{"id":1279,"date":"2009-06-11T12:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T12:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/?p=1279"},"modified":"2009-06-11T12:06:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T12:06:00","slug":"27-7777mm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/?p=1279","title":{"rendered":"27.7777mm"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nI tried the new Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM<\/b> (Smooth Autofocus Motor) lens today! Here it is, on a Sony Alpha 330 digital SLR.<\/p>\n


\nLeft<\/b>: Minolta 50mm F1.4 (Original); right<\/b>: Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM.<\/p>\n

The Sony is fatter but somewhat lighter. It comes with the standard black lens cap (not the cheap plastic cap that comes with the Alpha 330 with kit lens package!)<\/p>\n

Note that the Minolta has a built-in retractable lens hood which is so short that it’s quite useless. The Sony however has no built-in retractable lens hood; what you see, is two tubes when extending out to focus closer. It seems that the lens simply does not have any provision for a bayonet-mount lens hood; however you can buy a third-party screw-on hood.<\/p>\n


\nBokeh is nice at F1.8, and the lens is rather contrasty even at F1.8! Note that the depth of field is shallow with a F1.8 lens, and so her nose is already out-of-focus in the picture.<\/p>\n


\nThe lens can focus to 34cm close (measured from the sensor plane.) This makes for an impressive maximum magnification of 1:5x!<\/p>\n


\nAnother close-up shot at F1.8!<\/p>\n


\nAgain, at F1.8 – the collar is in focus but his shirt is not.<\/p>\n


\nSo how does it look like on the A900, on full-frame? Normally, the A900 would automatically enable APS-C crop mode and not allow you to disable it. Unless, of course, you press the lens release button to trick the camera, and shoot in M mode to let the A900 shoot despite it not detecting a lens.<\/p>\n

Vignetting really isn’t that bad, amazingly… many suspect that this is a full-frame lens made into APS-C format.<\/p>\n


\nVignetting only shows when you focus at further distances – here, the lens is focused at infinity. The corners get dark real quick.<\/p>\n


\nThe 50mm F1.8 (again, on full-frame hack mode) exhibits very good out-of-focus disc rendition; no harsh bright-line bokeh<\/b>. It is also contrasty wide open, in fact a bit more than I’d have liked!<\/p>\n


\nThis is my Minolta 50mm F1.4 Original. Pardon the person blocking my view. Depending on the background lights I could get a lot of bright-line bokeh from this lens. (The Minolta 50mm F1.7 also has this.) Also note the classic lower contrast at F1.4.<\/p>\n

Note that I have edited my previous blog entry about the A330<\/a>, after another round of trying it with the SAM lenses.<\/p>\n

More on the new Alpha bodies here:
\nThe A330 Has Landed<\/a>
\nAlpha 3-0 Trio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I tried the new Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM (Smooth Autofocus Motor) lens today! Here it is, on a Sony Alpha 330 digital SLR. Left: Minolta 50mm F1.4 (Original); right: Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM. The Sony is fatter but somewhat lighter. It comes with the standard black lens cap (not the cheap plastic cap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geek","category-pictures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}