A small, cheap and light Minolta prime lens with exceptional sharpness.
Interested in other vintage lenses on a budget? Check out this article!
As always, when planning for a trip I think about all of the kit I don’t have, I normally use it as an excuse to buy a new lens or accessory that will “improve” the photos I take on that trip.
This time around, I’d just been shooting some street photography with my film camera (Pentax MX) that I use with a 50mm lens, and I was getting really nostalgic about using the Canon nifty fifty, thinking that I didn’t have a 50mm prime for my Sony.
I did a bit of research, looked at my budget and decided that a vintage lens might be a good shout. They’re normally good fun, offering different types of bokeh and colouring, often well built and if you buy the right lens they can be amazingly sharp.
Minolta have always been known to make sharp lens, their 50mm primes (f/2 and f/1.7) are well known and used.
The Minolta 50mm f/2 is the slowest standard prime lens produced by Minolta. But in my opinion, for street photography anything faster than f/2 is too wide and creates a too shallow depth of field. The f/2 variant of the lens was first released in 1981, so it gives us some indication of how old it could be.
The condition of the copy I got is great for a second hand lens. I’ve bought old lenses before that have been almost unusable. The optics are clear with minimal dust and no signs of fungus. The aperture ring has a great click to it and the focus ring is smooth. The build quality is great, although there is a lot of plastic, but it feels really solid and well made.
At f/2 the lens is remarkably sharp in the centre and in the mid frame. It is even reasonably sharp in the corners but loses some contrast - which is no problem really.
As we move to f/2.8 it gets even sharper with the corners remaining similar to f/2.
When stopped down to f/4 it is even sharper still! The corners go from fairly sharp to very sharp, getting even better at f/5.6.
When stopping down any further, to around f/11 some diffraction comes into play reducing the sharpness slightly.
As far as chromatic aberration goes, there isn’t really any. Vignetting is really not an issue either. Both of these are very easily corrected in post anyway, but they aren’t very evident in this lens.
To sum up, this is a fantastic little lens. If it cost me £100 I’d be pleased with it. The price I actually paid? £10.50. No, the decimal point isn’t in the wrong place! This lens is an absolute steal for the price. Anyone in the market for a 50mm lens on a budget should really consider this. Even not on a budget, this is a great lens to throw in the bag, it is lightweight and due to the low cost you can use it and abuse it knowing that if you lose it or damage it you can replace it easily.