I just got a hold of one of these lenses, after reading very favourable reviews and recommendations from some friends.

I've got it attached to my Nikon D40x but I'm having trouble getting good shots out of it. The focus seems to be slightly off a lot of the time, and most of my shots come out dark, grainy, and fuzzy. When using it in AF mode it seems to focus fine in the viewfinder but the shot comes out out of focus when I take it. Even in MF mode it doesn't seem to focus very well. The viewfinder and the final shot don't seem to have the same DOF so what I thought was in focus is often way out.

So far a lot of my test shots were taken in pretty low light in a restaurant and taken across a table so the subjects were a maximum of 2m away. I understand that shooting with the aperture wide open makes focussing difficult due to the extremely narrow DOF. I managed to improve things a little by putting it in full manual mode and tweaking the shutter and aperture but I'm still having difficulty getting decent shots. I got the lens partly for taking low light portraits at parties etc so its a bit disappointing that its so difficult getting it right.

Is using a fast 50mm in low light supposed to be this difficult ? Is this a learning curve thing ? Do I simply have to learn how to use the lens properly or is it possible that there is something wrong with my lens ? Am I expecting too much of the lens for it to be able to perform well in dim light ?

Cheers.