The bad thing about Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art is it's crappy rendering of certain boke patterns. Below are two examples of annoying busy boke examples. On first one if you look the area where the path is leading to you can see distracting and busy boke. On second one both short edges of images have less than perfect boke rendering, very typical that this kind of young pines render badly in background boke (not only this lens, many other lenses as well). Standard super thick sensor cover glass camera would make these examples even worse, busyness of this kind of boke in image edges is reduced by modified thinner sensor cover glass.
What makes it extra worse is that boke quality does not improve when closing down, so closing down only makes boke looking worse when amount of blur decreases and boke relative contrast compared to focus plane increases. So we have true "one-trick pony".
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art @ f/1.4, 1/30s, A7 (Kolari v2) @ ISO 100, Hoya HD CIR-PL 77mm
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art @ f/1.4, 1/25s, A7 (Kolari v2) @ ISO 100, Hoya HD CIR-PL 77mm
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
The bad thing about Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art is it's crappy rendering of certain boke patterns. Below are two examples of annoying busy boke examples. On first one if you look the area where the path is leading to you can see distracting and busy boke. On second one both short edges of images have less than perfect boke rendering, very typical that this kind of young pines render badly in background boke (not only this lens, many other lenses as well). Standard super thick sensor cover glass camera would make these examples even worse, busyness of this kind of boke in image edges is reduced by modified thinner sensor cover glass.
What makes it extra worse is that boke quality does not improve when closing down, so closing down only makes boke looking worse when amount of blur decreases and boke relative contrast compared to focus plane increases. So we have true "one-trick pony".
I suppose personal taste and use of PP techniques could be relative.
By my standards, in the images you've shown here, bokeh is "soft," but not "dreamy" (as in Canon 50/1.2L with its SA wide open), and there are no echoing OOF lines that I consider the worst case of busy-bokeh. I think these shots are a wonderful point of departure for me to draw attention to the receding path in #1, and the solo tree stump in #2. I respect your choices, but you are only further selling me on this Sigma 50 Art lens, which I think would be the next best choice to accompany my Sigma 24 Art.
I'm in a second transition on my PP handling of images, which I felt might have been too heavy handed in the last year or so, so I lightened up (maybe too much) and a now increasing my PP manipulation, feeling my images had gotten "too thin", in comparison to other posts here on the forum.
Went to Zion a few weeks ago. Fall color was about the same as the rest of the SW and Colorado; not great. Perhaps next year it will be better.
Took this on the East side of Zion. Probably my favorite area. Just park, and explore for as much or little as you want. This was taken literally right off of the road.
Jako: Welcome back. Great to see you posting in this thread again.
Dustin: Beautiful autumn colors.
Bob: Great landscape shot from Iceland. It feels as if I haven't seen pictures of that particular spot before, which is nice, considering how popular a destination Iceland has become among photogs. I also like the Cleveland series from a few pages back.
Werner: Beautiful monochrome shot.
Ronny: Great eagle shots. I wonder what somebody of your talent could do with one of those elusive 400 GM's.
Congrats on your newest toy, Joshua. I'm looking forward to you putting the 24 GM to go work. That second (flower) shot shows of that a lens doesn't necessarily need a blue label to provide plenty of pop.
Philip: Great mountain vista. At roughly what altitude did you take those shots, if I may ask?
Jim: Congrats on the new Nikon lens. I hope you don't mind me asking, but how many zooms do you have in that 24-100mm range ?
A tiny waterfall inside a temple garden taken with the Loxia 21 at f8.
Gunzorro wrote:
By my standards, in the images you've shown here, bokeh is "soft," but not "dreamy" (as in Canon 50/1.2L with its SA wide open), and there are no echoing OOF lines that I consider the worst case of busy-bokeh. I think these shots are a wonderful point of departure for me to draw attention to the receding path in #1, and the solo tree stump in #2. I respect your choices, but you are only further selling me on this Sigma 50 Art lens, which I think would be the next best choice to accompany my Sigma 24 Art.
Well, you have been "warned", if you want to study yourself just let me know and I'll upload ARW-files for you to study. The real boke ugliness can be seen little closed down images where large blur does not hide the boke issues; Two photos of same subject @ f/5.6 using different magnification: 1 and 2. In your style of shooting the Art 24 & 50 most likely forms a good pair (thou heavy), focus plane rendering appears to be very similar.
Gunzorro wrote:
I'm in a second transition on my PP handling of images, which I felt might have been too heavy handed in the last year or so, so I lightened up (maybe too much) and a now increasing my PP manipulation, feeling my images had gotten "too thin", in comparison to other posts here on the forum.
