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Requisite product shots.
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| Front with hood extended |
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| Side shot fully drawn in |
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| Backside |
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| Left 50mm F/1.4, right 50mm F/1.7 |
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| Left 50mm F/1.4, right 50mm F/1.7 |
All testing done with the Sony A 700, and A900. For full frame results, go to the bottom of the page. For a better understanding
of my review methods and terminology, go here. This page has a copy of the original owner's manual. The Minolta AF 50mm F/1.7 is a very compact lens,
the smallest Minolta made in the day. This particular lens is a restyled version from the 1990s. It's a "kit"
type lens, and feels like it, meaning super light-weight. It doesn't feel nearly as nice as the Sony 50mm F/1.4 lens, which costs over double the price of this one. Fit and finish are good, but plastic is used for everything but the
glass it seems. It has a rather shiny black finish with rubber grip areas around the barrel and focus rings, and also
sports a nifty built-in hood, which works by pulling on the plastic barrel around the front after you turn the focus to close-in,
which allows you to grab it. The 28mm F/2.8 lens has the same feature. On top it has a focus distance window with ft/m in white, along with DOF hash marks. The
lens is made in Japan. Filter size is 49mm.
Focusing.
The little Minolta AF 50mm F/1.7 has a short focus throw, and auto-focuses quickly and accurately. Manual focusing is
easy, and quick too, with a 1/4 turn from close-in to infinity. This lens has a sticky focus ring when near close focus,
and from what I've been told from other sources, is a common problem. I think it has something to do with the built-in
hood tolerances. Most people probably won't be manually focusing with this lens anyways, so it's not a deal killer. Multi-coatings.
It has the older Magenta/blue look. See comparison shot above. Flare/ghosting.
Flare, or veiling glare is similar to the Sony 50mm F/1.4, which is good, but watch the sun when it's real close to, but not
in the image. This lens has an odd, blue looking ghost, like half of a 7 blade aperture that shows up opposite of the
sun when the sun is at the edge of, or in the image. It's large and will mess up your shot, so pay attention.
The ghosting control is not as good as the Sony 50mm F/1.4. This Minolta lens has a very small built-in lens hood that
you slide out from around the front element, as described, and seen above, but it doesn't do anything. Use your hand
for keeping the sun out of the shot if possible. Filter size, 49mm. Sony
uses this size on the 28mm F/2.8 only. Filter use. No noticeable additional
vignetting using a regular filter. Coma. Strong at F/1.7, good at F/2.5,
gone by F/2.8. Color looks the same as other Sony/Minolta lenses. Close-up
filter. works great, tested with a +4. Bokeh is neutral
to just so-so in my opinion. Not as good as the Sony 50mm F/1.4, see comps below.
Color
fringing is light and poses no problems, it looks better wide open than the Sony 50mm F/1.4 does, but from F/1.7
and down, it's about the same.
Distortion below.
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| No distortion. |
Distortion is flat, which is good, so nothing to report here. About the same, or slightly less
distortion than the Sony 50mm F/1.4. Light fall-off.
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F/1.7
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F/2.8
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Light fall-off is not a problem on an APS-C camera. It's not noticeable in real pictures. Random
shots.
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Sun in shot, F/5.6
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Sun centered, F/5.6
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Minolta AF 50mm F/1.7 @ F/1.7
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Sony 50mm F/1.4 @ F/1.7
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The top shots show how the lens handles the sun when inside the image. There always seems to be
some purple somewhere in the image, even when the sun is centered. Veiling glare is strong when the sun is just outside
the frame, use your hand to block the light, and you won't have problems. The two shots at the bottom are comparisons
of "Bokeh" or background blur between the Minolta AF 50mm F/1.7, and the Sony 50mm F/1.4. I like
the look of the Sony better. Veiling haze and CA wide open.
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F/1.7
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F/2
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The images above are cropped from the centers. This lens is better wide open than the Sony 50mm
F/1.4, but they even out at F/2. Just 1/3 of a stop makes a big difference. Don't shoot at F/1.7 in broad
daylight, save the large apertures for low light, where you won't notice this stuff.
How
sharp are the corners?
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F/1.7
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F/2.8
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F/5.6
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F/8
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These crops are from the extreme bottom left corner. Things look rough here at F/1.7-2.8, then
sharpen up gradually, peaking around F/8. They never really get sharp. See the comparison shots with the Sony
50mm F/1.4 towards the bottom. How sharp are the centers if the image is enlarged to a staggering
size?
