YONGNUO YN EF 50mm f/1.8 AF Lens YN50 Aperture Auto Focus for Nikon Cameras as AF-S 50mm 1.8G with EACHSHOT Cleaning Cloth

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I shoot a Nikon D5300 a DX camera with a cropped sensor. Not a fan of zooms. Never was. My main glass for the D5300 is the Nikon 35 1,8. This is a "nifty fifty" on FX, 70mm on a crop.I have a rarely-used Rokenon 85 f 1.4 for portraits. Dreamy, great bokeh, but large, heavy, and manual focus. Its 130ish focal length requires a lot of space. Ive been tempred to get the Nikon 50mm but couldnt justify the cost for an occasional use portrait lens for an amateur. Also, 50mm is a 70mm on a crop, kimda an odd focal length. Too short for traditional portrait, too long for general use. However, less than $70 for an F mount autofocus prime? Sure. Why not? I shot for a day, and here are my thoughts. Its not bad, worth the money. If you shoot primes on FX and are a 50mm shooter, and thats your main lens, spring for the Nikon. Its still a bargain and a great 50. It is visibly sharper at wider apertures and contrastier (evident on several comprisons Ive seen on the web). The Nikon contans an expensive aspherical element, a more sophisticated optical formulation, a quieter silent wave motor; its just a better lens all the way round. It doesnt make sense to spring for an FX Nikon and buy cheap glass. And Nikon charges a fair price for it. That said, the Yongnuo is certainly good enough to be your main FX prime. For an inexpensive ancillary occasional use portrait prime on a DX camera, however, I was impressed with the Yongnuo. Its a bit soft wide open, which is better for portraiture, actually. It sharpens up fine stopped down a couple stops. I encountered no issues with autofocus hunting in ambient light, no issues with the camera not recognizing the lens. It renders pleasing bokeh. The oddball 70mm focal length I found quite suitable for environmental candids in ambient light. Build quality is surprisingly good with gold plated contacts, 7 bladed aperture, and metal gasket. About as good as other consumer grade primes. Even has a distance scale (yay!). Im satisfied with this purchase. It might not be a world beater but consider it an excellent value for its intended purpose on a DX Nikon. For FX, however, Id recommend getting the Nikon 50. EDIT: The more Ive used this lens, the more I like it. You simply cant beat it for the price. Ive encountered no issues with its autofocus, it renders pleading images. Solid lens. Its almost a shocking value.

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The unboxing; well i debated making this purchase because of all the YouTube reviews on the Canon version: zoom issues, noisy autofocus motor and more. But i own a Nikon d3400, i must have received a new version because mine is as QUIET AS A CHURCH MOUSE, AF works like a charm on view finder and live view. Ill make my official review in a few days with pics. Only wish they made the 85mm for Nikon.... UPDATE...... So after my unboxing I was able to take this lens out for a little test drive; As stated before helens seems to be just as quiet when focusing as mo Nikon 35mm 1.8g. I havent found the so called SWEET SPOT on focusing but I can say that the lens is pretty sharp. I did have a moonier issue with focusing in LIVE VIEW but I fix that by turning tracking off and then back on. The d3400 isnt really that good at tracking so its no big deal. So here are a few images from over the weekend. I havent done any LENS CORRECTIONS with these images.

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Ill start this review with my experience, and why it should matter to you. Over shot 34 years, learned on film/manual focus lenses. Ive done pro work off and on. So theres that. Im not new to gear at a)l. This lens has to be one of the best deals Ive come across. So to compare (in the same ballpark), you have the Nikon 50 1.8D for around $135-$150 new. This is Nikons (older model) 1.8. Or, you could go with the 1.8G for around $250-$300 new. Both are good lenses. They are sharp, render well, have very nice shallow depth of field at lower apetures, and focus quickly. The D uses screw drive focus motor from your camera body. The G uses an ultrasonic wave motor built into the lens (gonna need this lens if you have a cheaper body. Look it up to check.) AND this is assuming you completely ignore the rest of what I have to say. For $68, we are now talking about the Yonguo. Same f1.8 apeture. Same focal length. Ive used this lens quite a bit in the last few days, and Im very impressed with it overall. Ive told you about the Nikons--both perform well. Both great lenses. In terms of image quality, youd be really hard pressed to tell the difference between the two. Knowing what I know, Id pick the D if it was my only choice. But it isnt, so. .. Back to the Yonguo. For much less, you get: Excellent sharpness. Just a hair less than either Nikon. Unless youre magnified 400%, you wont see it. Really nice shallow depth of field. Id say as good as the Nikons. Differences youll likely notice: A.) Autofocus. Good enough for most purposes, but not instant like the Nikons. Works great in bright/average light. Hunts a bit in low light. Not a deal breaker for me. ALSO--Found this at the end, almost forgot to mention it--this lens has a built in autofocus motor. So it will work with your cheaper Nikon body. (3000, 5000, 7000 series) B.) Color Saturation. If youre like any other serious photographer in the world now, you post process everything. That being said, the color saturation is a tad light. Im not saying non-existant, just a little less. Easily corrected, sometimes even desireable. C.) Lens flare. This lens does not give you pretty stars from the sun stopped down! It gives a bit of a haze. Dont confuse this with the beautiful bokeh bubbles you get at night/low light! (Those look fantastic.) Likely not a great coating. But what do you want from a lens that costs $68? I have (many) filters that cost more than this lens!! Summary: In this price range, Ive detailed your three choices. If you have the money, the 1.8G is a fine lens. Fast, quiet, makes beautiful images. The 1.8D gives nearly the same image quality, a little louder, and you must have a body with an AF motor. The Yonguo produces awesome images for situations youll encounter. (And Im speaking in terms of new/average/non professional shooters.). If you get to the point where super fast focus (like professional sports speed), or fine art color saturation are an issue, sell it... take the $20 hit and go buy the 50mm 1.4 Sigma Art series for $799. Otherwise, buy it with confidence!! This thing rocks.

