FE 50 f1.8 sucks. Returning it and keeping my 55 f1.8

[Sr1racha]

I was really hoping that the new FE 50 f1.8 would be better, but have been really disappointed.

Focus accuracy is poor - this may partly be due to the slow AF, but I am consistently missing focus with it on my A7rii. First tested it on fast moving nephew and nieces, then brought it out for a second during a yoga portrait shoot this morning and quickly put it away after finding it wasn't nailing focus.

AF is the slowest of all of my native FE lenses, even after the lens firmware update (which did make a big difference, but it was very slow to begin with). Moving focus from points that are relatively close is pretty quick, but racking focus near and far takes quite a long time.

Sharpness wide open isn't bad (we are spoiled by the Zeiss lenses), but not great either. What's worse is horrible CA and it quickly loses contrast with direct sunlight on the elements.

After reading the comparison of performance of the new FE 50 f1.4 and holding it in hand, I'm returning the new FE 50mm and keeping the 55mm f1.8. It's just not worth losing the shot to save a few hundred bucks.

 

[ttan98]

I was really hoping that the new FE 50 f1.8 would be better, but have been really disappointed.

Focus accuracy is poor - this may partly be due to the slow AF, but I am consistently missing focus with it on my A7rii. First tested it on fast moving nephew and nieces, then brought it out for a second during a yoga portrait shoot this morning and quickly put it away after finding it wasn't nailing focus.

AF is the slowest of all of my native FE lenses, even after the lens firmware update (which did make a big difference, but it was very slow to begin with). Moving focus from points that are relatively close is pretty quick, but racking focus near and far takes quite a long time.

Sharpness wide open isn't bad (we are spoiled by the Zeiss lenses), but not great either. What's worse is horrible CA and it quickly loses contrast with direct sunlight on the elements.

After reading the comparison of performance of the new FE 50 f1.4 and holding it in hand, I'm returning the new FE 50mm and keeping the 55mm f1.8. It's just not worth losing the shot to save a few hundred bucks.

 

[wkingsie]

Fair enough, you didn't like the FE 50mm f1.8, but the FE 55mm f1.8 ain't perfect either.

I sold my 2 year old FE 55mm f1.8 a few weeks ago for $800 Australian, and replaced it with a brand new Canon EF 50mm f1.8 STM (to use on my Metabones IV adapter). The lens only cost me $128 Australian (delivered).

Why?

The Sony FE 55mm is a super sharp lens in the center, but like most lenses also has a few weaknesses:

It has high vignetting until f2.8:



Edge softness doesn't really improve when stopping down:



It has terrible "onion ring" bokeh:



It has terrible bokeh purple and green fringing/longitudinal chromatic aberration, that is prominent and noticeable until f4:



Here's the Canon 50mm f1.8 STM for a comparison:


Canon 50mm f1.8 STM

and it's way overpriced compared to its competitors:

$1400 Australian vs $130 Australian for the Canon, or $250 Australian for the Nikon equivalents.

I found that I mostly shoot this focal length at f2.8, and my $128 Au Canon 50mm f1.8 STM performs just as well at f2.8. It has a more pleasing bokeh (no aspherical element), and a lot less purple and green fringing/longitudinal chromatic aberration.

In essence, I have traded wide open sharpness for less chromatic aberration by moving to the Canon lens, with extra cash in my pocket.

Note: The above images were referenced from Photozone and Lenstip.

W

 

[k1ngkong]

It has terrible "onion ring" bokeh:

My only reason for not buying it...

--
Sony A7i, Rokinon 14mm, Sony FE 50mm 1.8, Zeiss Batis 85mm

 

[Sr1racha]

Fair enough, you didn't like the FE 50mm f1.8, but the FE 55mm f1.8 ain't perfect either.

I sold my 2 year old FE 55mm f1.8 a few weeks ago for $800 Australian, and replaced it with a brand new Canon EF 50mm f1.8 STM (to use on my Metabones IV adapter). The lens only cost me $128 Australian (delivered).

Why?

The Sony FE 55mm is a super sharp lens in the center, but like most lenses also has a few weaknesses..

I don't really care much about test charts as I get paid to shoot people, not test charts.

If they prove a defect that I notice in the real world, great, but I've never come across a copy of the 55mm that I didn't like (I've owned 3 and all of them were razor sharp wide open).

You can pick up a used 55mm f1.8 zeiss in the states for $600-650 easily on craigslist, and head to head against the new zeiss 50mm f1.4 FE, it's sharper wide open, and relatively small. Considering a good adapter is around $250-350 (I've tried the commlite/fotodiox and they're garbage) you're not saving much by going for an adapter lens.

