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Archive for the ‘Lenses’ Category

As announced today by Sony, the lineup of SAM lenses continues to grow. SAM stands for smooth auto focus motor – a bit of a crooked name with the meaning to indicate the motorization these lenses have without wanting to mix up with the significantly higher values SSM motorization of some G and Zeiss lenses.

However the lineup of SAM lenses is a great and realistic addition to photo enthusiasts not wanting to pay 4-digit Euro amounts for their lenses but sill like to shoot decent pictures.

The previous Lineup of SAM Lenses consisted of:

• DT18-55 SAM
• DT55-200 SAM
• DT50F18 SAM
• DT30M28 SAM

And is NOW extended by

• DT 35 F18 SAM
  A very bright but inexpensive fix focal lens – you will be able to achieve greatest blurring effects really manage to make the subject stand out. The focal length however is a little bit strange. however when you look at it.  The 54mm on any APS-C Camera (basically all Alphas apart from 850 and 900) are a very classic focal length and make this one a perfect portrait lens.
• 85 F28 SAM
  In the Zeiss Lineup Sony offers a SUPERB 85mm F1.4 with extreme abilities when it comes to full frame portrait shooting at also superb price. An interesting choice will be the F2.8 version which is also full frame capable. So possible the easy entry to the “real” Zeiss version. Anyone wanting to get used to the great focal length and to portrait brilliance will have a good entry drug before spending the 1.500€ for the Zeiss.

Full specs:

As alphisti we do not really understand the purpose of shooting memories and other occasions on Samsung and only really rarely on four thirds cameras – especailly since we have the NEX models in our lineup now. BUT what we can understand really well is the fact that our SUPER Lenses such as the brightest 135 F1.8 or other darlings are in the line of desire of owners of Pentax, Samsung, Panasonic or Olympus Cameras.

A german company called Novoflex has a heart for those otherwise rather special customers and offers a €169 adaptor ring to make great Sony / Minolta AF Lenses fit.

The testers of dpreview have taken on the challenge to take a closer look at Sony’s SAL 70-200 G lens. It’s a rather old lens that has been carried over from Minolta times making it design-wise a rather “established” lens but let see what the folks from DP-Review have to say.

On the positive side – it seemed to be obvious that the lens’ metal casing created a superb impression on build quality which next to the outstanding image quality makes it an excellent Lens for Full Frame Cameras such as Sony Alpha 900 and Sony Alpha 850 without sacraficing too much of its power when used on APC-C Cameras. Sony/Minolta’s SSM motorization was impessive enough in terms of speed and noise as well as manual overriding options and well placed AF-stop buttons.

But also from the downsides it’s woth reading the article which states the SAL70200G to be a bit soft when wide open on the tele-side – unfortunately this is exactly the usage scenario what most photographes are buying this lens for. Furthermore it seems a bit unconsistent cratign a perfect match of SAL 70 200 G with eg. A900 a well made SEALED body mounted on an UNSEALED Lens – a bit of a half pregnant approach asking for a MKII version of such lens especially considering the very high price compared to both competition Canikon and third party lenses.

Read the full review