Prime lens Professionals: Would you buy new Sigma over used Canon/Nikon?

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Ultimate Geek

#1060241 6-Jun-2014 09:12

I note you place a lot of emphasis on your sharpness joker95 - what camera are you using and what lenses do you own that meet your requirements? I'd be interested to see your work - got any links?

CapBBeard

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#1060267 6-Jun-2014 10:18

I have the Sigma 18-35 1.8 'A' lens and absolutely love it. The build quality is exceptional and performance is great. I had their old 30mm 1.4 before they came out with the new line, and it was alright, but nothing amazing. The new 'A' stuff totally blows that one away though.

I'm looking at getting a better 50mm than the Canon 1.8 - when the time comes I'll be looking at the Sigma 50mm 'A' no question.

timmmay

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#1060275 6-Jun-2014 10:27

I had the Sigma 30 1.4 on Canon. It couldn't focus properly up close, so I had it calibrated, after that it was still inconsistent up close and had trouble at infinity. Apparently it's a design flaw. Also had problems with Sigma 50 F1.4 on Nikon.

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#1060387 6-Jun-2014 13:55

cjmchch: I note you place a lot of emphasis on your sharpness joker95 - what camera are you using and what lenses do you own that meet your requirements? I'd be interested to see your work - got any links?

i will try. I discard all unsharp photos unless the emotional value is there - usually of relatives so i won't post those.

Essentially there are 6 kinds of images
1) Very sharp: you look at it at native screen resolution (ie pixel matched to screen) and it's still sharp
2) Sharp enough: you look at it in its entirity it looks sharp but once you pixel match to screen resolution you can see softness

3) Soft: lens cannot resolve the resolution of your picture even at that screen size (ie not pixel matched)
4) Soft: there is subject movement that your shutter speed cannot freeze
5) Soft: the shutter speed is slower than photographer's hand movement/shaking
6) Soft: the picture is out of focus, either because the autofocus was off, or the subject has moved after autofocus, or recomposing the shot had changed the distance from the focal point usually due to inadequate depth of field

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#1060388 6-Jun-2014 13:57

let me add i only refer to sharpness of the plane I want to be in focus obviously, and i love fast primes as I love bokeh. my dreams are full of sharp eyes and dreamy bokeh.

I am obviously not a wedding or portrait professional photographer.

I do shoot landscape a lot but I struggle with composition so I tend to crop a lot there.

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#1060390 6-Jun-2014 13:59

timmmay: I had the Sigma 30 1.4 on Canon. It couldn't focus properly up close, so I had it calibrated, after that it was still inconsistent up close and had trouble at infinity. Apparently it's a design flaw. Also had problems with Sigma 50 F1.4 on Nikon.

ha - those are the 2 softest lenses wide open i've ever touched on a crop sensor, but surprisingly the 50 1.4 EX is only a little soft on full frame at portrait distances (for some reason it cannot focus at a distance), but to add to the problem the autofocus does not work on my crop sensor canons. Hence i sold them. very quickly! (sorry cjmchch i have discarded all those shots)

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#1060395 6-Jun-2014 14:15

cjmchch: I note you place a lot of emphasis on your sharpness joker95 - what camera are you using and what lenses do you own that meet your requirements? I'd be interested to see your work - got any links?

I use a 5D Mk III manual select spot AF usually. I can't show you my favourite works, as they are of my immediate family, but here are some examples

This is Sigma 50 1.4 EX wide open on a crop sensor. I classify this as (3) soft even at this resolution, but it is ok, as the softness complements the mood of the picture and man the other bits are buttery. If only I composed it without the wire crossing the image. oh well, noob!

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#1060397 6-Jun-2014 14:20

this one is shot with a Canon 70-300 at 300mm wide open (f/5.6). you can see the main tree is a bit soft even at this resolution. the background soft trees give it a few layers of background which is great. my fault, i didn't use f/8 (where i know it to be sharpest), i didin't post process its sharpness. in fact in my haste it shot at ISO 6400! noob! happy with the composition and lighting however.

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#1060407 6-Jun-2014 14:34

i better find a sharpish one eh (all my lenses cost under $500 as i haven't settled on which ones i need - at first i thought the $10000 combo of 16-35 f/2.9 L, 24-70 f/2.8 L II, 70-200 f/2.8 IS L would be awesome, but i am a bokeh addict so I'm glad i didn't mortgage my house for those ones).

this was shot with a sigma 18-250mm, not known for its sharpness, and at 90mm is actually the softest in its range, but stopping down and a little post processing gives it a number (2) sharpness, and pixel peeping isn't too bad either, so it's nearly a (1)! too bad the composition had a red car and some distracting bushes, oh well.

cjmchch

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#1060416 6-Jun-2014 15:00

Interesting story...

I prefer a certain amount of softness to most of my landscapes and when needed am able to pull pretty good bokeh out of all of my lenses - from the 14mm right through to my 300. And for my landscapes I use all of my lenses - 14, 16-35, 17tse, 24-70, 50, 70-200, 100macro, 300. Each one of those lenses will give me any one of those 6 choices you state - but at my choice - unfortunately some lenses will not give you all 6 options, including Canon and Nikon lenses.

And I use a 5DIII, 5DII, 600DIR

Here's a couple of low res examples

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#1060419 6-Jun-2014 15:03

your kit is around 10-20x the cost of mine, so i have a budget to consider, hence the sigma art becomes attractive, at an unknown focussing capability.

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#1060421 6-Jun-2014 15:04

fantastic sharpness though! (your lens will never be a number 3 except for maybe the 16-35 wide open ;p)

insane

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#1060427 6-Jun-2014 15:23

I've owned several Sigma lenses and for me my Canon L lenses were always sharper, and as stated above created far smoother bokeh.

There is something to be said about Canon body's though, I found different lenses performed differently depending which body I used them on. My 70-200 f2.8L for example was sharp on a cheap 400D, not so sharp on a 40D, and then razor sharp on a 5Dmk2. Then my Canon 200mm F2.8 Prime was just awesome on any body - wish I hadn't sold it.

Just got back from a month in Europe and would have to take a guess and say 75% of the DSLRs I saw were Nikon's which surprised me a lot. Of the Canon's I did see they were typically 1D's or 5D's.

cjmchch

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Ultimate Geek

#1060428 6-Jun-2014 15:23

But then you shoot images and make them soft intentionally - it's just nice having the options available to you and that is why I would always pick up a second hand L series lens rather than buy a brand new standard lens like the standard Sigma range. No different either than buying a second hand L series versus a brand new EF-S lens.

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#1060431 6-Jun-2014 15:26

i think I'll tape my 24-105 to 35mm and shoot for a week to see if i really need a 35. it doesn't give my dreamy faces for sure, that's the job of the 50 and the 85 ... watch this space!

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