I love the 35/1.4G

andrew_broadfoot wrote: since Flickr changed their layout you can't fully control larger file sizes and I don't like to double upload.

Do you mean you wanted to post smaller sizes? Flickr can still do that. Click the "Share this" button above the photo, then "Grab the HTML/BBCode", select the desired size then highlight and copy the "http://****.jpg" portion.

BTW what kind of fill flash technique did you use for those shots? Fantastic example of Minolta colour and vibrancy.

This one is not so much about the bokeh...


Esperansa de Moura IV by LiteDway (aka Bahudda), on Flickr

Cool! and Hot!

Thank you for sharing those images...i've been thinking about the 35 1.4g....but i've been holding out. May rent it first and see how i truly like it.

I had (have) the 35mm f2.0 and I like it alot. Great color, sharpness and contrast. Bokeh is more a story telling bokeh than a blend and blur bokeh.

I got really lucky and was able to pick up a Sony 35G for $740 off of ebay and in excellent condition. I was truly lucky in that my sample is much sharper than I thought it would be wide open. Of the two 35's I have no problem using the f2 as a general purpose lens. The G is something different altogether. I find that I hate taking it off the A850. It is an adventure or exploration in seeing how it will interpret the next picture. I am so pleased with what it delivers in terms of quality images.

I have the CZ 16-35, 24-70 & 135. I have the Minolta 50f1.7, 85f1.4, 100f2.0 and Sony 50f1.4. Yet, of all of these I truly get excited by the 35G. I am not easily excited about anything. I guess its that this lens renders like nothing else and if that is good or bad I don't seem to mind because it always amazes me.

I cannot quantify it. I may not have even bought it (ever) if the price wasn't so good. I am glad I got it though and truly enjoy what it delivers.

That's my two cents for what its worth.

Magnus Wedberg wrote: The bar has been raised, and far more quickly than lens makers are able to respond, especially Minolta having a lot of quite old designs. I'm very surprised some of them even made it to Sony! The 35/1.4 is probably the strangest of them all, first being discontinued by Minolta and then reintroduced (but never delivered, IIRC) without being redesigned at all. Then Sony rebadged that almost thirty year old design. It never made sense. I don't think any of the old wide angle designs are really impressive but then again, this never bothered me on film. :-)

Based on conversations I had with some Sony folks in 2006, at the first PhotoPlus Expo after Sony took over the A-mount, when the only camera was the A100, the explanation for Sony's initial lens line-up had more to do with what assets it acquired from KM as much as anything. KM, as you note, had announced an "upgraded" version of that lens before it decided to get out of the business. Thus, the molds and designs for the lens were on-hand when Sony took over, it acquired those assets, and it was relatively "easy" to make and rebadge the lens as a Sony, and it became one of the lenses Sony could get out quickly as part of its new Alpha "system."

Other lenses, discontinued by Minolta/KM, and for which there were no existing molds or parts to make the lenses were not continued by Sony. This, according to the folks I talked to in 2006, was the primary reason the initial lens line-up announced by Sony was such a strange mix when one considers that its only camera for more than a year was the A100.

Recall also that the "new" lenses, such as the CZ 16-80, 85/1.4 and 135/1.8 all were delayed in their initial release compared to most of the other initial Sony lenses.

Viewed this way it is fairly easy to understand why Sony brought out the 35/1.4 as one of its original lenses. What is unfortunate is that KM had not been able to improve the lens more than it did, and that it's generally not worth its price tag, particularly when compared to the few similar lenses from other manufacturers. In hindsight, it might have been better for Sony to simply not use the KM design and work with Zeiss on a new 35mm, whether f:1.4, 1.8 or 2.

artuk wrote: ianb wrote: Artuk, CA issues... Ianb No Ian, not chromatic abberations, spherical... it's a different lens problem! The 35mm f1.4 was a good product of it's time - although I must say some tests when the 35mm f1.4 and f2 were launched seem to indicate that the f2 version had a better optical balance - probably in part because being a stop slower made it easier to design.

Artuk, Thanks for the clarification, I understand the difference between the two now, but had merely referred to photozone.de who classed it as CA. Their final comment is "would expect better from a lens in this class". I agree.

Ianb

Edited by ianb - 23 July 2010 at 12:26