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Here's a new lens test - three Minolta lenses at f=24mm:
Minolta AF 24mm/2.8
Minolta AF 24-50mm/4.0
Minolta AF 17-35mm/2.8-4.0 (re-badged Tamron lens)
Again - as in the previous thest at f=35mm - the small, lightweight, 20-year-old Minolta AF 24-50mm/4 outperforms the other lenses, including the 24mm prime. The 24-50mm lens, a construction with 7 elements, was a pioneer of the "cheap" aspherical designs (along with the 35-70mm/4 and the 28-85mm/3.5-4.5).
The test was made with a Sony alpha 700 (firmware 3.0 for improved detail resolution). All pictures shown here are 100% crops from high-resolution jpegs (4272 x 2848 pixels, usually 10-11.5MB) directly from the camera, without any further modification. The camera's sharpening was set to "0", no SSS was used, and to avoid any problems from the mirror I used the 2s self-timer and "mirror-up function" combined with remote control.
The tripod used was the Manfrotto 055C with professional 3-way-head manfrotto 410.
The left image is from the edge of the APS-C sized sensor, the right image is straight from the center.
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MinAF 24mm/2.8 at f2.8
Center: at f2.8 similar resolution, but better contrast than the 17-35mm zoom. The 24-50mm zoom wide open (at f4.0) has a better contrast than the 24mm prime.
Edge: the prime has a better resolution and a slightly better contrast than the 17-35mm, but the 24-50mm wide open (at f4.0, however!) is much better.
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MinAF 24mm/2.8 at f5.6
Centre: Stopped down to f5.6 the prime beats the 17-35mm zoom and may be slightly better than the 24-50mm zoom - but that can be seen only on careful examination of the 200% crops.
Edge: The 24mm prime performs quite similar as the 17-35mm zoom. The prime has slightly more CA's, while the 17-35mm zoom has slightly less contrast. Detail resolution is, compared to the centre, is lower. Both the prime as well as the 17-35mm are CLEARLY outperformed by the 24-50mm zoom: virtually no CA's, a perfect detail resolution (same as in the centre) and a slightly better contrast.
Corner (not shown here): the 17-35mm is quite bad, the 24mm prime OK, and the 24-50mm still almost perfect!
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MinAF 24-50mm/4.0 at f4.0
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MinAF 24-50mm/4.0 at f5.6
Centre:
Edge: The small, lightweight 24-50mm/4.0 zoom (1986) from the first generation of Minolta AF zooms is clearly better than the corresponding prime (1985) from the same generation, and better than the "digitally optimized", re-badged Tamron 17-35mm from 2003.
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MinAF 17-35mm/2.8-4.0 at f2.8
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MinAF 17-35mm/2.8-4.0 at f5.6
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