Decline in sharpening quality of internet resolution images on this forum has linear correlation how 27" 4K displays and Apple Retina displays have got more more common
I like how your Loxia, Canon 24-70 and Sigma 24mm images look like technically as internet images (sharpening etc. just perfect). But I don't like at all how your 24-105mm images look like, they are definitelty "too thin". If you apply same processing to all mentioned lenses I can say without ever shooting even single frame that I absolute hate 24-105 rendering style.
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Leica APO-Summicron-M 90mm f/2 @ f/11.0, 0.6s, A7 (Kolari v2) @ ISO 125, Hoya HD CIR-PL 55mm
Leica APO-Summicron-M 90mm f/2 @ f/11.0, 0.8s, A7 (Kolari v2) @ ISO 125, Hoya HD CIR-PL 55mm
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Well, you have been "warned", if you want to study yourself just let me know and I'll upload ARW-files for you to study. The real boke ugliness can be seen little closed down images where large blur does not hide the boke issues; Two photos of same subject @ f/5.6 using different magnification: 1 and 2. In your style of shooting the Art 24 & 50 most likely forms a good pair (thou heavy), focus plane rendering appears to be very similar.
Decline in sharpening quality of internet resolution images on this forum has linear correlation how 27" 4K displays and Apple Retina displays have got more more common
I like how your Loxia, Canon 24-70 and Sigma 24mm images look like technically as internet images (sharpening etc. just perfect). But I don't like at all how your 24-105mm images look like, they are definitelty "too thin". If you apply same processing to all mentioned lenses I can say without ever shooting even single frame that I absolute hate 24-105 rendering style.
Samuli -- I love your witty, yet technically adept explanations. Thanks for letting me know the lenses I've been using that you find pleasing. Likewise, I'm not surprised my Sony 24-105G isn't your cup of tea and appreciate knowing why. It is a real privilege to have knowledgeable people take an interest in the same quest for quality gear and images.
Thanks for all your gorgeous examples and technical remarks!
Chris_88 wrote:
Jako: Welcome back. Great to see you posting in this thread again.
Dustin: Beautiful autumn colors.
Bob: Great landscape shot from Iceland. It feels as if I haven't seen pictures of that particular spot before, which is nice, considering how popular a destination Iceland has become among photogs. I also like the Cleveland series from a few pages back.
Werner: Beautiful monochrome shot.
Ronny: Great eagle shots. I wonder what somebody of your talent could do with one of those elusive 400 GM's.
Congrats on your newest toy, Joshua. I'm looking forward to you putting the 24 GM to go work. That second (flower) shot shows of that a lens doesn't necessarily need a blue label to provide plenty of pop.
Philip: Great mountain vista. At roughly what altitude did you take those shots, if I may ask?
Jim: Congrats on the new Nikon lens. I hope you don't mind me asking, but how many zooms do you have in that 24-100mm range ?
How many mid-range zooms do I have on hand? Ha-ha! Let's see. . .
In Nikon (my least favored brand), I have their cheap 24-85G (soon going on the block), the Sigma 24-105 Art (excellent lens -- perhaps sending to Sigma for mount change to Canon EF), and now the 24-120G.
In Canon, (my longest brand association), I have the old fossil FD 28-85/4, the similarly old EOS 28-70/3.5-4-5, 24-105/4L IS, and my favorite -- the newest 24-70/2.8L II.
In Sony, I only have the one native zoom, but it rivals the quality and versatility of the top Canon (and even my experience with Sony 24-70/2.8GM) -- the 24-105/4G. Love it's versatility. Wish it was an f/2.8 lens, though.
See -- it doesn't looks so insane when it is all laid out like that -- right? (or is the insane man ignoring the strange compulsion to collect gears, too far gone to recognize how far down the rabbit hole he's plunged? ).
I might have one or two others buried somewhere. And then there are several I've sold in the last year or two. . .
And of course, all the above non-Sony lenses have adapters to be used on Sony. Apparently, all roads lead to Sony, not Rome.
The new Nikon lens is sort of my last ditch attempt to find decent lens/adapter to be able use Nikon mount lenses on the Sony. My poor Commlite Pro adapter is still not the right dimensions front-to-back, introducing terrible field curvature and distortion to all Nikon-mount lenses. Sometimes the weird "spotlight" focus is interesting, mostly though it is just annoying to have only the central area sharp at f/8. The lens is also victim to strong veiling flare (and sun-dogs) makes it hard to use successfully in bright sun or sun shining into the lens -- forget nice sun-stars! But, it seems to perform well in soft light as a basis for satisfying PP. The example of Snape, laying on the concrete is a an example of its best combination of lighting and low contrast (bumped up in PP).
I keep searching for that reasonably priced universal lens. I know it is out there somewhere!
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