Maxxum lens

[bobwalk3]

Opinions please - I recently purchased on EBay a Maxxum 50mm 1: 1.7 lens ($80.00) for use on my KM 5D and future (to be purchased) Sony Alpha A200. What ever experience or opinions will be greatly appreciated.

[drluap13]

Wonderful cheap low light lens, although i have not used mine for some time, maybe now I'll dig it out & use it....

[KevinBarrett]

I love my little 50/1.7! On the A700 it is almost as discrete as a pancake lens but offers a very respectable portrait-like 75mm equivalent on APS-C sensors. It is very light and fast, and at full aperture it is capable of some very dramatic depth of field with impossibly beautiful bokeh. At $80-100, its a must-have.

[Birma]

The 50 1.7 is my first prime lens and I think its great. Very bright, and I find it easier to take sharper shots than with the kits lens. Nice Bokeh too. Very good for portraits although you do need to be quite close so perhaps not so good for candids unless you are quite brave . I found not having a zoom took some getting used to and I still often reach for the zoom ring when I use it.

I'm sure you'll love using it - I'm eaglery looking to get a further prime lens now, maybe something a bit wider. You see quite a few 28 2.8 on ebay, but they do not seem to have the same reputation as the 50.

[rogprov]

I've had several, f1.7 and f1.4 plus a Sony version. All were soft unless stopped down several stops which rather defeated the object, for me, of a fast lens. I suppose for some portraiture it might be considered an advantage ....

[David Kilpatrick]

The main problem with fast 50mms is inaccurate focusing - the 50mm f1.4 which I have needed a very careful adjustment (surprisingly fine) to the A700 (screws in the base) to be usable wide open.

David

[rogprov]

I own a 50 1.7RS and a 50 1.7 and the are both usable wide open, and both pretty darn sharp at f2 even...I agree with David here that most softness issues are due to inaccurate focusing.

-Sonolta

Sorry, can't agree, do some controlled tests where the point of focus can be seen. Use wide open and then stop down f2, f2.8, f4.
If you can't see a big difference the you've a better lens than any of the five I've had

[rogprov]

Photozone.de concludes the same as I and others that the the 50 1.7 is good wide open, good in the center, and the corners could be better. For low light snaps and portraits the 50 1.7 is more than an excellent lens for the money, it's a outright steal.

-Sonolta

Thanks very much for your time and trouble and showing the test results - certainly looks that by f2.8 it's there or thereabouts.
Maybe I've just been unlucky - one day I'll try another ...

Regards,
Roger

[David Kilpatrick]

The optimum aperture of any good 50mm f1.7 will be around f4.5 (f1.4 lenses can peak at f2.8 to 4). So if you did not see a big improvement from full aperture to two stops down, it would be amazing. You even see that on film with the best standard lenses - Minolta, Contax, Leica, and all. Examined from a digital file the improvement will be clearly seen as you stop down half a stop, one stop, two stops; after that, it should hold until around f8 to f11 and then start to look a bit softer again.

David

[rogprov]

The optimum aperture of any good 50mm f1.7 will be around f4.5 (f1.4 lenses can peak at f2.8 to 4). So if you did not see a big improvement from full aperture to two stops down, it would be amazing. ....

David

That is the disappointment for me. It is because they need stopping down so much for good definition their raison d'entre as a fast lens is lost. I realise that most (all?) lenses don’t perform at their best until stopped down but most lenses are used for some reason other than speed. I do understand that in some situations it may be necessary to sacrifice quality in order to get a photo at all

[David Kilpatrick]

Remember, optimum means that the old 50mm ƒ1.4 Minolta MC - as an example - resolved 192 lines per millimetre across the frame at ƒ2.8 way back in 1974. That's 96 line pairs or cycles in today's terms, and even for all the CZ lenses, Sony only try to show resolution up to 40 cycles!

There have been several 50mm lenses made for full aperture performance, which have been at their best within one stop of wide open. They include the Nokt-Nikkor ƒ1.2 and a scary large Canon ƒ1, and the Leitz Noctilux. If you want a modern lens which is well enough made to deliver very fine wide open performance, the Cosina Voigtlander 58mm ƒ1.4 Nokton (a design based on the 1960s Topcor, developed for the US military for low light shooting) will give you manual focus on Nikon or Pentax K-AF mounts only, for £220.

BUT there is hope! Sigma has designed a 50mm ƒ1.4 which, for once, is designed to deliver clean high resolution wide open - it's a monster lens compared to a Sony 50mm ƒ1.4, and it will cost almost £400. It is not yet released but we shall be looking at it, probably in Nikon mount on full frame on the D3, which will not help much in judging it for APS-C.

David

[rogprov]

[
You can make as many posts as you like on the subject but that does not change the fact that the 50mm's can deliver acceptable flash free results even at f2...

-Sonolta

... Okay I'll take the hint ... I'm gone.

[picman]

The main problem with fast 50mms is inaccurate focusing - the 50mm f1.4 which I have needed a very careful adjustment (surprisingly fine) to the A700 (screws in the base) to be usable wide open.

David

David, do you mean to say that you can adjust focusing by one or more of the visible tiny philips screws in the base of the A700 (when you turn it upside down)?
Does there exist a technical document explaining in detail how this works (e.g. how much of a turn in what direction does what, etc..?)
Very curious

Cheers, Bob.

[picman]

This has been done on a-mount cameras for quite sometime...

http://photo.net/sony-minolta-slr-system-forum/00QAzH
http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/forum_posts ... 824#235824
http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/forum_posts.asp?TID=18892

-Sonolta

Thank you Sonolta (I did search on photoclubalpha but could not find anything ).

[David Kilpatrick]

The main problem with fast 50mms is inaccurate focusing - the 50mm f1.4 which I have needed a very careful adjustment (surprisingly fine) to the A700 (screws in the base) to be usable wide open.

David

David, do you mean to say that you can adjust focusing by one or more of the visible tiny philips screws in the base of the A700 (when you turn it upside down)?
Does there exist a technical document explaining in detail how this works (e.g. how much of a turn in what direction does what, etc..?)
Very curious

Cheers, Bob.

No, those hold the camera together!

By peeling off the label round the tripod bush, three wells each containing a 0.5mm hex key screw are revealed (same applies to every camera since the 7D). These adjust focus plane, pitch and yaw. However the way they work is that they support three corners of an AF assembly plate, and to maintain the pitch and yaw (keeping the edge sensors accurate) you must turn each screw exactly the same amount - and very small amounts indeed are needed. My A700 has, I think, ended up with about 1/12th turn of clockwise adjustment to fix its backfocus. We do not cover this procedure on the website as it invalidates the warranty and if done badly, requires full recalibration of the camera.

David