If you're just shooting for fun the FE 50mm f1.8 is totally fine, but I pay my rent with my gear and the 55mm has never let me down. I thought I'd be ok with the new 50mm f1.8 until I brought it out for a second on a paid shoot and it proved to be not up to my standards as a professional tool.

The Zeiss 55mm and Batis 85mm are the two sharpest lenses I've ever used and they're extremely dependable. The 50mm f1.8 can't get anywhere close to the same level of performance, but you get what you pay for - not surprised that it's not very good. I was surprised that it was ok in terms of sharpness wide open, but it's not as sharp as the crop sony 35 f1.8 or 50 f1.8 wide open which is disappointed (I'd assumed they'd at least be on par with those lenses).

 

[Adam Palmer]

Anybody with an unused $600 should definitely pick up a used version of the 55mm. Don't think I've heard any complaints about that lens.

I've seen the new 50mm for $150 used. At that price it's closer to a used 50mm manual focus lens from the 80's. For people who only have 200 in their bank account you have to ask yourself-- slow autofocus or manual focus.

 

[ijustloveshooting]

Fair enough, you didn't like the FE 50mm f1.8, but the FE 55mm f1.8 ain't perfect either.

I sold my 2 year old FE 55mm f1.8 a few weeks ago for $800 Australian, and replaced it with a brand new Canon EF 50mm f1.8 STM (to use on my Metabones IV adapter). The lens only cost me $128 Australian (delivered).

Why?

The Sony FE 55mm is a super sharp lens in the center, but like most lenses also has a few weaknesses:

It has high vignetting until f2.8:



Edge softness doesn't really improve when stopping down:



It has terrible "onion ring" bokeh:



It has terrible bokeh purple and green fringing/longitudinal chromatic aberration, that is prominent and noticeable until f4:



Here's the Canon 50mm f1.8 STM for a comparison:


Canon 50mm f1.8 STM

and it's way overpriced compared to its competitors:

$1400 Australian vs $130 Australian for the Canon, or $250 Australian for the Nikon equivalents.

I found that I mostly shoot this focal length at f2.8, and my $128 Au Canon 50mm f1.8 STM performs just as well at f2.8. It has a more pleasing bokeh (no aspherical element), and a lot less purple and green fringing/longitudinal chromatic aberration.

In essence, I have traded wide open sharpness for less chromatic aberration by moving to the Canon lens, with extra cash in my pocket.

Note: The above images were referenced from Photozone and Lenstip.

W

I've this lens for more than a year and shot a lot of o photos including landscapes...corner sharpness is simply great with this lens...even wide open cor ers are full of details...at around F2 its razor sharp (corners) i think what you're showing is a dead sample...

I'll check other aspects you mentioned with my copy.(it does onion bokeh but in a few shots it's visible....and i agree with this price,it should be much better)

 

[holin]

Fair enough, you didn't like the FE 50mm f1.8, but the FE 55mm f1.8 ain't perfect either.

I sold my 2 year old FE 55mm f1.8 a few weeks ago for $800 Australian, and replaced it with a brand new Canon EF 50mm f1.8 STM (to use on my Metabones IV adapter). The lens only cost me $128 Australian (delivered).

Why?

The Sony FE 55mm is a super sharp lens in the center, but like most lenses also has a few weaknesses:

Edge softness doesn't really improve when stopping down:

I agree with your other points, but "softness", really? If the lens center reaches very high figures, doesn't mean the edges are in any way soft. Every lens is sharper in the center. Even the review from which the chart is from states: "The best results are achieved around the f/4-5.6 marks. Even the extreme corners are very good at these apertures."

 

[gefrorenezeit]

I can not comment on the FE 50 but on the FE Planar. I have shot many fifty ( among them both Canon 50L - the 1.2 and the 1.0 and the Leica Summilux) and take 80% of my pictures with a 50 mil lens and this planar is really spectacular! It's a beast and not cheap, but worth the heft and cost (IMHO of course).

Andy

 

[EthanP99]

I can not comment on the FE 50 but on the FE Planar. I have shot many fifty ( among them both Canon 50L - the 1.2 and the 1.0 and the Leica Summilux) and take 80% of my pictures with a 50 mil lens and this planar is really spectacular! It's a beast and not cheap, but worth the heft and cost (IMHO of course).

Andy

 

[Sr1racha]

Anybody with an unused $600 should definitely pick up a used version of the 55mm. Don't think I've heard any complaints about that lens.

I've seen the new 50mm for $150 used. At that price it's closer to a used 50mm manual focus lens from the 80's. For people who only have 200 in their bank account you have to ask yourself-- slow autofocus or manual focus.

 

[spacemn]

Fair enough, you didn't like the FE 50mm f1.8, but the FE 55mm f1.8 ain't perfect either.

