Beginner which is best

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gboy

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hi all, i was going to buy a canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. but i then spotted a sigma canon fit 50mm f/1.4 lens. could you give me some advice on which lens would be my best buy. regards geoff.
 
I can't comment on the Sigma but I do have the canon 50mm f 1.4 and its a decent lens for the price but it also feels like it would shatter into bits if I dropped it.

Hope that info is of some use.

Andy.
 
They are both same lens focal length and Aperture wise - so it does come down to personal choice.

The Sigma 50mm (not the art lens) has been around a while like the canon 50mm, the Sigma is a larger lens body and looks / feels more substantial, some people prefer the results with the Sigma, although there are reports you need to make sure you've a good copy ...

Can you try both ? That way you can see which you prefer ...
 
There are two Sigma 50/1.4 lenses, both very good. The cheaper Sigma has the edge over the Canon, and the more expensive Sigma Art version is possibly the best 50/1.4 you can get.

Edit: crossed post with Andy.
 
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gboy said:
hi all, i was going to buy a canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. but i then spotted a sigma canon fit 50mm f/1.4 lens. could you give me some advice on which lens would be my best buy. regards geoff.
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If you Google your way to reviews you'll find that most put the Sigma ahead of the Canon. Personally I went for the Sigma and I thought it was very good. It's quite sharp wide open and very sharp when stopped down a bit. I used mine a lot on my Canon 20D and then on my 5D. I've never tried the Canon 50mm f1.4 but while I had the Sigma I also had a Canon 50mm f2.5 "macro" and when I compared the two I found that the Sigma was a match for the Canon and possibly better at every aperture that the Canon could match and I was impressed by this as I've read that the f2.5 is the sharpest 50 Canon make... or made at the time.

Get the Sigma :D
 
hi all, thanks for all your advice. very much appreciated. regards Geoff.
 
Never owned the canon 50mm 1.4 myself but when I did consider changing to it from the 1.8 I heard a few too many negative reports of its delicacy to go ahead with the purchase while most of the sigma lens I've owned have felt pretty sturdy.
 
I have had both and I thought the sigma was better in every way
 
The art with sigma means nothing it's selling ploy I doubt you'd see any differences I'd stick with the Canon
 
petert said:
The art with sigma means nothing it's selling ploy I doubt you'd see any differences I'd stick with the Canon
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Have you owned any? Or even read any reviews?

As an owner of one, I'd have to suggest the 'selling ploy' backs up some fantastic engineering. I've owned a lot of lenses in my time (50+), from cheap and nasty, through cheap and decent to very expensive, and the 35mm Sigma Art is as good as anything I've owned, if not my absolute favourite.
 
I agree with above , I've had both and still have the art and it is better in every way than the canon or In fact any L lens or fuji lens I've ever owned
 
Actually (who pressed the button) if we're discussing lenses and marketing...

Canon L lenses? Whilst most are superb, there are plenty that have the L designation that are only OK performers but have special glass and other 'pro' traits.

I've only owned one of the 'lesser' L's, the 17-40, but the 17-55 knocks lumps off it, and my current Tamron 17-35 at a fraction of the cost gives it a run for its money. We should wait till there's a so-so Art lens before we start attacking them?
 
Phil V said:
Have you owned any? Or even read any reviews?

As an owner of one, I'd have to suggest the 'selling ploy' backs up some fantastic engineering. I've owned a lot of lenses in my time (50+), from cheap and nasty, through cheap and decent to very expensive, and the 35mm Sigma Art is as good as anything I've owned, if not my absolute favourite.
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Yes I have and sent it back, it didn't produce anything arty or anything worth the extra cost, why exactly do they call it an art lens? It then went wrong after 2 weeks so Sigmas quality control is to its usual unreliable standard
 
The images were flat compared to the Nikon 1.8, I would expect better from something 5 times more expensive
 
petert said:
Yes I have and sent it back, it didn't produce anything arty or anything worth the extra cost, why exactly do they call it an art lens? It then went wrong after 2 weeks so Sigmas quality control is to its usual unreliable standard
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"Usual unreliable standard"? I must have been lucky. My Sigma lenses are among the best lenses I've got, both optically in terms of image quality, and in terms of build quality. It's true that Sigma have produced some cheap unreliable lenses, but it's not hard to identify them by reading reviews and user reports. I've even got a very old Sigma prime I picked up cheap second hand just because I lacked that focal length, and which to my delighted surprise has turned out to be really good. Half my lenses are third party (Sigma, Tamron, Rokinon), and all of them have justified the hope I had of getting pretty good performance at substantially less cost than the OEM equivalent.
 
