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The MC Rokkor 58mm/1.2 is one of the “legendary” Minolta legacy lenses. It is a great portrait lens because of its shallow depth of field, and it is also very suitable for low light photography. I am using it on my Sony Alpha 7 using the Novoflex MC/NEX Adapter. Here are some test images and a mini review.
<figcaption>The MC Rokkor 58mm/1.2The depth of field of this lens is very shallow at f/1.2. The bokeh is soft and very nice. Manual focussing is quite difficult, even though the Alpha 7 has a great focus peaking feature and focus magnification.
<figcaption>Children’s Toy: Bokeh is nice and soft when shooting wide open.Because of its large aperture of f/1.2, this lens allows you to shoot handheld virtually in the dark:
<figcaption>Bakery Blaha: Shot handheld with aperture wide openAt f/16 and f/18, the lens is nice and sharp. There are some flares in the pictures, but it’s not so bad. I probably just got lucky, because in later pictures, you’ll see that this lens is quite flare-prone.
<figcaption>Wienerstr. in Linz
<figcaption>Tram station: Wahringerstraße, Linz
<figcaption>Tram arriving at the station
<figcaption>Tram at the stationAt f/2.8 the result is already quite sharp. Again, I shot this picture without a tripod. I’m still amazed how good the sensor of the Alpha 7 is compared to my old camera.
<figcaption>Trees in the darkIn the next two images, you can see that the lens is quite flare prone. Both were shot at f/5.6. Still, the “Trains” image is one of my favorites from that night: I think the flare is not distracting. To me it looks like it even belongs there.
<figcaption>Gas Station and traffic lights
<figcaption>Trains