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Sony 100mm f/2.8 macro (SAL-100M28) - Review / Lab Test Report |
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Lens Reviews -
Sony Alpha/NEX (APS-C)
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Review by Klaus Schroiff, published April 2008
Special thanks to Dieter Scherk for providing this lens for testing purposes!
Introduction
The Sony 100mm f/2.8 macro is one of the lenses that survived from the Minolta era.
Naturally it has been redesigned to match the look and feel of Sony Alpha lens series
but under the skin little if anything has changed. It it, obviously, a (full format)
macro lens but regarding its relatively large max. aperture it's also an interesting
option for portraits and other mainstream applications.
The build quality of the Sony lens is good without being stellar. The outer barrel
is made of decent quality plastics - all-in-all maybe a little too much of it regarding
its rather steep price tag. The broad rubberized focus ring operates smooth but it is
not damped and it collects lots of dust over time - this is typical for most
Sony lenses. In AF mode the focus ring is decoupled from the focus gear. As you can
see below the lens extends when focusing towards closer distances - this is a quite
common characteristic for macro lenses although the Canon and Nikon counterparts manage
to keep a constant physical length here.
The AF system of the Sony 100mm f/2.8 macro does still rely on the classic focusing system
driven by the camera (via a slotted drive screw). The AF speed is pretty decent as long as
the camera does not wish to hunt through the whole focus range. If possible you should always
take advantage of the focus limiter. The lens does also feature a focus stop button which
may come handy at times.
| Specifications |
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| Equiv. focal length | 150 mm (full format equivalent) |
| Equiv. aperture | f/4.2 (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) |
| Optical construction | 8 elements in 8 groups |
| Number of aperture blades | 9 (circular) |
| min. focus distance | 0.35 m (max. magnification ratio 1:1) |
| Dimensions | 75 x 99 mm |
| Weight | 505 g |
| Filter size | 55 mm (non-rotating) |
| Hood | barrel-shaped, snap-on, supplied |
| Other features | focus stop button, focus limiter |
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