50/2 ZM might be better - but it's also much more expensive.

[hoanpham]

Nice series. I am not missing these days. Much more fun with kids

Havent try this lens, but got the 24/1.8 for sony. Just love it.

[fermy]

[ForenSeil]

Canon 50/1.4 EF and SSC are known to be sharp but I doubt that the linked tests are really accurate (focusing and light are influencing resolution tests massivly - and it's very hard to focus perfectly with the Sony and most people don't know that the steady-shot also kills a little IQ if it doesn't get deactivated when the camera is used on a tripod.
Anyway resolution in this class is imho much less important than (micro-)contrast and colors - and there the Sony will cleary win, as well as all the modern T* lenses.