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F/1.7
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F/2
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F/2.8
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F/5.6
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The center sample crops above show F/1.7 to be soft, with veiling haze, but sharpens
up with plenty of contrast at F/2. It appears the lens is at its sharpest at F/4-5.6. There isn't a whole
lot of change as you can see after F/2, and it's only noticeable cropped and displayed side-by-side. This lens is
pretty sharp at F/2-8, and is similar to the Sony 50mm F/1.4 in the centers, see comparison crops towards the bottom of the
page.
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Bonus
section!
Corner comparison crops.
Read carefully. The Minolta 50mm F/1.7 lens crops are on the left, the Sony 50mm F/1.4 crops on the right.
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Minolta AF 50mm F/1.7 @ F/2.8
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Sony 50mm F/1.4 @ F/2.8
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Minolta AF 50mm F/1.7 @ F/5.6
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Sony 50mm F/1.4 @ F/5.6
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It's pretty clear the more expensive Sony 50mm F/1.4 lens is much sharper in the corners, at all
apertures. I wouldn't worry too much about it though, since it's not very noticeable if you have an interesting
subject. Center comparison crops.
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Minolta AF 50mm F/1.7 @ F/1.7
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Sony 50mm F/1.4 @ F/1.7
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The Minolta 50mm F/1/7 is showing loss of contrast wide open, much the same as the Sony 50mm F/1.4 does
at F/1.4. These two lenses are about equally sharp in the centers at F/2.8 and beyond. Close
focus sample. Below, check out the close focus shot, click for a 100% cropped portion
of the full image. The sample was taken with the Sony A 700 12.2mp camera. The subject is a standard US stamp, 1"x 3/4" or 25.4mm x 19mm. Also, note the macro
shot was taken as close to the subject as focusing allowed; In this case, 13.75" or 349mm, measured from the front of
the lens barrel to the subject.
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| Click for larger image (154kb) F/5.6 |
This maximum magnification shot is sharp from F/4-8. This one was taken at F/5.6. It's small, so if
you want to get a little closer, screw on a +4 close up lens, like I did in this review.
Full frame results using the Sony A900 below. Check out
the differences when using a film or full frame camera below. I'm only pointing out the noticeable issues as compared
to the APS-C bodies, so if I don't show it here, the results are not significantly different enough to warrant posting
an additional set of images in this section. Light fall-off
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F/1.7
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F/2
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F/2.8
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F/4
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Light fall-off is worse than the APS-C crops shown earlier. At F/1.4 it's moderate to heavy,
and slightly noticeable in real shots, but don't shoot at this aperture in daylight.
Full image from A900 below. The dark corners visible in the gray crops above aren't really noticeable here, but this is the wrong
thing to do with a F/1.7 aperture. Save F/1.7 for low-light shots. This picture was taken at F/1.7 at +1/8000sec.
Corner samples next.
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F/1.7
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F/2.8
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F/4
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F/5.6
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F/8
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F/11
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At wide apertures, the corners are soft, with a lack of contrast. Things look good at F/5.6, but
F/8-11 seems the sharpest. The contrast looks poor for some reason in these crops, but it's really good by F/5.6.
The exposure differences are from light fall-off.
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| Distortion on A900 |
The distortion (or lack thereof) is about the same as the APS-C images I showed earlier. It's
still flat when using the A900 and has noticeably less distortion than the Sony 50mm F/1.4 on a full frame camera. For you nitpickers, a grid overlay will reveal slight barrel distortion. Coma
results with full frame.
This is coma on the A900. At F/1.7 it looks bad, and doesn't change at F/2. By F/2.2,
things lighten up significantly, and F/2.8 results aren't noticeable in normal sized images. This lens produces
roughly the same size coma as the Sony 50mm F/1.4, but looks "backwards" as in the "antennae" location. |
My final thoughts. The Minolta AF 50mm F/1.7 lens
turned in a good performance. The good points are: compact, lightweight, low distortion, quick focusing, low color fringing,
and is often found on eBay for just over a hundred bucks for a good copy, (original version), mine is a restyled version,
but they're the same optically according to the specs. The not-so-good points are; very soft corners with a wide
aperture, and a sticky focus ring, neither one is a deal killer for the price. This lens
is a little long for an APS-C camera, so you'll have to decide if you can live with an equivalent focal length of 75mm. For
full frame users; this lens performs mostly the same as the APS-C coverage, except for light fall-off. See
paragraph below. If you can afford to pay the extra money for the 50mm F/1.4, I'd just get that one, it's sharper at the same apertures, from F/1.7-2.8, and offers 2/3 of a stop more light.
If you're strapped for cash, and just want a good low-light lens, this is a bargain. Don't worry about the soft
corners, you won't notice them with good subjects. |
