Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 Lens
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It's not as bad as some say...
When I read online reviews on this lens I was a bit apprehensive about buying it due to the slow and noisy focusing. Well I tried one B&H at and I did not find any of these issues to be as glaring as others think. Is it a sports lens? Hell no! Is it noisy? Not to me. Is it sharp? Extremely. Does it focus quickly? More than quick enough for me. I shot many pictures in low light (1/125 @f1.8, ISO 8000) and I missed focus just once. Again, not sport... Show More
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Good value for money. A sharp fast prime portrait lens.
We bought this lens for two reasons. I mainly shoot indoors, sometimes in the dark and I wanted a faster lens than the APS-C format 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 power zoom lens that came originally with our Sony NEX VG900 video camera. My partner also wanted a portrait lens. So after a bit of research we decided we'd give this full frame lens a try. So far we are happy with the lens but we do find it difficult to focus close-ups as it has quite a narrow de... Show More
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
very little compromise for the price. a true gem.
with the A7II. I've been able to achieve very food performance with sharpness and autofocus. There is some noticeable chromatic aberration at wider apertures, but nothing to cry about. It is very sharp in the center at wider apertures; I can shoot at f2 and crop deep. Autofocus performance also works really well with the following settings: wide-area + continous focus + AF-ON . I consitently get great results eachtime for street subjects, and I a... Show More
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Good Quality, Rough AF
I was really pleased with the pictures that came from this lens. Build quality is so so .I ended up returning it though, mainly due to the autofocus. It's really slow and guessy as it gets focus. There were a few times where I had to awkwardly tell my subject "just a second". I don't think it's a deal breaker for everyone though, just a personal thing. If it had manual and af I would consider keeping it to use for film. Wouldn't attempt to use AF with video because it is particularly noisy as well. Again - if af isn't a deal breaker for you, it's a nice piece of glass and takes lovely images.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
A very nice modern fast 50
This is a nice, sharp, light, fast 50 with quick, native FE mount, autofocus. It's cheap and VERY good. This is NOT the ultimate bokeh smoothie; bokeh are smooth enough, but show onion rings. It also has a rather huge hood and the build involves a lot of plastic. So what? The bang for the buck is excellent. In sum, this is the fully modern version of the cheapie kit normal lens from the days of film SLRs. It isn't the best, but it is darn good, pretty versatile, and cheap enough that everybody should have one. This is really the lens that should come bundled with all the A7 series cameras.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
More than worth the money
I've been using this lens (also bought the 2.0/28 at the same time) for a lot of my shots in the field. I confess that it is just a bit slow to gain focus, and does not hold that focus in AF-S between shots, but it is probably faster and more accurate than I could be manually. Distortion is very low (compared to zooms that I had been using until now), and CA is almost non-existent. It is also comforting to have a field of view which I grew accustomed to back in my earliest days. It kind of rekindles the motivation and creativeness of those days I embraced photography.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Latest Firmware & A7III...Focuses OK
For $200 this lens is really great. The focus is OK...In good light it's quick-ish and accurate. The colors, contrast, and bokeh are pretty nice. It's 1/3 the cost of your next cheapest 50mm, and 800 cheaper than the zeiss 55. Expectations should be in line with the price of the lens, and to me it's really serviceable. If you're in low light or trying to focus on something generally plain or flat and the same color, it hunts. I wish it was better, and I can't help but wonder if I should bite the bullet and order the 55, but I really enjoy this lens for what it is.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Decent lens for price but lens no longer recognized by camer
This lens was a good lens for me to start with as a nifty fifty lens. Images came out sharp and crisp. However, there are several issues. The autofocus is the noisiest and slowest native Sony lens I own. You can really hear the whirring when the lens is finding focus. Now that I've used this lens for a good 6 months, it no longer is recognized by my Sony a7rii. I cannot change aperture size nor focus with the lens. Also tested it on my a6000 and could not connect either. Disappointed with this lens. For $200 I hoped this lens would at least last 2 years.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Not like other E mount lenses
This product is not smooth focusing like other E mount lenses. It is sharp, but the continuous focusing action when taking still photos is clunky and noisy. Also, the one I got was defective in that it would focus using pre-auto-focus AFC while shooting stills, but would not focus while on the movie setting. B&H said it is defective so I returned it. However, B&H was fantastic in this return and customer service as usual. Good IQ but not for me. I have six E mount lenses and have owned 19 A mount lenses. I really love Sony cameras but be careful on this one.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Two-Fifty Nifty
This is lens is the cheapest Sony branded glass for Full-frame. Its not going to give the same results as its more expensive brethren but it's a great starting point for someone making the jump into the land of Full-frame. The lens does make a lot of compromising choices to get to the price it sells for, like plastic body, louder motor noise, and extending barrel for focus. You shouldn't directly compare it to lenses that cost four times as much, it's almost unfair. The 50mm is a good lens for the price on a system that hasn't had many cheaper lenses.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Slow autofocus
If you are expecting fast autofocus this is definitely not the lens to purchase. I'm hoping that a firmware update is on the way to correct the hunting even in AF-S mode. I don't shoot much in AF-C but I could not get the lens to focus in some situations. As a manual focus lens, the lens is very sharp, so if you shoot mostly in manual focus mode and only need occasional auto focus (like landscape photography) this might be a great value for money. I also found that the auto focus speed was better on my A6000 than my alpha7II, which surprised me.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
The Nifty Fifty Lives up to it's Name
I recently purchased a Sony FE 50mm lens. I wanted to use it to match another 50mm lens I have when doing two camera interviews. I was a little worried about the price point being so low. My first thought was it was not going to perform well but I need to get something and quick. The long and short of it. The lens performs above and beyond my expectations. It did not match the other lens perfectly but with a few small adjustments, it got me there. If you are looking for a good quality lens and are on a budget this is the one for you,
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Just a cheap 50
I've not been super impressed by this lense so far. People talk about it being quite sharp but I've found it no sharper than my Tamron 24-70 G2. The biggest problem I have with this lense is the obvious and frequent chromatic aberration in sunny environments. Lots of pink highlights off of bright surfaces. That said, it's still a decent lense for the money, and I find focusing to be fast enough in most situations. It's also great for a walk around lense, so much easier to just go out and shoot with then heavy zooms like my G2.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
nice lens but for what it does is too expensive.
