Sony 50 mm f/2.8 Macro review - Build quality

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Sony 50 mm f/2.8 Macro

31 May 2010

Arkadiusz Olech

3. Build quality

The first thing that sticks out when you take the tested lens into your hand is a very stylish casing, which, contrary to instruments from other companies, is made of smooth, uniform and slightly shiny metal. Of course the mount and a circular aperture with 7 diaphragm blades are made of metal too. Additionally, you get a wide, comfortable and ribbed manual focus ring which is smooth and nice to work with. Before the ring we have a 55 mm filter thread.

This lens’s dimensions are typical for a 50 mm instrument (in the picture below it is positioned between the Zeiss 1.4/85 and the Sony 18-200 mm). That typicality ends when you try to set the minimum focus distance, which in this case amounts to only 20 centimeters, and by which the instrument has the 1:1 mapping scale. The front element system extends forward a lot, increasing the length of the whole instrument even two times. The impression of great solidity becomes a bit tarnished then because the inner telescopic tube doesn’t exactly look like something indestructible. The second thing, which we hardly find in a classic 50 mm, is the Full-Limit autofocus mode switch.

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