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This lens works beautifully on my Nikon D3400 while Im learning about photography. It was a great price that fit into my "I will not spend more than $125.00 on a lens YET." rule. It is lightweight, easy to use, and as I compare some pictures I take with it to some "professional" shots I see in magazines and online, it seems to fit right in. Im sure people say its not a high end lens, but if the pictures are good, Im not sure why that matters. I would buy more Yongnuo lenses, in fact I have a few of their products in my wish list:) Remember, my photo examples are from a person LEARNING how to even turn the knob on the camera from auto to manual, so they arent professional style or anything, but I think you can see the qualities that a 50mm lens is supposed to give. The first photo is just a few toys plunked in the sunlight on a wooden surface. I was about 3.5 feet away and focused on the poor little Fisher Price girl who has lost her hair in the 50 years Ive had her:) The second photo is Louise Belcher, who normally lives in the kitchen window with her siblings and a whole bunch of Funco Zombies...one of whom is chasing her in the photo:) I didnt edit any of these photos, by the way, except to crop. This little zombie guy just was really distorted and his "bokeh" seems to fit his undead lifestyle:) The third picture is some seedlings in front of an open window, probably less than 2 feet away. The fourth picture shows an emerging quirk of my photography experience....I really like taking pictures of fire hydrants! In this one I got a nice blurry shot of my car in the background while out at the local nature center. I just held the camera down at the at level without looking at the view finder and snapped a few shots from about 4 feet away....and got lucky:) Dont discount this lens because its on the cheaper end. Any artist or creative person who blames their tools for the quality of their art or end results...well, maybe its not the tool. Have fun, take pictures of the world!

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This is a surprisingly good lens. I bought it to take indoor photos of shelter pets where the lighting is poor but I didnt want to use a flash. The auto focus locks on surprisingly fast even wide open in low light with my D750. I was expecting it to do a bit of hunting especially since Im shooting wiggly subjects. Its decently sharp although I wouldnt use it for a fine art photo but it does a nice job of capturing hair and whiskers.The minimum focus distance is small enough that I can reach out and position or pet and animal without having to move back a bit to focus.

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This review will have no photography lingo. Im definitely an amateur and just want to be able to take beautiful clear shots and wanted a lens that would do well in lower light and create that pretty blurry background. This does the job! Its kind of rough attaching to the camera compared to my Nikon brand lenses that came with my camera originally but at this price I dont mind. It attaches fine and isnt difficult to use at all. I immediately tried it out on a vase of faux florals in my foyer without turning on any lights, using only the daylight in the middle of an overcast day. The photos were beautiful and bright. It looked better than it did in person. I cant wait to use this to take pictures of my 9 month old for the rest of her milestones and our next baby on the way! It will save me a ton in professional pictures. Highly recommend to anyone thats not a total photography guru. I wasnt sure if I would regret not getting a 1.4 instead of a 1.8 but this does everything I was hoping it would. Very happy!

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I was skeptical about buying an off-brand, but I now swear by this lens and its hardly ever off my camera! Its excellent! And half the price of a Nikkor! The bokeh this thing puts out at 1.8 is just ridiculous. Amazing clarity. Auto focus is quick, perfect, and quiet. If youre like me and skeptical, and thinking about spending twice as much on the Nikon, this is absolutely the way to go. Best bang for my buck ever.

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This little lens is a workhorse. Love the low the 1.8 F# for flowers that make the background drift away. Worth the $

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The first thing I noticed is that the autofocus doesnt work. I could take pictures with it in manual mode but if I switched it to auto it would just whir constantly like it was trying and failing to focus. Figured "oh well I can ignore that". Kept trying and failing to take decent photos in anything except direct sunlight. Chalked it up to user error because I was rusty using a DSLR. Set it to manual with the aperture on 1.8, ISO on 3200... Photo was still so dark I couldnt see anything. Looked at the lens and realized that the aperture was not open! It was not moving at all in response to me adjusting the aperture through the camera. My other lens is working just fine. Going to try to return this. I threw out the box when I got the package so I dont know if Ill be able to return it but.... Fingers crossed. Update: Decided to order a replacement since everyone elses reviews seemed so good. Figured I just got unlucky with a defective item. Replacement shipped to my mom and little sisters house instead of mine- I dont recall picking this option. It just chose the lady address I used instead of sending the replacement to the same location as the original. It reported as "Delivered- handed off directly" so I called my mom to ask if my package arrived and she had no clue what I was talking about! And neither did my sister! NO package arrived, but Amazon reported it as being handed off! To who??? I cant order another replacement. So now I am out $60 and have to pay to send back a broken lens, did not receive my replacement.

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Honestly for the price youre not gonna do much better. I was recently putting together a kit for traveling that needed to be both cheap and versatile (traveling in a sketchy area, I didnt want one of my good cameras to get stolen or damaged). I ended up pairing a used D3200 body with this little nifty fifty. Great pairing, great results. I also got an older used 55-200mm kit, and an Amazon Basics flash and had a good, versatile walking around kit for just around $200 even. I was hesitant about a Yongnuo lens, though I have other products by that and theyre pretty decent. Was really surprised at the quality. The focusing is kinda slow and the edges are a bit soft, but it does the job. Great for street photography. Definitely worth the price.

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