DT on D7

And now, for shots from the Minolta Dynax 7, with the Sony 11-18mm F4.5-5.6 DT lens borrowed from smashpOp. All shots using the Dynax 7 with Fujifilm Superia 400 film, unless I have stated that it was shot with my Sony A100.

Dynax 7 with Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye, +1 compensation just in case, F16 1/15s.

Same lens, on the Sony A100, becomes close to a diagonal fisheye.

11mm F22 1/15s. The misaligned frame is due to operator error at the film scanner. Not me!

13mm F22 1/15s. This is as wide as I can go without vignetting. The lens does not have a marking for 13mm so it looks closest to 14mm.

11mm F11 1/40s ISO100 on the Sony A100, which has an equivalent field of view of a 16.5mm lens.

18mm F13 1/20s, still with the 11-18mm.

18mm F13 1/45s. This was using the Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens instead.

22mm F13 1/45s. This is as wide as I can go without vignetting. The lens does not have a marking for 22mm so it looks closest to 24mm.

I then popped my Tamron 1.4x AF teleconverter and Minolta 50mm F1.4 lens on the Dynax 7, for what it reports as 75mm F2.0 at 1/500s. I turned to Smooth Transition Focus mode and attempted to camwhore. Even my steady hands could not brace for SEVEN CONSECUTIVE MIRROR SLAPS!

STF mode shoots 7 shots on the same frame, each with a change in aperture to produce a smooth, creamy out-of-focus area, similiar to the Minolta/Sony 135mm F2.8 T4.5 STF lens.

If the 1/500s shutter speed is to be believed, I must’ve shot 7 frames in 1/500s. 7 divided by 1/500s is 3500 frames per second. Eat that Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III!

Of course, it sounded more like a 7fps shot. I don’t know, I need to finish the current roll before I can do some proper testing to find out the maximum speed.

50mm F1.4, STF mode makes it 1/500s F4.5.

Using the Sony 11-18mm again, at 15mm 1/200s F8 in STF mode, manual focus to minimum focusing distance (25cm!)

15mm F4.5 1/90s. Now there’s vignetting! Alas, I should’ve stopped down because I was still far away from the mininum 1/15s required to get a steady picture at 15mm.

Yes, there’s no in-body stabilization on the Dynax 7.

STF mode on a moving subject! Sony 11-18mm at 18mm F9.5 1/20s. Something tells me this STF mode is going to be very, very fun.

A quick test of the Dynax 7’s Ratio 2:1 mode with my Sony HVL-F56AM flash. 11mm 1/60s F6.7.

This time around, 15mm 1/30s F22 and yet there was vignetting. I have no idea why.

11mm 1/20s F22. Again, misaligned frame due to bad scanner operator. Check out the flare!

The following shots were all shot with the Sony A100.

What about infrared performance? 11mm F4.5 ISO1600 3.2 seconds on the Sony A100 with a China-made 77mm infrared filter. There is a hotspot in the middle, sadly, marring its use for infrared photography. Stopping down usually brings out the hotspot… but it’s already there, wide open!

In comparison to the Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens, 18mm F3.5 ISO1600 3.2 seconds. Then again, hotspots could be dependent on the object being shot. A proper tripod and bright sunlight could give more concrete results.

18mm F5.6 ISO400 1/60s on both the 11-18mm and kit lens. (Guess which is which.) Nope, the 11-18mm does not underexpose like some reviews claim; it is merely the camera having to face a wider scene with more bright and dark subjects. I used Aperture Priority to take both shots, and both metered at 1/60s. The A100 tends to save the highlights, especially so with backlit subjects. To counter this, I usually tap the AEL button on the subject to spotmeter on it.