Welcome to TalkEmount.com, the best Sony E-mount camera and photography community on the web.Click here to join for free and enjoy unlimited photo uploads in our forums.
Minolta MD 50mm f1.7 is a very common lens and can be found quite easily for not much money. Wide open it is soft and has a ghosting/glowing effect on sharp edges (might be okay for portraits) but stopped down it is nice and sharp. Very easy to focus with Focus peaking on the Nex.
It is a great and cheap lens, so there is no excuse for not getting it.
Compared to the 50/1.4, I would say that the 1.7 is more of a fun lens and the 1.4 is a more serious lens, based on how they render the image. But I wouldn't want to be without any of them.
I really like this lens. Soft wide open, but killer sharp stopped down. At F4 still produces decent amount of background blur but is very very sharp. Plus, it's fairly light and portable.
Although, SEL50f1.8 seems to be just as sharp stopped down but much better wide open. But then, it also costs 25x as much.
Yes, welcome. And since this lens seems to be the consensus A#1 50mm legacy prime, I'm thinking this may be a great lens to have when the A7 comes out (and I can afford it).
The MD 50mm 1.7 is not such a heavy lens so personally I find it to balance well on the Nex.
Since those adapted lenses don't have stabilization, keeping a steady shot takes practise (and adjust the shutter speed accordinly) - or use a tripod
I'm extremely happy with the lens, found it for $10 on ebay. At wide open, the depth of field is pretty shallow so I've been opening it up a couple notches for portraits.
I reduces the focal length by a factor of ,72 so your MC/MD 50mm lens actually gives you the coverage of a 36mm ( on APS-C )
It also increases the amount of light entering the lens by 1 stop supposedly so your F2 lens becomes a F1,4 in light transmitted to the sensor ( this is why some of these are called Lens Turbo or Booster)
The interest of these is that with a regular SR/MC/MD adapter, your lens stays at its nominal focal length so with the APS-C crop factor of 1,5 on NEX, this 50mm gives you the coverage of an equivalent to 75mm lens.
If you have the lens Turbo or equivalent, your lens actually gets a second personality by giving a coverage using its full frame coverage again of close to 50mm ( actually the calculation is 50mm X 1,5 X ,72 = 54mm ( which is close to its full frame legacy )
Same example would be to use a 35mm lens which covers a Full frame equivalent of 53mm when used on APS-C
35mm X 1,5 X ,72 = 38mm ( which again is close to its full frame legacy )
These gadgets are still somewhat expensive ( 125-150$) and i would not suggest you get one unless you have at least a couple of valuable SR/MC/MD lenses you intend to use on a regular basis. I did not try the Metabones ( around 450$ which may not suffer from this but i don't know of anybody that tried it yet)
They also sometimes show a round purple circle ( internal reflection of the back of the aperture reflected on sensor) at smaller apertures with some lenses and in some specific lighting conditions ( high contrast due to sun close to the viewing angle or a lot of very bright highlights )
Reviving thread for a sec. No PP on pics either, straight on of NEX5N
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/130088389@N08/15863255790" title="Taken with Minolta MD 50 1.7 by Raul Benavides, on Flickr">
---
"1024" height="575" alt="Taken with Minolta MD 50 1.7"></a>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/130088389@N08/15863255800" title="Taken with Minolta MD 50 1.7 w/NEX5N by Raul Benavides, on Flickr">
---
"1024" height="575" alt="Taken with Minolta MD 50 1.7 w/NEX5N"></a>
