My Own Review on Sony Latest Lens : The 50mm F1.8 DT

Edit:

After much reading, I found out the purple thingy in the picture is not purple fringing, but it's call LCA (Lateral Chromatic Aberration). Well, some most people think it's ok and almost all lens has this LCA when at wide open.

Anyway, this is just my personal first impression of this lens. I wish to wait for a while and browse through the true work life sample picture taken from this lens, then only will decide if I wish to own it.

Edit 2:

Read my 2nd review here.
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After much a long waiting, finally Sony release its latest lens into the A-mount family: the 50mm F1.8 DT lens. This is a good news to the A-mounters out there as we have another choice of cheaper prime lenses. Selling at RM 599 RRP, and the expected street price would be on RM 480 plus minus, could this lens worth the money we pay off ?

Albert had done a very detail review on this lens, and I wouldn't talk much of the technical stuff. The very first impression when the sale person of the Sony Centre shop handed me the lens is : cool and nicely design. When I first hold the lens on my hand, I shouted: Wow, so light !! Its weight is so low like I am holding a piece of paper.

The mount is plastic, the body is plastic build, and it has a SAM motor build in, and a AF-MF switch button. And I think the glass elements are made of plastic as well.

Mounting this lens onto an A700 does look handsome.

I've taken some shot with it, but not many. The focusing is fast with SAM, but noisy. The sound is just like the gear without lubricant cranking each other and I worry after some serious focusing turning, this lens will crack into pieces.


Actually, I do not know how to examine if the bokeh produce by this kind of big hole lens is good or not. The quality of the bokeh is beyond my understanding, and I was told that this lens produce "softer" bokeh if compare to the 50mm F1.4.

Well, for my personal taste, I think the bokeh is acceptable.

The shortest focusing distance is 0.34cm from the plane of camera censor. Hence, the shortest focusing distance from the surface of the lens is shorter than that, i.e. about 0.30 cm. Impressively short distance, and this is good for shooting kids. :D

So, overall, this lens is quite nice to own, but not until I see this pic, taken with this new 50mm lens:

Yup, that's the new Sony DSLR A330 on my hand. Carefully chimping into the photo at the "10.2 Mega Pixels" wording, shocked me. Blowing up this part for 100% viewing :

The "10.2 mega pixels" wording is basically in purple colour ! That's the LCA of that lens !!! The last time I had such purple edge picture is a photo I took using my old Sony DSC H1 camera. I wouldn't expect to see this purple edging LCA on a lens that cost RM 599 !!

Very disappointed. I was about to buy this lens on the spot but the plastic build, noisy SAM motor and super light weight had put me on hold for a second thought. With further investigation on the test shots done by this lens, I would hold my horses.

So, is this lens better than the Minolta 50mm F1.7 ? Well, if I have a 50mm F1.7, I wouldn't "downgrade" myself to have this plastic lens. At least the 50mm F1.7 is a full frame lens, and it is made of glass with metal casing.

Finally, is this lens value for money ? No, I won't buy it. The lens does not worth that much. It should be cheaper. Or maybe the lens should not couple with the SAM motor and be sold in a lower price? Then I might consider to get one.

Look like my search for a prime 50mm lens has not come to an end yet.....