The Minolta (Maxxum in the US) AF 28mm f/2.8, often overshadowed by the brighter and later-issued Minolta AF 28mm f/2, is an A-mount lens made for the Minolta Maxxum 35mm AF SLR camera series. This exceptionally compact and lightweight wide-angle prime, introduced in 1985, is known for its solid build, sharpness, and natural color rendition.
The lens has a metal mount and internal components enclosed in a plastic outer barrel. It features a 5-element in 5-group design, a 7-blade aperture (f/2.8–f/22), a minimum focusing distance of 0.3 meters, and uses 49mm filters. Weighing about 185 grams, the lens includes an integrated sliding hood and has a narrow focusing ring at the front that rotates during autofocusing.
In its original form as a 35mm full-frame lens, with a wider field of view than that of a 35mm wide-angle, the 28mm is significant as a pioneering wide-angle focal length that redefined street photography, photojournalism, and landscape documentation with a field of view that offers a natural wide perspective with more context than standard lenses without excessive distortion.
On the Sony Alpha DSLR-A350, the AF 28mm f/2.8 is equivalent to a 40mm (42mm exactly) lens on a 35mm full-frame camera, a focal length popular with many photographers as they realize the potential of exploring the unique balance between the context and content of images the lens is capable of capturing.
The 40mm (or equivalent) focal length, often referred to as the 'sweet spot for street photography,' is very versatile and can be used, aside from being the optimum for street photography, for other genres, including city and urban scenes, landscape, portraits, travel, as well as documentary and storytelling.
The balanced nature of this focal length also means photographers don't have to make significant compromises when framing their shots, with enough width to establish the scene's context while providing sufficient reach to extenuate the main subject.
Images, as captured with these crops and close-ups from the garden, are punchy in contrast, with warm color rendering, and reasonably sharp in the center at f/2.8. Optimal sharpness is achieved when stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8, the recommended aperture for landscape settings. The 7-blade diaphragm helps to garner pleasant bokeh.
The Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 (released 2008), designed for entry-level users, is one of the APS-C consumer DSLRs recognized with having the highest-resolution CCD sensors when launched in 2008. The camera features a 14.2MP CCD sensor, a 230,400 pixels 2.7-inch tilting screen, a unique quick-AF live view function, and built-in sensor-shift image stabilization. Images are excellent at low ISOs (100–400), but tend to be noisy at higher ISOs (400 and higher).
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