I sold my 2 year old FE 55mm f1.8 a few weeks ago for $800 Australian, and replaced it with a brand new Canon EF 50mm f1.8 STM (to use on my Metabones IV adapter). The lens only cost me $128 Australian (delivered).

Why?

The Sony FE 55mm is a super sharp lens in the center, but like most lenses also has a few weaknesses:

It has high vignetting until f2.8:



Edge softness doesn't really improve when stopping down:



It has terrible "onion ring" bokeh:



It has terrible bokeh purple and green fringing/longitudinal chromatic aberration, that is prominent and noticeable until f4:



Here's the Canon 50mm f1.8 STM for a comparison:


Canon 50mm f1.8 STM

and it's way overpriced compared to its competitors:

$1400 Australian vs $130 Australian for the Canon, or $250 Australian for the Nikon equivalents.

I found that I mostly shoot this focal length at f2.8, and my $128 Au Canon 50mm f1.8 STM performs just as well at f2.8. It has a more pleasing bokeh (no aspherical element), and a lot less purple and green fringing/longitudinal chromatic aberration.

In essence, I have traded wide open sharpness for less chromatic aberration by moving to the Canon lens, with extra cash in my pocket.

Note: The above images were referenced from Photozone and Lenstip.

W

These sites are seriously misleading in my opinion when it comes to reviewing lenses. The bokeh test picture are not at all representative of how smooth or busy the bokeh of a lens is. Onion rings and roundness of specular highlights are just two out of many properties of bokeh.

Lenstip seem to have an agenda to bash Sony lenses when they review them.

Try bringing other review sites into the mix and you will see how incredible lens the FE 55 is. The build quality, sharpness and out of focus rendering is just in a differently class to these nifty fifties.







The DXOMark scores fares in-line with the findings of my own lens. Chromatic aberrations are well controlled and easily removed in post. The Canon 50 STM is quite exceptionel, but Planar designs which the Canon is are usually well corrected for chromatic aberrations, but struggles when it comes to out of focus rendering.



If you can show me a comparative portrait picture where the Canon 50 STM for example beats the FE 55 in bokeh smoothness and subject-isolation-3d-pop, then you have me converted

 

[SilvanBromide]

I can not comment on the FE 50 but on the FE Planar. I have shot many fifty ( among them both Canon 50L - the 1.2 and the 1.0 and the Leica Summilux) and take 80% of my pictures with a 50 mil lens and this planar is really spectacular! It's a beast and not cheap, but worth the heft and cost (IMHO of course).

Andy

 

[GASrUS]

I was really hoping that the new FE 50 f1.8 would be better, but have been really disappointed.

Focus accuracy is poor - this may partly be due to the slow AF, but I am consistently missing focus with it on my A7rii. First tested it on fast moving nephew and nieces, then brought it out for a second during a yoga portrait shoot this morning and quickly put it away after finding it wasn't nailing focus.

AF is the slowest of all of my native FE lenses, even after the lens firmware update (which did make a big difference, but it was very slow to begin with). Moving focus from points that are relatively close is pretty quick, but racking focus near and far takes quite a long time.

Sharpness wide open isn't bad (we are spoiled by the Zeiss lenses), but not great either. What's worse is horrible CA and it quickly loses contrast with direct sunlight on the elements.

After reading the comparison of performance of the new FE 50 f1.4 and holding it in hand, I'm returning the new FE 50mm and keeping the 55mm f1.8. It's just not worth losing the shot to save a few hundred bucks.

 

[Sr1racha]

I wrote about this lens earlier. In my view for my needs it does not suck. You do need to update both the lens firmware AND the body firmware.

Yeah the firmware update on the lens helped a lot (I'm running the latest body firmware already on my a7rii). Before the lens firmware update, it was pretty much unacceptable - the slowest focusing lens I've owned on E-mount. Even after the update though, racking between near and far takes almost a full second (and I have focus speed set to high on the body).

I think for a lot of people it's a perfectly acceptable lens, and I'd say it performs about as well as you'd expect for the price, especially in perfect conditions with fairly still subjects. But I just don't feel confident of this lens being able to perform in more challenging situations, and it's the softest lens in my bag right now. At first I thought the rendering was quaint in an old fashioned film lens way, but aside from its other faults, the last nail in the coffin for me was that it really struggles nailing focus in more challenging situations like a heavily backlit subject.

 

[El Chavo]

Fair enough, you didn't like the FE 50mm f1.8, but the FE 55mm f1.8 ain't perfect either.

I sold my 2 year old FE 55mm f1.8 a few weeks ago for $800 Australian, and replaced it with a brand new Canon EF 50mm f1.8 STM (to use on my Metabones IV adapter). The lens only cost me $128 Australian (delivered).

Why?

The Sony FE 55mm is a super sharp lens in the center, but like most lenses also has a few weaknesses..

I don't really care much about test charts as I get paid to shoot people, not test charts.

