LensTip.com

Articles

A history of Sony Alpha - Minolta AF 85 mm f/1.4 G D versus Sony Zeiss Planar T* 85 mm f/1.4

22 December 2009
Szymon Starczewski

10. Autofocus

The Minolta’s autofocus on the A850 body works quite loudly. You can hear a distinct whirr but without those annoying high tones. The lens is not a demon of speed - running through the scale, no matter from what end, takes a bit more than one second. Under one condition, though - providing that it doesn’t miss. It is not always the case, though. We often see a situation when the lens can’t decide which setting to choose and for the next second or even longer it oscillates, skipping from one position to the other.

The Zeiss, also connected to the A850 body, works as loudly as the Minolta and gives out the sounds of the same frequency. Its work is a bit faster though because it runs through the whole scale in one second. We haven’t noticed any annoying oscillation in its case.

After the transition to the A100 the sounds we hear don’t change significantly. In both cases the speed of work decreases slightly, though.


Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When it comes to the both lenses’ accuracy the Sony got again the upper hand, although the difference is very small – the Sony missed in 6% of all shots and the Minolta – in 9%. The Minolta didn’t have any back or front focus problems for a change whereas the Sony was characterized by slight back focus tendencies, which can be seen in the pictures below.

Minolta AF 85 mm f/1.4 G D
A history of Sony Alpha - Minolta AF 85 mm f/1.4 G D versus Sony Zeiss Planar T* 85 mm f/1.4 - Autofocus
Zeiss Planar T* 85 mm f/1.4
A history of Sony Alpha - Minolta AF 85 mm f/1.4 G D versus Sony Zeiss Planar T* 85 mm f/1.4 - Autofocus