After exhausting every troubleshooting avenue on my a7S to no avail, my friend brought his a73 over and put the Sigma 45 on it - worked fine. I put it on my camera and it works again!
Wooooohooo!!!
So, for anyone out there using this lens on older Sony bodies - there is likely a compatibility issue that rears its head after changing focusing modes. If you find your lens has stopped focusing altogether, just mount it on a newer body for a sec and it may start working again.
I have no idea what specifically would have caused it, but I experienced the identical issue with two different copies of the lens on my camera. I'm guessing that changes made via the camera body to focus modes (af/mf, af-c/af-s, face detect on/off etc) cause some glitch whereby the lens gets confused and goes haywire, shutting down at a fixed focal distance.
It's been working fine for the past few hours, but I have a Holiday party to shoot tomorrow night, so no way I'm going to test if any particular focusing modes "break" it again. Just leaving it in good ol af-s and not touching anything.
If anyone from Sigma or any of the major retailers happens to read this, feel free to try to replicate the issue on a 1st Gen Sony. I was able to do it pretty easily on two different lenses, so I have no doubt that it is a legitimate software bug.
Well, you probably can, you'll just have to "reset" it on your newer body after it freezes.
Oh, also - don't use it for video. I switched it to video for a second, which is af-c by default when using an af lens, and it almost crapped out again. Or maybe switch it to mf 1st- but only using the switch on the lens, and only if you are feeling lucky.
Yeah, there's no way I'd put up with this BS if I didn't absolutely love the rendering. Really nothing else like it.
twelveish wrote:
Interesting find. I guess I won't be using it on my original A7 (strictly a travel duty camera and typically with all manual lenses).
This lens sure is starting to collect a few funky caveats to keep in mind, but it's still one of my favorite FE lenses.
Late to this party, but 40–45mm FL lenses are my thing, so was very interested from the first announcement. The images Fred posted are very sharp where they need to be (with people, how could you want sharper), and the OOF rendering is superb. I think in recent years way too much weight has been put on absolute resolution numbers—most here make images, and OOF rendering is just so important in the service of that goal.
So, although I do not have a Sony FF body yet, I will, and this lens may be the only purchase for it.
Yeah I did just what I said I wouldn't, and took it on a 2w holiday with my original A7. Haven't used anything but AF-S though, so it's been fine. It's been mainly landscape duty for the 45 on this trip.
I'm going to troubleshoot a few different avenues before I send it back. Before it crapped out completely, it crapped out for a minute, then I changed the battery and it worked again. So I thought it may be related to a low battery unable to power the focus motor. But won't work even with batteries at 100%. I suspect strongly that it's software related. It happened shortly after changing focus modes. The first time, when I switched from manual to autofocus, the second time, shortly after I switched from face detect on (which worked very well, btw) to off.
At my wits' end here. A lot of stuff coming up I wanted to use this lens for.
It may also be related to the 1st generation cameras, as I doubt they were beta testing on those. May be upgrading to a Sigma fp sooner than I'd anticipated, but I hope that Sigma has a firmware fix in the works, if it is a compatability bug.
sergun wrote:
Do you have a first-generation camera ? I have R2 and, too, under a change of AF/MF occurred hiccup. It says "turn off camera" but that was one time.
Maybe Sigma will release a firmware update for the 45/2.8.
@sergun , Lovely and interesting images from Volgograd. I like the night time images with the mist or rain, and the mood it creates.
Jan 07, 2020 at 09:04 PM
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They did one for the L mount version already, nothing for E, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled. Focus is decent enough in AF-S with Flexible Spot [Small}, but I'm noticing a fair deal of missed focus type shots. May just be my 1st Gen body, but the focus LOOOOOVES to lock on vertical edges, and struggles with organic shapes. What this translates to in real-world usage is the appearance of front/back focus, especially when shooting faces. I've studied a number of images of mine where this seems the case, thinking they looked soft. Scroll around at 1:1 a bit, and you can see that the 9 times out of 10, focus *did* lock on something, but it was a vertical strand of hair, or the zipper of a coat, behind or in front of the plane of focus where the eyes/face are.
Because of this, I've resorted to using manual focus a lot. Whether it's shooting close and wide open, or when shooting moving subjects, I've found it helpful to assign the AF/MF button on the camera to "AF/MF toggle", so I can use half-shutter AF to lock on something stationary, then quickly hit the AF/MF button so focus doesn't move and go from there. Even the shot of the Jesus statue above, I autofocused on the statue's face, toggled and zoomed in and it was back-focused.
Yeah, here's hoping for a firmware update, but who knows. If I have to live with these weird hacks, I guess that's what I'll have to do.
Brought this Sigma along with a bunch of M glasses with me on SL2 for a recent trip. It took more than half of total images on the trip.
This lens become my all time favorite Auto lens I ever used. This is the modern Elmar or Summaron, compare to L mount monster lux or cron, or Panasonic ones, I ask myself how sigma get this lens so right and How they get Leica spirit? What a lovely lens. A example worth every manufactures to learn from. With IBIS and capability of modern sensor, what is our true need? What is the user case for f1.4 f2 sharp to extreme corner? I rate rendering higher than sharpness for modern lens as they are all sharp enough TBH.
zhangyue wrote:
Brought this Sigma along with a bunch of M glasses with me on SL2 for a recent trip. It took more than half of total images on the trip.
This lens become my all time favorite Auto lens I ever used. This is the modern Elmar or Summaron, compare to L mount monster lux or cron, or Panasonic ones, I ask myself how sigma get this lens so right and How they get Leica spirit? What a lovely lens. A example worth every manufactures to learn from. With IBIS and capability of modern sensor, what is our true need? What is the user case for f1.4 f2 sharp to extreme corner? I rate rendering higher than sharpness for modern lens as they are all sharp enough TBH.
), and the OOF rendering is superb. I think in recent years way too much weight has been put on absolute resolution numbers—most here make images, and OOF rendering is just so important in the service of that goal.