its a nice lens very light because is made of plastic , fast lens 1.8 nice aperture but too slow for focusing , i purchased this lens because the price , i do not recommend this lens for people likes to have prime lenses , this lens makes noise too much noise when is focusing . this lens its real cost should be $150 or $175 this lens should be a kit lens not prime lens , but after all you can take good picture is sharp and it does it job very slow and noisy but works . this lens is for common people not for PROs.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Ok for the money
This lens feels like a toy. It is small and lite, made of cheap plastic. The image quality is good considering the low price. It's sharp and it produces a nice bokeh, but It suffers from heavy chromatic aberrations. Auto Focus is SUPER SLOW. It's annoying to shoot with. If you have a camera with an APS-C sensor, look at the 50mm f/1.8 OSS as it's just as sharp, has nice bokeh with much less CA, much faster AF, and it has optical stabilization- necessary since Sony APS-C cameras don't have in-body stabilization.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
One major drawback, otherwise a decent do-it-all lens.
The one major issue with this lens is super slow and noisy autofocusing. It feels like 1980s AF technology. Even the 28-70mm kit lens focuses better and quieter than this lens. With that said, if you can get over the noisy and slow AF, this lens will produce amazing images for you. The bokeh is decent and the F1.8 aperture works great in low light situations. It's great for portraits (of non fast moving subjects) Eye-AF works on this lens but is otherwise slow to find the eye or the face and hunts sometimes.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
sharp but slower than sel 50mm 1.8
i just bought it this morning, i am impressed by its sharpness when i took some photos using my sony a7 mark1. But one thing i noticed is that autofocus. It goes back and forth before it locks its focus to the subject. So i feel like i am using canon 50mm 1.8 stm with an adapter. It is the same experience when i used this lens. I feel a bit disappointed because i swapped my sel 50mm 1.8 oss, to get this lens but it seemed that i made a mistake of doing so beccause the cropped version is a better focuser. :((((
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Great lens for the price
Photography is my hobby and there is lot to learn. Having this light weight and easy to control lens, makes my learning process easier. So far I have used this lens to cover sweet 16th birthday party and photographs of the birthday girl and other portraits with lights in the background came out amazing. I also used Sony flash with this lens for some very low light photos. So far my comfortable with this lens. It is bit noisy while trying to focus but for this price and Aperture, who cares.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Excellent Lens
This lens is sharp, and renders a nice color. The auto focus may not be fast in darkness, but it is acceptable. It focuses perfectly when there is a plenty of light. Surprisingly, I found that the focus is always spot on. I guarantee the auto focus is much better than you use an adapter with Canon lenses. However, I think the price is still expensive - maybe it is a Sony lens. Canon can make a 50 mm. F 1.8 STM at lower than $200, Sony should have done too. Anyway, it is worth your money.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Focus is an Issue
I like the size and functionality of the lens, BUT focus is an issue. With the lens attached and the camera on, the lens keeps moving, searching for focus. I consulted B and H techs and they said that is a characteristic of this lens and not a defect. Once I select a focus point and depress the shutter release, the lens finds focus and stops searching. And the resulting photo is sharp. Except for the searching issue, the lens is working well for me, and is quite light and compact.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
great optical quality for the price
I had a chance to compare this side-by-side w/the 55mm f1.8 zeiss on the same A7iii camera. If you are a still shooter, there's pretty much no real-world difference in optical quality. AF is noisy and maybe not quite as fast as the zeiss, but it's definitely plenty fast for most use cases in all but the lowest of light. With lock-on AF or eye-AF, I had no issues w/tracking a quickly moving subject. If you're a video shooter, you may want to stay away because of the noisy AF.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
The "Shifty" 50
This is by far the worst focusing noisiest lens I own. All the rest are GM... but 50 isn't my fav focal length so couldn't justify the 55mm 1.8 or the 50mm 1.4. The good It does what is advertised creates artsy images with that great full frame F1.8 Depth of field. So if you are looking something light weight lens that you don't need lightning fast focus and don't mind the noise or just want to MF its worth a look. If you want the sharpest image possible get the 55mm 1.8.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Bang for the Buck
Great quality photo's for a great price. AF does make noise, but not so bad. Think SAM lens for Sony alpha type noise. Focus is faster than some would have you think as well. I am using the a7r3 and this lens is not bad to focus at all. No its not a $1000 zeiss, but the image quality you get from this compared to the zeiss would not justify paying 3x more. Its light and made of plastic. Big deal. It feels sturdy and the focus ring feels well damped. Not a bad lens at all.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
Better than I expected
I bought it because I wanted a fast lens and for a Sony full-frame e-mount lens it was very affordable and no big loss if it didn't turn out. I have been so used to heavy zoom lenses that this very lightweight lens was a very nice change. The camera feels really nice in the hand and is very easy to carry. It feels great to carry the camera around with this lens. I tested it for night photography and it delivered great handheld shots at night and lights didn't flare out.
Reviewed on B&H Photo Video
