Why does my 50mm take amazing closeups but blurry when any distance is added?

I have a brand new Nikon d7200 and a new nikkor 50 mm 1.8. Close ups are tack sharp. But add any distance they are blurry no matter the the fstop.

For clarity, "blur" is caused by camera or subject movement during an exposure and ANY lens can suffer from this, but most espeically telephoto lenses. Try shooting at shutter speeds of over 1/500th second and see if the blur goes away.

If instead you are calling an out of focus image, "blurred" then you need to be sure that you are using the focusing points on your cameras viewfinder to focus the part of the subject you want in focus. My guess is that you are attempting to shoot everything wide open. The sharpest lens aperture is usually two stops down from wide open. Stop down to f/2.8 or f/4 and see if your image sharpness gets better.

In the worst case scenario, you are trying to hold your camera at arm's length using the cameras LCD as you would a point and shoot camera. If you are doing that, stop it. Refer to page 32 of your user manual to see how to hold the camera against your face and hold it with both hands. If you insist on using live view (this slows down your productivity especially when shooting sports or action) make sure that your shutter speed is set to at least 1/1000th second to counter the waving around of the camera when held that way

Try putting the camera on "P" and see what happens. Make sure the lens is set to auto focus.
I have the 50mm 1.8g, and have had no problems with it.

New? Have it replaced at once.

Use a single point auto focus choose a point about a third into the scene with the focus point then use the lock button or switch to manual, stop down to f8 or f11 then take the photograph.

IF I understand your query correctly, you are asking why the distant background comes out "blurred" when you focus on your subject in the foreground while using a 50mm lens.

There's nothing wrong with the lens; you must learn how to use it; you must learn about aperture and how it is used for certain effects, like making the background blurred… Or more in focus… This is referred to as depth of field… LEARN about aperture as it relates to depth of field.

First of all, it is not "blurred;" it is merely out of focus, and it is the nature of the beast. Any lens that you use to focus on the subject standing in front of a background environment that is a distance away will give you the same results, depending on how far apart the background and subject are.

Remember, you focus on the front subject and not on what's in the back of your subject. But, more to the point, if you use a fast aperture, it will always give you the same results… Well, to some degree, anyhow. The only thing you can do to INCREASE the "focus" of the background is to us a smaller aperture TO INCREASE THE DEPTH OF FIELD, if you have enought light to enable you to use a fast enough shutter speed.

You must learn what different apertures do and how they relate to the depth of field. "Fast" apertures, like f/1.2 or f/1.4 or f/1.8 or f/2.8 will permit you to take a photo in relatively low light while using a fast enough shutter speed to prevent blur from camera movement or subject movement but you will always get a small depth of field and the backgrounds will always look out of focus. That's how lenses work.

HOWEVER, if you use a tripod and a shutter release, you can use a relatively smaller apaerture and a longer shutter to enable you to get clearer background details when you focus on your subject that you focused on that is in the foreground (it's very difficult for anyone, adult or child or pet to stand still for a few seconds but far easier for inanimate objects). You must read up on APERTURE, depth of field and also the workings of the shutter speed.

There's nothing wrong with your lens; YOU must learn how to use it.