Sigma 30mm F1.4 Pictures request

futureal33

futureal33

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Nick
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Been considering getting one of these for a while now, and now and Ive finally got the money I can't decide between it and the Canon 24mm 2.8 lens.

Just wondering if anyone could post up some pics taken with this lens at varying apertures between 1.4&5 for example, to see it's progressive sharpness?

Does anyone have this lens and the Canon 60mm 2.8 macro, is the Sigma as sharp? That's the only other prime I have to compare it to, and I'm massively impressed with the 60mm, I just need something a bit shorter..

Also any feedback on the lens would be really helpful as reviews are so mixed online!

Thanks in advance!
 
Are you the guy I chatted to a couple of weeks ago about this lens? I can't remember.

If you send me a friend request on Facebook (link in my sig) and have look at my 365 album then pretty much all the photos in that album were taken with the Sigma 30mm f1.4.

I love this lens. Even though I've just got my hands on a Nikon 24-70mm I still think the Sigma 30mm is my favourite because it is just so damn sharp.
 
I have this lens so I'll go outside and shoot from f1.4-5 and post the results...
 
I had to do these at ISO 400 as the light is going, no noise reduction though.

All are 100% crops.

f1.4
f1-4.jpg

f1.8
f1-8.jpg

f2
f2.jpg

f2.5
f2-5.jpg
 
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Alan, thank you for doing that :) Little plastic Cartman is getting quite famous around here lol!!

Its somewhat difficult to tell from those size photos but it looks fairly sharp even aty 1.4, although the DOF is very narrow I can see focus being an issue/difficult to nail at that range and aperture.
By 2.5 most of his head is in focus, but its hard to tell if the focus point is any sharper?

In your opinion, would you say the sharpness "kicks in", so to speak, around F2.5?

I must have been reading reviews on this lens for 3 months now, and some say its pin sharp and others say it isnt sharp at any aperture - it seems to be another case of Sigma's QC letting them down unfortunately. I even emailed one bloke selling one on eBay and he told me straight to the point that the lens was too soft for his liking and he couldnt get a decent picture from it the whole time he'd owned it!
 
I like the lens and I think it's sharp. As to when... pretty quickly.

The only critisism I can make is that when manual focusing the ring feels a bit gritty, but to be honest that's quite a minor critisism.

If we can work out a way to do it I'll send you a couple of RAW's if you want.

BTW. Cartman gets used as a test subject as I don't like posting personal pictures on the net :)
 
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I picked up a used copy which front-focused on my D5000, but was sharp on the previous owner's D300. The D5000 doesn't have the option of AF fine tuning. So, I sent both off to Sigma and got them to calibrate the lens to the body. Perfect focus now and it's sharp.
 
Excellent.

F1.4 is a challenge as any movement of the photographer or the subject throws the subject out of DoF but DoF is also a function of image size as well as aperture so you can use f1.4 for portrait and landscape and even if you miss (easy with paper thin DoF) the final image will still look good if your subject is relatively small in the frame.
 
Yup.

You even get a hood and a case with it.

I'm glad you're happy with it :) Don't forget to use it outside in bright sunlight so that you can hit the max shutter speed of your camera! :lol:
 
It's a great lens, I'm impressed with mine anyway! Hardly off the camera nowadays :)







All above at f1.4 I think, below at f8



The "pin sharp wide open" expectation is open to interpretation, mine is sharp enough for my needs and like all lenses improves as you stop it down :)
 
Hi,

Had one on the nikon for a while but wasn't focussing properly so had to return it.

Great lens and really liked the pictures (even the ones with focus problems).

Might be a set on the flickr linkk below. Otherwise have a search through flickr?


Flickr Set link Think these are the ones I took.
 
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I have this for my Olympus, so it acts as a 60mm in FF terms on my cropped sensor, so the focal length is perfect for portraiture. As mentioned, nailing the focus at f/1.4 is almost a no-goer in a lot of situations, it's just such a tiny working area, sometime measured in less than a cm.

This was in a candle lit room, I intentionally introduced a lot of grain in Silver Efex.

5455390390_d10c4323f4.jpg


5454797823_8293db0dd5.jpg


I6dy6.jpg
 
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Where abouts did you guys buy from? Desparate to get myself one of these, and I've noticed Digital Rev are the cheapest, at around 310 quid, but if it has focusing issues I really dont want to have to send it all the way back to Hong Kong....
 
I bought 2nd hand, and made the shop promise me a no questions asked refund if I wasnt 100% happy with it, due to the amount of focus issues Ive heard about etc...

Tbh I didnt get it a lot cheaper than buying from places like DigiRev, but at least mine's a good copy and I had the fall back option of a refund if Id needed it... so i didnt mind paying almost new prices for a 2nd hand lens. But saying that, mine looks brand new, not a mark on it
 
futureal33 said:
Been considering getting one of these for a while now, and now and Ive finally got the money I can't decide between it and the Canon 24mm 2.8 lens.

Just wondering if anyone could post up some pics taken with this lens at varying apertures between 1.4&5 for example, to see it's progressive sharpness?

Does anyone have this lens and the Canon 60mm 2.8 macro, is the Sigma as sharp? That's the only other prime I have to compare it to, and I'm massively impressed with the 60mm, I just need something a bit shorter..

Also any feedback on the lens would be really helpful as reviews are so mixed online!

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...


in the same boat at the moment.

browsing through the reviews it seems that canon doesn't make exceptional wide angle primes ! :(

well, but - the siggy has some bad points too .
 
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