NikonAF-S FX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G Lens with Auto Focus for Nikon DSLR Cameras

Super sharp images with beautiful bokeh. Works perfectly with my Nikon D5100. Great for portraits and low-light.

This more budget minded lens from Nikon is a must own for anyone with a full frame Nikon. For crop sensor owners, maybe the 35mm f/1.8 full frame is a better than the 50mm FF. I look back on the many years I shot with a 50mm on a crop sensor camera. Many years ago, when full frame cameras started at 3,000 US dollars, and I didn't make money doing this, a full frame camera just wasn't an option. My crop sensor camera had a 50mm attached most of the time. Looking back it was a little like looking at the world through a straw. With what amounted to a 75mm lens in FF terms, I missed a lot of shots.Moving on, a 50mm is so much more useful on a FF camera. This lens is only slightly soft, maybe a little ghost-y if you shoot wide open in certain conditions. I work in the napa valley and shoot lots of events. I shoot with two bodies and a 28mm on one body at all times, the other will sport this 50mm most of the time. I shoot at f2 about 90 percent of the time. I will only stop down a bit if three or four people want a quick group shot. At f2 I never see any softness or other issues as long as the camera nails the focus.Distortion is almost non existent. There is some vignetting at large apertures, but it's not that strong, I rarely correct for it in lightroom. The focus is quick, and even in low light it rarely causes the camera to hunt. The out of focus areas are pleasing in most cases, but this lens isn't known for having bokeh that will make you drool. My only issue here is that if you shoot nearly wide open up close like a candle, wine bottle or such, the way the lens renders in focus to out of focus areas is very abrupt, and in some cases you can see a hard line where it happens. I've had to dump all my close up shots when I first started using this lens. Now I'm more aware of it and I will use another lens or move back just a touch. This lens is very good at dealing with flare and with strong light or sunlight.There are other cons that don't affect performance today, but they are little things that bother me. It bugs me that for years Nikon has moved away from optics made in Japan, and moved toward China. Also there are no high end metal body, made in Japan lenses any more. How will this lens perform in 10 or 15 years? Nobody knows. 20-30 year old made in Japan Nikon lenses are still working today, I'm not sure things will be the same for these plastic, Chinese made lenses. For a low cost lens maybe 10 years is enough, but some of these plastic Chinese made Nikon lenses are over 2,000 US dollars... something to think about.Another odd thing about this lens, the first time you pick it up, you'd swear some glass was missing. It feels hollow and just too light. Sure it's nice, for long shooting days, but it does make it feel cheap. I've owned this lens for about 18 months, purchased at BestBuy for 229 US dollars. For that amount of money, it's a fantastic deal.How does it compare to the current 50mm f/1.4? I rented the 1.4 and bottom line for me, the 1.4 isn't an upgrade. If anything it's a step down. The auto focus is more accurate with the f/1.8. Also, the optics and coatings seem better on the 1.8, the 1.4 just doesn't seem as good with flare and ghosting wide open or nearly so. I will look at the 50mm 1.4 only if Nikon updates it, I wouldn't even get the 1.4 if it were cheaper, I just don't trust it the way I trust the 1.8.I'm attaching one photo taken with this lens, it's my sister with my three nephews on a sunset walk Calistoga California December 2015.

Item as described in excellent condition, it is a great lens to add to my collection of lens, a back to basic lens when a telephoto is not needed but you want to get a great portrait picture of someone, autofocus works great.

Perfect

--UPDATED REVIEW--After a good deal of time using the 50mm f/1.4D, I decided that I wanted to pick up a quieter auto-focus lens so I decided to give the 50mm f/1.8G another shot. I'm pleased to say that the experience has been much better this time around.On my D810 and D850, it's still not wicked sharp wide open, but few lenses are on those camera. Once I stop down to around f/2.8 or so, it actually gets surprisingly sharp for such a cheap lens. I won't get into color rendition because it seems rather pointless given how much the colors get changed anyway during post-processing. Overall, I find the rendition of the lens to be rather clinical, which is to say that it's seems to focus more on accurately recording the scene in sharp detail rather than imparting "character" as some other lenses tend to do. I find this to be a good thing in a 50mm since the focal length itself tends to be one that most photographers would consider to be the "normal" focal length.Overall, this lens has been a joy to use this second time around which makes me wonder what was going on with that first copy. Maybe it got knocked around during shipping? I don't know. Either way, after experiencing what this lens is capable of offering, I felt compelled to come and update this review because it really is a great lens for the beginner and enthusiast alike that's offered a very reasonable price.-- OLD REVIEW --Given all of the positive reviews, I probably just got a bad copy, but the lens was just unacceptably soft for me which I didn't expect since it flies in the face of most of the reviews I've read about this. As far as I could tell, it wasn't a front or back-focusing issue as micro-adjustments didn't seem to help at all and in order to get my copy as sharp as I wanted, I had to stop it down to f5.6, which just completely defeats the purpose.Ended up returning it and trying out a 50mm 1.4D which I just decided to stick with. I know I could have exchanged it and it probably would have been fine, but the whole experience just left a bad taste in my mouth.Aside from my particular issues, I can definitely say that the lens itself felt built pretty well for the price. A lot of people like to cry about how they don't make them like they used to—which usually just means that they don't make them out of metal anymore—but plastics have come a long way over the years and definitely have plenty of benefits. Most of the people that make this complaint just miss that hefty feeling, which is more of an argument of personal preference rather than an argument of the objective merits of the materials used. All materials have their pros and cons, but the materials used to construct this lens seemed more than durable enough while having the benefit of being lightweight.The autofocus responded quickly and crisply without much hunting at all.All in all, given the low cost of the lens, it's worth at least trying out. You'll probably have better luck than me.

Packaged as if it was new but wondering why my pictures don't have any definition? Manual doesn't seem to work well but auto mode started focusing just fine after working with it for a day. I will be keeping it after all! Maybe it just needed to be used and "loosen" up? Never had a lens from Nikon with that issue.