I just received my new 50mm f/1.8 Mid-Range Prime Lens for my Sony NEX-7 and here's my early review. Wow! It is stunning that it's this good for under $300. It's even more impressive because it's just as outstanding as the more expensive 50mm Prime I'd been using before. And I've heard from fellow photographers that even it rivals the $4,000 Leica Summilux 50mm f/1.4.

The only reasons I kept my Canon D-Mark II camera for as long as I did was (a) I loved that camera (b) the 50mm Prime lens I had to go with it was just a gorgeous piece of glass. But I've moved onto to different cameras with more advanced lenses. The new Sony lens is a perfect substitute. And there's simply no reason to be using an older 50mm lens other than cost at this point.

I got this lens to shoot portraits, plain and simple. I wanted a crisp shot with shallow depth of field and this lens gives you that creamy Bokeh that brings out the subject beautifully. The reason for this is because of the large aperture of the lens and what Sony calls its 'circular aperture design'. Who cares what they call it, it takes amazing pictures.

It's also really light and compact. My older Canon 50mm Prime could be used as a paper weight it was heavy.

I'm going to add more to this post over the next few months as I spend more and more time with it. In the meantime please enjoy a few of these photos that were shot with the new Sony 50mm lens.

Every month my wife has me set-up for a photo shoot of our newborn baby girl. I used to laugh at the idea. Really? We're going to shoot every month's birthday? But I got over that pretty soon when I realized she wasn't kidding.

I also began to see this as an opportunity to improve my portrait photography skills. Yesterday I shot a new round of photos. I started out using my Nikon D800 but quickly switched back to my older Canon D Mark II with a 50 prime lens. That lens is stunning and I simply don't have an equivalent lens for the D800. I dropped the depth of field to a razor thin margin so that I would get her eyes as sharp as possible while softening out the rest of her face. I did that on a few photos and others I opened up a deeper depth of field.

Sony 50mm f/1.8 Prime Lens Review

Photo of the Day: My Baby Girl at 7-Months Old