They are known for their quality control issues I've only ever had a problem with 3 lenses and they were all sigma, that's not to say they are a bad company, they do produce good lenses, just my experience, I can't speak for others
 
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I've never had a problem with sigma and I've owned plenty of them

and if an image is flat thats usually down to the photographer not the lens
 
How dare anyone slate those expensive lenses lol, there's plenty of flat images on Flickr with this lens or maybe they're all bad photographer's, maybe it's a Qc thing, I really don't know, but the evidence is there
 
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petert said:
How dare anyone slate those expensive lenses lol, there's plenty of flat images on Flickr with this lens or maybe they're all bad photographer's, maybe it's a Qc thing, I really don't know, but the evidence is there
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'evidence' is obviously subjective. there's a facebook group and the general standard varies between very good and jaw dropping.

But if it's not for you, that's fine - as I said 'subjective', for me it's my favourite new lens - the other contender being the 135 f2, which is something I've had on my wishlist for years and is actually underwhelming in comparison.
 
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Yes it is, each to their own, if I had another copy I might be saying the opposite, but what I have is all need
 
Phil V said:
But if it's not for you, that's fine - as I said 'subjective', for me it's my favourite new lens - the other contender being the 135 f2, which is something I've had on my wishlist for years and is actually underwhelming in comparison.
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There are so many rumours flying of a sigma art version of that lens. I hope they're true
 
what is the technical difference with 'art' is it just better glass or is there more to it than that ?

(off topic the other art which interests me is the 18-35 f1.8 )
 
I've heard some say they are not better due to too many glass elements so less light....... and you'll get better results from less glass, all too technical for me.
 
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big soft moose said:
what is the technical difference with 'art' is it just better glass or is there more to it than that ?

(off topic the other art which interests me is the 18-35 f1.8 )
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I think they decided that they had a product that was better than their 'top of the range', which was IIRC EX, 'Art' sounds cool, I'm sure there's a more complicated marketing answer, but I'd say this 'line' started with the 30 1.4 which filled a gap in the market, its popularity led them to the 50 1.4, and after that the marketing department kicked in and created the brand, both those original products were later rebranded and polished a little and given the designation.

It's worked, both in terms of the brand, which has a cachet, and the quality which is considered by many to be better than the camera manufacturers offerings.

I never did work out why Nikon never created an obvious competitor to the Camon L range, the only clue I can see that a Nikon lens is 'top of the range' is the price, but maybe I missed something.
 
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There you go no idea what they're on about
 
petert said:
There you go no idea what they're on about
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I apologise for the leg pulling Peter. To explain...
petert said:
I've heard some say they are not better due to too many glass elements so less light....... and you'll get better results from less glass, all too technical for me.
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The second half of that sentence really means you shouldn't have bothered with the first half.

'Too many elements, so less light', is ridiculous, they're all fast lenses, so not really suffering from lack of light gathering ability. Maybe less elements would have given us 1.2 lenses, but they'd not have performed so well, because those elements are doing a valid job.

I do have almost enough technical knowledge to offer a criticism, the 35mm vignettes terribly compared to most of its rivals. But a: software compensates, and b: that's not important to my subjects as I often add a vignette in post anyway.
 
Phil V said:
I apologise for the leg pulling Peter. To explain...

The second half of that sentence really means you shouldn't have bothered with the first half.

'Too many elements, so less light', is ridiculous, they're all fast lenses, so not really suffering from lack of light gathering ability. Maybe less elements would have given us 1.2 lenses, but they'd not have performed so well, because those elements are doing a valid job.

I do have almost enough technical knowledge to offer a criticism, the 35mm vignettes terribly compared to most of its rivals. But a: software compensates, and b: that's not important to my subjects as I often add a vignette in post anyway.
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I'm just repeating not my personal opinion, I think it was a YouTube video I'll see if I can find it
 
petert said:
I'm just repeating not my personal opinion, I think it was a YouTube video I'll see if I can find it
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I wouldn't bother, as you can see by my over simplified response, it's nonsense, repeating it would invite mockery. :)

Like all those people on your facebook feed that'll repost any old nonsense if it has a hook to support their prejudices / fears.
 
petert said:
I've heard some say they are not better due to too many glass elements so less light....... and you'll get better results from less glass, all too technical for me.
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There's light lost due to scatter at every air to glass surface (strictly, every surface boundary where the refractive index changes) and the amount depends on the difference in the refractive index. Coating reduces this loss; multicoating even more (except in the one very specialised case of monochromatic light as far as I know) but it will always be there. Hence the older "T system" ("T" for "transmission") which is still used on cine lenses to indicate how much light actually gets through.

