That is great f1.4 performance - much more important than the bokeh issue. I've changed my mind - I might get one despite the less preferable bokeh.
I dunno.
This pic has me siding with the earlier comments that bokeh can actually be too soft. -However, the Siggy seems to really blossom when just slightly stopped-down, so maybe that's the ticket.
The Sig also seems to have almost no vignetting wide open (unless folks are posting corrected pics without saying so) My Canon 50 /1.4 has the worst vignetting I've ever seen. IMO it's really a 1.8 lens with an extra, worthless stop added for marketing reasons. Mine is amazingly sharp at 1.4, though, so maybe that's a trade-off in the latest batches (I just bought mine 3 weeks ago.)
I'm thinking the Sig might be a good contender for panos.
Too soft? Obviously you just stop down if you want more definition in the background. This lens will be an APS-C portrait shooter's dream. On a FF camera it will make an amazing normal lens (still great for environmental portraits of course.)
I received my Sigma 50 today. Got a great deal (same price as Canon 1,4). Seems well built and you get a lot of glass! I have serious problems with AF. Wide open it will not get sharp shots beyond 1,5m at all, and really struggles otherwise also. (with mkIII). Got about 10 critically sharp shots out of 200 with one-shot AF. Manually focused it is amazingly sharp @1.4, colors and contrast are great. Bokeh is very pleasing, almost 85L-like. At 2.0 -2.8 it is really good. Will test with mkIIN tomorrow and see if autofocus is better.
Uh oh, that's not what I wanted to hear (re: focus). Mine comes tomorrow (should have been here yesterday, but mixup with UPS) and if I have time I'll fire off a few shots. I've got a 5D.
OTOH, the IQ sounds superb - especially considering the price. I guess that's the most important thing. We can always send the lens into Sigma for AF calibration.
kjetils wrote:
I received my Sigma 50 today. Got a great deal (same price as Canon 1,4). Seems well built and you get a lot of glass! I have serious problems with AF. Wide open it will not get sharp shots beyond 1,5m at all, and really struggles otherwise also. (with mkIII). Got about 10 critically sharp shots out of 200 with one-shot AF.
'K
I was just testing that and I found out the same thing. It seems anything far away wide open and its not in focus very well. close up its great. I was using one shot and AI servo on my 1DII...some where better then others. I then tried the same thing with my 85 1.8 they seemed a little better so I am thinking maybe its just user error with such a small DOF.
05xrunner wrote:
I was just testing that and I found out the same thing. It seems anything far away wide open and its not in focus very well. close up its great. I was using one shot and AI servo on my 1DII...some where better then others. I then tried the same thing with my 85 1.8 they seemed a little better so I am thinking maybe its just user error with such a small DOF.
The DOF is certainly very very thin, and its a demanding lens to get great results from. I will test it further before I blame Sigma..
badlydrawnboy wrote:
Too soft? Obviously you just stop down if you want more definition in the background. )
Not at all. You missed a major theme, earlier in this thread. Arguably, soft bokeh is not the same thing as soft OOF quality. They may be slightly related, but they are separate issues.
Having said that, I agree that this lens looks great slightly stopped-down. (exactly what I wrote, earlier)
Edited by Cableaddict on Jul 08, 2008 at 09:10 PM GMT
Edited by Cableaddict on Jul 08, 2008 at 09:34 PM GMT
05xrunner wrote:
I was just testing that and I found out the same thing. It seems anything far away wide open and its not in focus very well. close up its great. ....
Can't you send the lens, under warantee, to Sigma? Is it a QC / alignment problem, or are they ALL like this?
FWIW, my newish Canon 50 /1.4 is the same way: Dead sharp close up, with perfect AF, but if I use AF on anything further away than maybe 25 feet, with the lens wide open, it isn't even close. I plan on sending it to Canon for adjustment. I assume it can be fixed.
Cableaddict wrote:
Can't you send the lens, under warantee, to Sigma? Is it a QC / alignment problem, or are they ALL like this?
FWIW, my newish Canon 50 /1.4 is the same way: Dead sharp close up, with perfect AF, but if I use AF on anything further away than maybe 25 feet, with the lens wide open, it isn't even close. I plan on sending it to Canon for adjustment. I assume it can be fixed.
yea its under warranty. I will be sending it out tomorrow to them. One thing when the UPS guy gave me it last week. He said the package was listed as crushed..as they dropped the box or it got hit hard. so maybe that has something to do with why its out. Either way. its going to Sigma tomorrow to be calibrated.
I've seen a reports of people with no AF issues, but it is possible they haven't tried shooting anything far away wide open. In any event, yes, from what I understand Sigma is pretty quick about recalibrating lenses and getting them back to customers.
badlydrawnboy wrote:
I've seen a reports of people with no AF issues, but it is possible they haven't tried shooting anything far away wide open. In any event, yes, from what I understand Sigma is pretty quick about recalibrating lenses and getting them back to customers.
I have tried objects at all ranges (various samples posted in the threads) and it does fine at distance. The 30/1.4 had a tendency to short me there, but with my technique the 50/1.4 has been fine.
kjetils wrote:
I received my Sigma 50 today. Got a great deal (same price as Canon 1,4). Seems well built and you get a lot of glass! I have serious problems with AF. Wide open it will not get sharp shots beyond 1,5m at all, and really struggles otherwise also. (with mkIII). Got about 10 critically sharp shots out of 200 with one-shot AF. Manually focused it is amazingly sharp @1.4, colors and contrast are great. Bokeh is very pleasing, almost 85L-like. At 2.0 -2.8 it is really good. Will test with mkIIN tomorrow and see if autofocus is better.
'K
Nice catch! Where did you buy it at that price? I'd like one . . .
At a distance of about 75cm, mine misses focus by about 40mm. At 15m, the error is about 1m. Here, the centre point was AF'd on the red 24 inch mark . . . http://www.16-9.net/raw/sigma50_af.jpg
Can anybody reporting focus issues please say which body she is using? Many people are reporting focus issues with 35 L, 50L and so on, and I am forming the opinion that we are seeing the limitation of AF precision on some, if not all Canon bodies with wide open apertures and high pixel density. In other words, I am not sure calibrating the lens is going to help: the camera may be telling it to do the wrong thing.
Jonas B wrote:
The 50L has too little microcontrast, or my copy wasn't stellar. I don't know. I do know I have the Siggy50 on order.
We have to be careful about our expectations here. The shorter the focal length, the harder it is to build an f1.2 lens that is crisp wide open. The 50L should probably have microcontrast somewhere between the superb 85L and popular 35L. Nobody, not even Zeica manages to build standard or wideangle lenses that are really crisp at very wide apertures like f1.2 or f1.4. Even the 85L improves a lot in this regard between f1.2 and f2. At f1.2, the 50L's that I have tried have been remarkable, while at the same time a long way from perfect. The Rokkor is equally exceptional in that regard, but let's not pretend it does at f1.2 what it can do at f2.
In other words, at f1.2 you need to cut the lens a bit of slack, and the shorter the focal length, the more slack you need to cut it.
I had terrible problems on the 40D even stopped down to f/4 at distances >
10-15m.
Thenifty-fifty was perfect even wide open (shot from tripod, only changed lenses).
Luckily I only tested the lens so the shop will send it back.
Oh man I really hope it's only a small problem - the lens itself is brilliant.
I spent a happy/sad 30 minutes calibrating all my primes when I got the 1Ds III; most were OK: the 135L was spot on; the 24L and 85L needed a bit of help (both front-focusing), and this loan 50L needs +7 to get it right, but the Sigma is beyond help:maxed out to +20 it's still half an inch wrong at short range.
