Precious Gifts, Precious Memories

Sony has been a champion of the mirrorless world. Since 2010 they've come out with countless cameras for the E-mount, but before that, they had another system. Though an SLR system, the A-mount still has loyal shooters, as well as a fair collection of good lenses.

My wife's grandfather gifted her with his old Minolta Maxxum 5, equipped with a miscellaneous 28-90mm lens. She was the oldest of the grandchildren in the area, but her grandfather also knew how much she liked photography and the darkroom.

Still, as film prices rise, and the demand for a more instant gratification in the form of posting, the setup spent most of its new ownership, displayed as a precious keepsake. Curiosity finally struck, and I figured I could adapt it. Working at Fotodiox, I knew I'd have plenty of options.

Since my wife also has a Nikon D3200, that seemed like the obvious first choice to try. We have a Sony A to Nikon F adapter, after all. Though, it should be noted our adapter for this lens-to-camera combination has internal glass, so there will be a 1.4x crop factor introduced (on top of the D3200's 1.5x crop factor).

After the two crop factors are applied, the 28-90mm lens now has a 58.8-189mm full-frame equivalent. This actually has a similar net crop factor as the Micro Four-Thirds system, but with our setup, we still have the APS-C sensor size. Here's what the new field of view looks like, as well as what we could expect instead on a full-frame camera:

28mm (on full-frame)

90mm (on full-frame)

28mm (with both both crops)

90mm (with both both crops)

Our adapters for A-mount lenses are fairly popular for adapting, especially the glassed ones for the Nikon F and Canon EF systems. That being said, there's a surprising lack of demand for specialty adapters for theses lenses, which can be a bummer for those who want to do a little more with their Sony A lenses.

One particular outlier does exist, however, and that's the Sony A to Sony E TLT ROKR adapter. It's a nice little nod for legacy, being able use the older Sony gear on the newer cameras. Using the Sony A lenses with the Sony E cameras, primarily the full-frame ones, have the added benefit of not having crop factor, and because the flange focus distance distance leaves plenty for an adapter, there's no crop factor from the adapter either.

While it's a shame that we only have the Sony A TLT ROKR for the Sony E-mount, we're not completely out of options. If you have a Nikon Z camera, we do have a Sony E to Nikon Z adapter.

To receive something as meaningful as a camera that seldom left a beloved family member's side is an honor that can't be recreated. It's a bizarre concept, to be trusted with the lens that filled decades' worth of albums upon albums with blink-and-you-miss-it moments. Nostalgia will never fail to take us back, but the will to create and capture will never fail to inspire us to keep making new memories.