So, the fewer the elements, the better the transmission and more light get through. All other things being equal, an f/1.2 lens of 13 elements wide open will pass less light than a 3 element f/1.2 wide open. But transmission isn't everything, and all lens design is a trade off. In this case, the number of elements you need to control the aberrations.
 
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petert said:
I've heard some say they are not better due to too many glass elements so less light....... and you'll get better results from less glass, all too technical for me.
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It's not true though ;) More air-glass surfaces does reduce transmission, but it's very slight - insignificant really, between say a 6-element lens and a better corrected one with maybe 12 elements or more. The benefits far outweigh the very minor optical downsides, though the extra size, weight and cost is another matter.

If light loss is a concern, vignetting is a natural problem with fast lenses, particularly on larger formats like full-frame. With something like a 35/1.4, the effective exposure at the edges will typically be about a stop down on the centre at f/1.4, with the corners being more than double that. Fortunately, at least a small amount of vignetting can be desirable and is often added in post production to emphasise the main subject, but if you don't want that, while brightening the edges/corners is very easy in software, it does have the effect of increasing noise in those areas.

On balance though, modern fast primes like the Sigma 35/1.4 Art are fantastic. The really big difference is they're very sharp right from f/1.4, so you can use them to get that shallow depth-of-field effect without the soft-focus kind of haze that characterises fast primes from a previous generation.
 
big soft moose said:
what is the technical difference with 'art' is it just better glass or is there more to it than that ?

(off topic the other art which interests me is the 18-35 f1.8 )
Click to expand...

Phil V said:
I think they decided that they had a product that was better than their 'top of the range', which was IIRC EX, 'Art' sounds cool, I'm sure there's a more complicated marketing answer, but I'd say this 'line' started with the 30 1.4 which filled a gap in the market, its popularity led them to the 50 1.4, and after that the marketing department kicked in and created the brand, both those original products were later rebranded and polished a little and given the designation.

It's worked, both in terms of the brand, which has a cachet, and the quality which is considered by many to be better than the camera manufacturers offerings.

I never did work out why Nikon never created an obvious competitor to the Camon L range, the only clue I can see that a Nikon lens is 'top of the range' is the price, but maybe I missed something.
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It seems that Sigma wanted a change of direction and a new name for the recent designed lenses and brought out three different designations for the new lenses. Art , Sport & Contemporary. This maybe due to some perceived failings of their older design lenses. If you read and look hard enough there will be complaints about the old designs, just like any manufacturer.

Linky to SIgma Global > http://www.sigma-global.com/en/lenses/cas/concept/
 
It's still about you not the lens, I recently saw an award winning photo on wex's site that was taken with 1100d and kit lens,says it all really. There's too much BS about lenses imo
 
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petert said:
It's still about you not the lens, I recently saw an award winning photo on wex's that was taken with 1100d and kit lens,says it all really. There's too much BS about lenses imo
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I'd guess you've not followed many of my posts...:(

I'm not what anyone would describe a gear head, I rarely post here, and when I do it's generally to say 'it's not about the gear'.

But that doesn't mean the gear never matters, and very little of my portfolio could have come from a kit lens, they're fine for people that shoot at f8, rarely any use to me. I'm about to sell my Sigma UWA and when it's gone my slowest lens will be 2.8 :D
 
I didn't say it never matters, of course it does all depends what you shoot but there are many who get too stuck on gear rather than improving their own skills and think buying expensive gear will do it for them.No I haven't followed all your posts but wasn't aiming my comment at anyone in particular.
:)
 
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I did a lot of research before I bought my Sigma Art 50. Oddly enough the Canon 50mm 1.4 came in dead last when compared to the sigma, canon 1.2 and even the canon 1.8.
The one thing that I haven't seen mentioned here is the Sigma dock for calibrating the lens. Mine came tack sharp right out of the box but I have heard of some that needed calibrating. In all fairness I would think this would be somewhat common amongst after market lenses due to the different tolerances of the bodies. But as far as quality issues this is the first time I have heard anyone mention it about the art line.
 
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