Shooting Cars With My Minolta 50mm f1.7

"chaozbandit" (chaozbandit) 05/28/2016 at 20:40 • Filed to: toronto

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A very small number of you will remember that I bought a thing in August 2015, but until this week I’ve never touched the prime lens they bundled in - boy, have I been missing out.

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Saturdays in the summer are busy days for car shows and other activities, and since there were two events scheduled for today (Porsche Centre Oakville Cars & Coffee, Fitted Toronto = ~7 hours potential shooting time) I figure what better time than to get to know this gem of a lens. Mind you, this is a lens from the 90s and more modern glass will probably produce better results; ontop of that, I have maybe 70 minutes experience with this thing prior to today and I really wasn’t expecting much.

Anyways, a brief wall of text on my experience.

Overall I’m pretty pleased with how the photos turned out, but I’m embarassed at how many tries it took for me to get the manual focus right. While the Sony A6000/LA-EA4 combo does allow me to retain the use of auto-focus, I preferred to switch it off; at times, I think it actually produces better bokeh than my Zeiss 16-70 but not without a few caveats.

There is a significant amount of CA and only so much can be fixed in post (though it was mostly resolved by shooting without filters); this may be down to my lack of experience but the majority of my shots came out over-exposed even when shooting 1/2000 f22 and with exposure comp at -4 (it appears to be very picky about lighting conditions); at such high shutter speeds, any amount of shake would ruin the photos and with so many cars to shoot I really didnt want to lug around a tripod.

My main issue with it at the moment is that a 50mm prime on a crop factor means it is effectively an 80mm lens, which really limits you on how you can shoot. Not an issue in a somewhat empty showroom (above) but a issue that quickly arises when trying to shoot a stance-nation event.

But every now and then, without me knowing it, I would get shots like these: everything in focus, little shake, nothing overblown and background just out of focus. It would appear that at these moments the lens would finally play ball, but from what I’ve read the Minolta 50mms vary greatly because of their age, and finding the “right” one is down to luck (thankfully they’re cheap and only cost a dozen Tim Hortons coffees).

Bearing in mind that the sweet spot for optimal sharpness is between f6 and f11, plus taking note of where the light was coming from, I slowly began to get comfortable with the thing. Having focus peaking enabled was a tremendous help when working the frankly awful focus ring, but I quickly realized that orange and red subjects would require extra attention. This Turbo S was particularly difficult because it was nearly 11AM and the sun was coming in pretty harshly, plus I was pretty much against the dealership glass just to get the whole car in frame.

Moving outdoors was again tricky because of how harsh the lighting is, and how I knew the lens would probably come up with an overly white photo. All I could do was carefully work the focus and hope that I could do something to fix it in Lightroom - decreased the highlighting and exposure on this yellow GT3, and I think it looks fine.

The Singer and the RWB I’ve shot before and really just wanted to do some more bokeh testing. With the focal point set at where the Porsche emblem was, I wanted to see how the focus tapered off - so far so good when looking at the background, but these shots definitely required more effort than the Zeiss @ 70mm.

Now at Fitted Toronto, there weren’t many opportunities to test the Minolta because of how the cars were parked and because it took ages to compose the photo I want, and pray that people didn’t walk into the frame before I clicked. Thankfully by 3PM, most people had begun to disperse but the skies were clear and the sun just as harsh as in the morning.

More bokeh testing with this R32 and the BR-Z (which drove all the way from Quebec). It’s angled shots like these that appear to be my downfall, as I can never seem to pick the best focal point - usually I go towards wherever the most peaking appears or aim for the headlights and hope for the best.

Speaking of Quebec, I think at least half the cars here were from our French speaking neighbours, and at least a half dozen of them participated in the SCP Evolution show that Speedhunters covered. Heck, even the controversial Beetle was there.

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You wouldn’t want to know how long it took me to get this because it was along the main walkway and there seemed to be an endless stream of people. This NV Auto prepped subie apparently just got back from the last round of Global Time Attack at Road Atlanta, and I really didn’t want to miss it.

Nothing to see here, just some macro testing with my favourite wheels.

At the end of the day, I’m really looking forward to getting more use out of this prime despite it’s initial drawbacks and it’s taken the place of my Rokinon 12mm fisheye in my loadout. Also starting to see the appeal of DSLRs now after feeling that mirror clack away inside the LA-EA4.

I need sleep.

Steve in Manhattan > chaozbandit 05/28/2016 at 20:46

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1.7 is fast - back when I cared about such things I had Nikon 50mm 1.4. Best lens ever.

chaozbandit > Steve in Manhattan 05/28/2016 at 20:54

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It is! Though I don’t know how this lens performs wide open since I mostly shot at f8 and above. Some photogs say it’s amazing for portraits.

MLGCarGuy > chaozbandit 05/28/2016 at 20:56

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Prime lenses for cars are fantastic; however sometimes you do have to move back to get the shot. A tad annoying.

I’m shooting with a Canon 6D and a Sigma 50mm lens and the results are simply amazing.

chaozbandit > MLGCarGuy 05/28/2016 at 21:02

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Haha when I first got my A6000, I didn’t bother buying the kit lens and went with a Sigma 30mm (50mm equivalent) to get my feet wet. Really do miss how shooting with a prime forces you to really think out how to compose your shots.

Slowly coming to terms with having more space between me and the subject - I find that it keeps more stuff in the plane of focus compared to if you were closer.

Steve in Manhattan > chaozbandit 05/28/2016 at 22:02

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Certainly is good for portraits ...