 

[wkingsie]

"These sites are seriously misleading in my opinion when it comes to reviewing lenses. The bokeh test picture are not at all representative of how smooth or busy the bokeh of a lens is. Onion rings and roundness of specular highlights are just two out of many properties of bokeh.

Lenstip seem to have an agenda to bash Sony lenses when they review them."

"The DXOMark scores fares in-line with the findings of my own lens. Chromatic aberrations are well controlled and easily removed in post. The Canon 50 STM is quite exceptionel, but Planar designs which the Canon is are usually well corrected for chromatic aberrations, but struggles when it comes to out of focus rendering.

If you can show me a comparative portrait picture where the Canon 50 STM for example beats the FE 55 in bokeh smoothness and subject-isolation-3d-pop, then you have me converted"

...

The bokeh onion rings are terrible. I can see them in a lot of my shots. They are distracting, and shouldn't exist on such an expensive lens. I don't see them in photos taken with my $128 Au Canon lens.

Lenstip have excellent reviews, and I don't see any bias or evidence of Sony lens bashing. Maybe you could enlighten us?

I do refer to DXO frequently, but do believe that the Vignetting score for the FE 55mm is too low (cooked RAW?). Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration is not well corrected on the FE 55mm, in fact it's extreme, and not easily corrected. There's so much green and purple fringing at wider apertures, it's a real pain to get rid of it.

The OOF rendering of the 50mm STM is excellent, smooth as butter with no onion rings in the specular highlights. It's a bargain performa at one tenth of the price of the Sony.

In answer to your "challenge", it's impossible to convert the opinion of someone without an open mind.

W

 

[ijustloveshooting]

"These sites are seriously misleading in my opinion when it comes to reviewing lenses. The bokeh test picture are not at all representative of how smooth or busy the bokeh of a lens is. Onion rings and roundness of specular highlights are just two out of many properties of bokeh.

Lenstip seem to have an agenda to bash Sony lenses when they review them."

"The DXOMark scores fares in-line with the findings of my own lens. Chromatic aberrations are well controlled and easily removed in post. The Canon 50 STM is quite exceptionel, but Planar designs which the Canon is are usually well corrected for chromatic aberrations, but struggles when it comes to out of focus rendering.

If you can show me a comparative portrait picture where the Canon 50 STM for example beats the FE 55 in bokeh smoothness and subject-isolation-3d-pop, then you have me converted"

...

The bokeh onion rings are terrible. I can see them in a lot of my shots. They are distracting, and shouldn't exist on such an expensive lens. I don't see them in photos taken with my $128 Au Canon lens.

Lenstip have excellent reviews, and I don't see any bias or evidence of Sony lens bashing. Maybe you could enlighten us?

I do refer to DXO frequently, but do believe that the Vignetting score for the FE 55mm is too low (cooked RAW?). Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration is not well corrected on the FE 55mm, in fact it's extreme, and not easily corrected. There's so much green and purple fringing at wider apertures, it's a real pain to get rid of it.

The OOF rendering of the 50mm STM is excellent, smooth as butter with no onion rings in the specular highlights. It's a bargain performa at one tenth of the price of the Sony.

In answer to your "challenge", it's impossible to convert the opinion of someone without an open mind.

W

vignetting on corners were never a problem for me with this lens...i shot many landscapes (raw) and vignetting (which i never like) never took my attention.it's disagree with lenstip except onion rings.

 

[OFremen]

While the 55 1.8 may not be perfect in all these chart tests...its the best lens I've used in this focal range. Anyone using Sony E mount cameras should have the 55 FE...its just too damn good to skip out on.

I also shoot with Canon and my 24-70 2.8 II and its very comparable if not sharper...before you say its a prime and primes are sharper...no...I've not seen the same when shooting with the canon 85mm 1.8 or 50mm 1.4 Neither of those were as good as the sony FE 55 or canon 24-78 2.8 II I rarely use them

 

[SilvanBromide]

Here's the Canon 50mm f1.8 STM for a comparison:


Canon 50mm f1.8 STM

In essence, I have traded wide open sharpness for less chromatic aberration by moving to the Canon lens, with extra cash in my pocket.

Ouch. In these shots, the Canon 50mm f1.8 is not rendering nicely at all and I'm surprised you're happy with the downgrade. CA aside, sharpness, contrast and colour definition are all weak compared to the FE 55. The "blacks" are smudgy dark grey, the "whites" are pallid light grey and the entire Canon 50 chart looks soft - even in the in-post thumbnails.

I guess I'm glad for you that you're happy with it, and feel you've saved yourself some money by trading down. Don't think I could bring myself to follow your lead on this, FWIW.

--
Former Canon, Nikon and Pentax user.
Online Gallery: https://500px.com/raycologon