I've started fooling around with my 85 f/1.4D a bit more and realize that its a bit long for what i use it for. a 50 f/1.2 would be great for me but autofocus is kind of a must considering i shoot all hand held and f/1.2 is going to have a pretty shallow dof.
Is there an alternative to the 50 f/1.4G other than the Sigma 50 f/1.4?
I also shoot all handheld and love my NIKKOR 50mm f/1.2 AI-s. I tend to leave it wide open, and my keeper rate with moving objects is getting pretty good. I'm not saying it's easy, it takes practice, but it's certainly not impossible, and once you get used to it I think it's much more flexible than relying on AF.
From a few weeks ago shooting cyclists in downtown Toronto:
I've got a 50 f/1.8 but It just doesnt go far enough with the shallow dof. also the coma it has absolutely irritates me.
I know its simple but heres more along the lines of what I want... i know its with a canon 50 f/1.2 at f/1.2 and I'm almost considering switching camps to get this.
I had the 50L when I had Canon. It was a very nice lens, when the AF actually hit.
Which it (very) often didn't.
Switching to Nikon with the D700 and the 50 1.4G was a revelation - it hit virtually 100% of the time and I challenge you to pick 1.2 shots out from 1.4 shots on a regular basis. I'm curious why you feel you need AF, especially for these types of shots
modern cameras dont give you the correct DOF preview under 2.8 and at 1.2 that dof is VERY shallow so trying to manually focus is a guessing game. also, i shoot different types of motorsports from time to time and I see no need to manually focus because.. well its almost 2013 and theres no reason i should really have to.
as for the 1.2 not hitting focus, you're the only person i've heard of not raving about the lens. A photographer i know down in atlanta LOVES his and he actually shot with a a LOT during a 3 day event i shot with him and i dont believe he had any autofocus issues with it on his 5DII.
I wish there was a camera shop locally that was worth a crap I'd just go try them both out but all I have local is Wolf Camera and they looked at me like i was a martian when i asked about a 35 f/1.8G 6 months after it came out.
Well, with many cameras people change the focusing screens so that they can accurately manual focus fast lenses and are quite happy afterwards. If you want to only AF, that's fine, your preference and some folks don't have a choice. Some activities like sports and fast moving subjects, no question you're going to get a lot more keepers using a properly set up AF camera. Or if you have poor vision or it's failing.
I'm sort of amused that you haven't heard of focusing issues with the 50L though. When I shot Canon, and frequented a Canon forum, there was widespread and worldwide wailing about focusing issues with Canon in general and the 50L in particular. I had the 24L, 50L, 70-200L, 85 1.8, and a bunch of other glass, and I fine tuned it properly, and I still got so many misses on shots I really would have liked to have been keepers. My Canons focused very fast and very unreliably. Many unhappy users on the forums told similar stories, or how the 5DII was so great but only the center point actually worked reliably, or how you had to buy 1D series to get real AF.
I switched to Nikon and with the same techniques it was a whole 'nother world of accuracy - pretty much any misses I felt were my fault, so I got to work on improving technique instead of wondering whether buying a full pro body would finally get me reliable AF.
It sounds like Canon has improved their game with the latest round of bodies, which is great. But not in time to avoid losing this customer.
I have a 50 f/1.8D and while yes its similar it does NOT have the same feel to me. it also has some annoying Coma. I may just buy a 1.4G and call it a day.
Voigtlaender 58mm f1.4 - real FL is more about 60mm, which paired with f1.4 gives quite shallow DOF.
Otherwise you would need to get a bit longer lens for best subject separation. 85mm f1.4 is probably cheapest and closest solution (not Nikon obviously ).
Switching to Canon doesnt have point. 1st - 50L is really expensive 2nd - SA robs it of quite a bit of DOF so you end with something like f1.4 but with much nicer OOF (and more blurred). But still more DOF.
Sigmalux is nice "all-around" solution for this, while having AF. I would maybe wait and maybe they will release improved variant soon (something like their new 35mm f1.4).
).