This fantastic lens and should be in every photographers bag. The sharpness wide-open is stellar. Excellent AF, Eye AF, and IQ. It's light and small and doesn't take up much room. I mainly use it for portraits and shallow DOF video with a gimbal. The attached photo was taken in Newport, OR at the barking Sea Lion docks on a gloomy overcast day (1/1250th at f/1.8). It's a shame that BB is still compressing the images so you can't see the full details. Perhaps one day they will implement a new viewer that actually lets you view the images as uploaded. This one was uploaded well below the 2MB guidelines, but still crushed into oblivion. I'm a firm believer that if you want to have customers review items (especially camera gear and lenses), you don't want to destroy the images that temp your customers into purchasing said items. That said, you can view proper res images from this lens at a myriad of other true photo sites. Lastly, I applaud BB, as they seem to get better and more professional gear in stores each year at very competitive pricing. Having these items available in-store is also huge and lets you see/hold/try before you buy... Finally, I couldn't be happier with this lens. Buy one now!

Great prime lens for street photography, food, people and any daily use. Pro: Sharp, excellent pic quality Beautiful Bokeh Light weight Tiny size Con: N/A

I have tried the Sony 50mm, Minolta MD 55mm f1.8 and back in the day my Canon nifty-fifty. Among all the ones I tried this lens outperforms everyone else, of course its the Zeiss and much better build quality. Where it shines in comparison to other 55/50mm lenses is that the contrast is very good. Bokeh is better as well. I will update this review later with images after extensive testing.

I was debating whether to buy this or the Sony FE 50mm 1.8 ($200). But, decided to drop the cash for the Zeiss lens and am not regretting it. The quality of photos are amazing and the lens is virtually silent, which is great for videos! The build quality is what you expect. The focus ring is smooth as butter. This lens will be my everyday lens for now. I highly recommend this for all A7/A9 owners, although works awesome with the A6000 series too!

I use this lens for both portraits & and macro shooting. The bokeh is amazing due to the f1.8 and the images are crisp from end to end. This is easily the best investment I've made since purchasing my Sony Alpha mirrorless camera.