minolta 50 1.7 'horrid bokeh'...nonsense!

Funny. This is the lens I have on my A99 lately and I was talking to someone just last night about its bokeh after taking pics of the lights on our tree that just went up yesterday afternoon. The Minolta 50/1.7 has poor bokeh if you are looking at things like seriously out of focus lights on a tree at the holiday season, but other than that, it performs like a champ in my opinion. For portraits and other shots it's super sharp and the bokeh is rather pleasing on distant backgrounds. Where it fails is in close up blur, where the circular patterns of the bokeh is more noticeable and especially towards the edges as the distortion hits and the bokeh takes on odd shapes. Interestingly enough, I have not tried it stopped down to see if its any more pleasing, but will do so tonight.