Sony - FE 50mm F1.8 Standard Lens (SEL50F18F)

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Works great with A7. For the price, you cant beat it. Before you whine about the performance, put the current firmware on both your camera and lens (as of this writing, that would be 3.20 and .2 respectively), and then go into the settings and enable Phase Detect. AF is fast up to F4, after that the camera needs more time to hunt. For someone like me coming from a Canon 40 2.8 STM w/Commlite adapter, this is not a big deal, and is still way faster than any adapted lens. Corners are soft and hazy wide-open. In any case, 99.9% of the time your audience is going to marvel at how blurred the background is, while the other .1% is measuring the bokeh balls with a caliper for uniformity. Who cares? Its a portrait lens, for crying out loud. Stop-down if it bothers you. Beyond F5.6, this lens is sharp as nails and produces landscape scenes with stunning detail. This lens is light-weight. I can see myself traveling with just this lens. Its a 50mm lens, it produces beautiful images on the A7, and most importantly, it doesnt cost half the price of the A7. Believe me, nobody is going to look at your image shot with this lens and say , "Aha! You didnt shoot this with the $900 Zeiss!".

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Incredible lens. Beautiful and sharp! This was my first buy getting the Sony a6000. Keep in mind that with an aps-c sensor this is pretty close to an 85mm. I do lots of portrait so it was perfect for me. Not so great in close tight corners such as indoor photos that are limited to space. Its extremely light and doesnt feel cheap, the materials are made of a hard plastic but has a great matte feel. You wont have to worry about finger prints, the focus ring is top notch, very smooth and fast auto focus as it is a native lens to Sony.

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For the price you really dont have another native lens option. As others have stated the auto-focus on this lens is probably the worst of any native FE mount lens. First it uses a DC motor, so lots of pulsing to focus. Also the motor is fairly audible so not the best choice in video. For the price the image quality is excellent. Bokeh is smooth and non distracting. The lens design is some what of a classic so it is more susceptible to flare than many modern lenses. I have actually found using this in continuous autofocus increases the usability of the focus greatly. For some reason single focus loves to hunt and give up in low contrast situations when the continuous does a much better job. Video auto focus is a lot better than you would expect, but I would say its critical that you have an external mic or you might pick up clicks from the DC motor. I recently received my A7III with Sonys newest focusing technology and the same issues remain, and the lens is at the latest firmware (3).

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I returned this lens, because the AF is actually as bad as everyone says it is. I compared it directly to my 30+ year old minolta 50mm 1.7 mounted on an LA-EA4 adapter on my A7ii camera. The Minolta focused faster indoors. That is ridiculous. This lens is an embarrassment for Sony. I wish they made something under $500 before stepping up to the Ziess. The 85mm 1.8 is a masterpiece and sells for $600, so Sony just needs to put that focusing tech into a 50. Meanwhile, if you are looking for a cheap prime, I would recommend the samyang 35mm 2.8. It is super small and only 85 grams, it focuses faster than this lens and is often on sale for about the same price. If you keep the subject centered and can crop, you wont get the same DOF, but with more responsive AF you will have more keepers when trying to keep up with moving subjects or lower light. Until Sony makes a better version of this lens under $500, I will stick with a pair of 35mm and 85mm FE lenses that can be acquired new, on sale, for about $820. If you need this focal length, the 55mm 1.8 is the only AF option. Otherwise, pick up an older fast manual focus nifty 50 and a cheap adapter, and you will probably have better results than this clunker of a 50mm.

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Great performance for a native lens for Sonys full frame E-mounts. I use this mostly for my portrait photography sessions with my models, friends and also promoting products if I dont need a macro lens for it. Pros: - Great price point for beginners portrait photography - Wide aperture for a good shallow depth at F/1.8 - Sharp quality and sustains details - Fast and native lens - AF helps a lot on this and its quick Cons: - Feels like high quality plastic and some metal

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I may exchange it or wait for a firmware update. Sharp throughout from f4 up, there is a lot of fringing in the corners from 1.8 to f4. I suspect that will get better as we get updates. I will update this once I know more. I am sure that the issues with the AF will get fixed but right now it is not working real well. I own or have owned 6 other Sony FE lenses, but got none on opening day.

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For the price, its got great image quality. Its small and feels decent in the hand and on the camera. Of course there are much better FE 50/55mm lenses for the a7ii, but their prices are much higher. Ive read complaints still about the price: yes, Canon and Nikon have even cheaper nifty fifties, but this is the cheapest FE lens and Id still call it a good value if you cant afford the better options. Now, the not so good. So plenty of professional reviews have covered this, the Auto Focus is s..l..o..w. It rakes focus back and forth quite a bit each time you activate the autofocus even if you are focusing on the same object. If you have pre-focus on, you will notice moving every couple seconds as well, which I found quite annoying. Also the sound is noticeable, this is a cheap AF motor and it shows.

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Ive shot some studio portraits with this lens and it works great - especially for under two hundred bones. Not as sharp as some pro lenses in the 55mm range but you can get some quality results.

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I bought this as a gift for my parents who have a Sony A7 II. The lens itself seem fine but the box was clearly opened despite being new. I purchased it from Focus Camera as a "new lens." It was definitely not new given the condition of the box. For the lens, I tested it against my Zeiss Loxia 50 (an excellent manual focus lens for the Sony FE mount) on a Sony A7R II and the Zeiss is unsurprisingly sharper with better colors/contrast but the difference was small at best - youd have to be a real pixel peeper like me to see a difference. The Zeiss is also 4x the cost of this lens without AF. Autofocus performance with the latest firmware updates is good but not great. It hunts but not that bad - biggest issue is that while hunting the loud AF noise can be annoying. If youre a casual photographer, this is perfectly serviceable. This lens is for someone who is a casual photographer or just dipping their toes into photography with a Sony A7 or A7 II. For more advanced users, I would recommend the Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8 or the Zeiss Loxia 50 if youre comfortable with manual focus. However, this lens is still a great bang for the buck.

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For the price you pay do not expect amazing things. This lens struggles in low light to get focus and is considerably louder than most lenses. Video is low light will result in the lens wandering at times to find a focal point as you move. For toy or model figure shooting this works well in a controlled and well lit environment but you cannot get too close as the focal distance leaves a little to be desired. I am ordering a couple extension adapters to compensate for that focal distance. For portraits, this lens does a pretty good job for people on a budget. Expect good clean images at around f3.5-4 and if you are using full frame you get pretty good bokeh. The bokeh may not be as smooth as some would like however. I would shoot lights in low light and could clearly make out the edges in the bokeh balls where the blades form the aperture were picked up. Overall a good lens but not great. You get what you pay for. Shooting with Sony A7

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