Sony 50mm f/1.8 Full-Frame E-Mount Prime Lens – Ideal for Portraits, Bokeh, and Everyday Shooting

I've been a Pro Photographer for 40 years and recently transitioned to Sony from Nikon. I usually buy a cheap 50mm as standard but hesitated with this model after seeing the initial reviews. I purchased a Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art (too bulky/heavy), CZ 55mm 1.8 (Nervous Bokeh) and Samyang 50mm 1.4 (Terrible AF Performance) but wasn't happy with any of them so returned them. This wee lens was on a deal of the day offer recently so I thought I'd take a punt and buy one and try it. It was one of the best decisions I've made as this lens is brilliant value for money for £145.00. The lens came supplied with firmware version 3.0.VERDICTExceptionally Sharp, and particularly so at centreClean Bokeh, with exceptionally smooth focus transition and smooth overall renderingLow Chromatic AberrationLight weight and compact sizeThe AF is a tad slow to acquire focus on AFS but is pretty good on AFCThe focusing although somewhat noisy, does not hunt or misfocus at all on any of my bodies.

The Sony 50mm f/1.8 is an excellent choice for those looking for a quality prime lens with beautiful bokeh and solid sharpness at an affordable price. Lightweight and compact, it’s perfect for everyday shooting and travel.Image quality impresses with natural color reproduction and smooth, pleasing background blur at f/1.8 — portraits look vibrant and three-dimensional. Sharpness in the center is very good, and stopping down to f/2.8–f/4 improves it across the entire frame.Autofocus is quiet and fast enough for most situations, though it can hunt slightly in low light. The body is made of plastic, but the build quality is solid with no noticeable play.For beginner photographers or anyone wanting a lightweight portrait lens for Sony mirrorless cameras, it offers excellent value for money.

The media could not be loaded. Firstly, the build quality of the lens is quite good. It generally looks quite nice, and looks much much better than most canon lenses, especially their 50mm II. The metal casing of the lens feels quite plasticy and the focus ring feels more like plastic than rubber, but it's much higher quality than canons rival 50mm.When shooting at F8, the optics on this lens are amazing! You get a very crisp and very nice image, however, this changes as you go lower. The main draw of this lens is that it is fast, with it's aperture being F1.8 at its widest. Whilst images which are shot at this are fairly sharp, the main problem is the chromatic abberation. It can be extremely noticeable, but is usually able to be hidden using the removal tool in Lightroom. This hasn't majorly impacted me, but I should've expected it from such a cheap lens. The autofocus is also very loud...Overall, I think this is a great lens, especially at its price point, but only giving it four stars, as the chromatic abberation is the worst which I have ever seen on any of my lenses.

Ignore any reviews pre firmware v3 (or v2), this lens has been transformed.Its not as fast to focus as the Zeiss 55mm but its perfectly suited to day to day shooting and the optics are punching well above its weight price wise.I have found its most responsive in AFC but still good in AFS, ergonomics are excellent (better than the 55), weight is perfect and the focus motor is not as loud as reviews suggest, not noticeable at all really once you get going (unless you have some random OCD!!)The lens has character no doubt about that, images have a great quality especially paired with Sony's fine sensors.If money were no object I would pick the Zeiss 55mm but money is absolutely a factor for me so this is a great surprise to find the lens is nowhere near as bad as I expected.So in summary its got its limitations so don't expect to be blown away but for shooting this lens day to day you can't go wrong IMO, its a little beaut!

Very light lens, and it's doing its work great for both video and photos.

Very good first prime lensNot very good autofocus, solution: learn how to use M modeNoisy for video, solution: invest in external microphone.Not weatherproofed, solution: well, I guess there’s no solution but it’s only 165 new and 125 used so if it fails just buy another one, next better thing is 55mm 1,8 but it’s cost like 650 is it worth investment? Not for me, I’m not making money on photographyIve watched over and over YouTube reviews about this lens, 90 % of negative feedback, but then I thought why there are so many happy people on Amazon review, so I gave it a go and was pleasantly surprised, very good picture quality in low light conditions, very sharp, light, not in your face lens, will suits occasional photographer like me. Bare in mind I don’t use autofocus and shoot in M mode. Video, yes I agree autofocus is a bit slow and noisy