Sony NEX-7 with Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS

Here’s an amazing Close up review of the Sony NEX-7 with Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS. This was written by our Editor-in-Chef Nate. He compared auto focus close up and manual focus override.

I had the opportunity to test the Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS lens on the Sony NEX-7. This Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS lens is about 75mm in the 35mm equivalent on the Sony NEX-7 with the 1.5 crop factor. That makes this lens a medium telephoto, great for portraits, Close Ups, medium product shots, and some sports, among other subjects. For this phase of the review I wanted to focus on Close Ups. I wanted to use real world images and not take pictures of brick walls and test charts. I wanted to see how easy the lens autofocuses Close Up, how the manual focus override works in real world use, how does the lens sharpness perform in “real life” shots, and what’s the “feel” of the out-of-focus areas (Bokeh).

Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS autofocus Close Up
The autofocus speed of the Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS lens is pretty snappy. It is “silent” and with lots of light it snaps right into focus. I did an unscientific focus speed test against my wife’s Canon s95. I call it the “tip of the finger speed test”. Up against the Canon s95, the Sony NEX-7 with the Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS lens wins, but not by a landslide. The Sony NEX-7 with Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS has an interesting phenomenon happen with you focus Close Up. I’ve experienced this with other Sony cameras before in which the lens focuses past the subject, then fore of the subject, then snaps into focus. I call it “Hunting Focus”. It does it fairly quickly and after you get used to it happening you soon forget that it even was an issue in the first place. It doesn’t happen every time. When you focus on a “flat” scene it rarely does but when you have a busy scene that has multiple possible focusing points it happens almost every time. It seems like the camera is deciding which focusing point it wants to choose and that’s whats causing the delay. From the images below: in the image of the lizard the focus was very snappy and I was able to catch the little guy sharp as he was running by. (image relatively flat) In the two images of the leaves, with the water drops on it, the phenomenon of “hunting focus” happened on almost every shot.

For more test shots and detailed reviews click here.

Sample Shots

Fast Focus with the Sony NEX-7 with Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS

Grasshopper F2.8 using Sony NEX-7 with Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS

Grasshopper F2.8 using Sony NEX-7 with Sony 50mm F1.8 OSS