I'm a 50mm prime user lol.
50mm is sufficient for Walkabout, vacation, street. With more than 2 stops brighter than a f/2.8 lens, taking pics at dusk is pretty manageable as well.
It's on my camera 90% of the time too.

Even without that, there are zooms which are far sharper than primes.
If any the lack of dof makes it feel "blur" rather than sharp. More so when it's mis-focused.
My 50mm wide open looks really soft compared to my zooms.

Of course, all lens do become sharper when you stop down by 1-2 stops.

There are zooms which are sharper than primes at wide open. Eg: 70-200 f/2.8 IS II or 24-70 f/2.8 II

Which 50mm primes I use ?
Canon 50mm f/1.8, Canon 50mm f/1.4, Sigma 50mm f/1.4 and Canon 50mm f/1.2.
No doubt that some are sharp enough wide open, especially the later 2. It's just that the thin DOF makes it seem less sharp, more so when you did not nail the focus right. AFAIK the canon 50mm f/1.0 is extremely soft too.

Of course, all this is not that important unless you are a pixel peeper. On a small screen like your camera LCD, all should appear tack sharp.
Since 50mm are mostly used as a "portrait" lens, sharpness isn't exactly the most important thing too.

Not to mention I'm comparing all of this based on wide open sharpness aka 50mm f/1.2 at f/1.2 against 70-200mm f/2.8 at f/2.8. Just want to debunk the myth that a prime is always sharper than a zoom.

This post has been edited by LegendLee: Feb 17 2013, 04:30 PM

Hmmm yes.
But it's quite pointless since you need to stop down. And unless you are printing a large print, the sharpness doesn't matter too.

Of course. You have to pay a premium price for primes that are sharp wide open. But even so, it's still usable.
It's more of the shallow dof that I'm worried off.
Sometimes the dof is less than 1cm. Move abit=GG

. In this case, I'm not referring to all primes, just some.
Some primes still have unbeatable image quality like 100mm macro, 85mm f/1.8, and 135 L.
It's just certain prime lens that can't match higher end zooms.

This post has been edited by LegendLee: Feb 25 2013, 07:26 PM

Bokeh is probably one of the last few considerations in my list. As long as its not ugly and distracting can d.
I always thought people get large aperture lens for the shallow depth of field and not bokeh lol.

If you rarely ever use it, then no point getting right ?
Even if you get a 14-24 lens, it's not exactly a good buy if you hardly utilize it.