Sony has a lot of great new and used Minolta A-Mount glass that is being forgotten about as more Sony photographers more to E-mount from Sony’s legacy A-Mount standard. Sony’s A-Mount translucent mirror technology has always interested me and when it was introduced there was a lot of value in Sony’s lens line up, but I decided to go m43 around that time since it was truly mirrorless and compact.
Now prices are still high for new A-Mount glass, but if you look carefully there are some great used values that should only get better with time as more photographers switch to native E-Mount glass. There are a variety of reasons why a photographer might switch their A-Mount to E-mount glass, but if you choose your adapters wisely switching to native E-Mount glass is less of an advantage than you might think.
In my estimation, Sony’s adapters that come with a screw drive and translucent mirror are the best option, but if your camera has on-chip PDAF the translucent mirror becomes useless beyond having a screw drive motor in it, but that is the cursory explanation. For a more nuanced explanation watch the video above to see how the Sony LA-EA1, LA-EA2, LA-EA3, and LA-EA4 operate differently and the video below to see how they perform when shooting video.
