Minolta MD 50mm F/1.7 On Sony NEX-5N

[fatdeeman]

I've had my eye on this lens for a while just waiting for a cheap one to come along and I finally bit the bullet a few weeks ago.

I think it's a pretty good lens but not spectacular. The sharpness wide open is pretty good but there is quite a lot of colour fringing and as a result it looks sharper in black and white mode and is easier to find focus in liveview with black and white mode too. It's one of those lenses where the different light frequencies don't seem to align very closely together, sometimes making confirmation of exact focus difficult but using a mono jpeg style helps a lot and you can shoot simultaneous raw and jpeg and get the colour originals later on.

The contrast is a little weak wide open but that's so easily cured it's a non issue. I found the colours nice and warm and well saturated. The bokeh was a mixed bag like with many lenses, sometimes it was smooth and other times it was somewhat busy which may bother some but I usually just consider it character. I really enjoyed the flare this lens gives, it's very strong wide open but very funky looking too!

Overall a pretty decent lens although there's nothing really remarkable about it that would make it more desirable than any of the other 1.7 lenses out there.

All shots wide open except number 2 which was F/4 if I remember rightly.

[!Karen]

Good images, love the low camera angle

[Excalibur]

H'mm Thanks for the review......well this lens has plenty of good reviews on the net (it's very good on my film camera), but it would have to be a remarkable lens to really stand out from all the very good 50mm lenses that are around.

[philslizzy]

To a large extent any lens, like a camera, is only as good as the person using it. You've got the best out of this one I'm sure.

[blotafton]

Nice work with that minolta! This is the kind of thread that raise prices