Sigma 30mm 1.4 Photos looking washed out

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studioworks

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Bought a Canon 100D and Sigma 30mm 1.4 to stick in my pocket when i take the kids out, replacement for my Canon M as such. But looking through the photos tonight I'm not at all impressed, none are particularly sharp and although been able to make them acceptable in Lightroom they all look a little washed out as standard.

Gonna stick the lens on a different camera and a different lens on the 100D tommorrow just to test them both out but wondered if anyone else had been equally disappointed by the lens?
 
twist said:
Great lens. Post some samples
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That's what I'd thought when I read up on it, I'll post some off the laptop in the morning.

I do think it's slightly front of back focusing but no adjustment on that camera but either way doesn't explain the colours.
 
studioworks said:
That's what I'd thought when I read up on it, I'll post some off the laptop in the morning.

I do think it's slightly front of back focusing but no adjustment on that camera but either way doesn't explain the colours.
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Just add vibrancy or saturation. Not the end of the world. I really like sigma prime rendering.
 
twist said:
Just add vibrancy or saturation. Not the end of the world. I really like sigma prime rendering.
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I've always been a big fan of the Canon 85mm 1.8 where generally I'm happy with the photo straight out of the camera, even the 50mm 1.8 seems a lot more pleasing, first time I've had a sigma prime so could be more what I'm used to I guess.
 
Is this the old APS-C 30mm f1.4 DC Sigma? If it is I had one and used it on my 20D on which it was a great performer with no washed out colours at all.

Something seems odd here so examples and exif would be useful as this lens should get you very good results.
 
woof woof said:
Is this the old APS-C 30mm f1.4 DC Sigma? If it is I had one and used it on my 20D on which it was a great performer with no washed out colours at all.

Something seems odd here so examples and exif would be useful as this lens should get you very good results.
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Yea pretty sure that's the one off hand.
I'll pop up some examples in the morning but it was out in the sun today at f2 and iso 100 just so I wasn't hitting the shutter limit. I'll try and take some comparisons with my Canon 85mm and a 7D while I'm at it.
 
The Sigma 30/1.4 is a fantastic lens, my favourite when I still had my 40D. Overexposure is the obvious thing to rule out, but so is checking your Lightroom settings - any import presets and the lens correction setting (is it picking up the right lens?)
 
These are 4 examples from yesterday, completely untouched other than resizing for upload. Admitedly I'm starting to think maybe the result is more down to such harsh sunlight and habving the lens stopped so wide.










I just took these to test it out, unfortuantly terrible light today but in the full resolution such a massive difference in sharpness between 1.4 and 2.8, literally night and day. I thought these lens were supposed to be pretty good wide open?



 
studioworks said:
I just took these to test it out, unfortuantly terrible light today but in the full resolution such a massive difference in sharpness between 1.4 and 2.8, literally night and day. I thought these lens were supposed to be pretty good wide open?
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User error or false expectations. See the lower eyelash on the right of the image, your DOF is wafer thin at f/1.4.

None of these look particularly washed out they look as I'd expect for the lighting conditions, and "untouched" images says very little about the lens. SOOC JPGs are at the mercy of your in-camera JPG engine settings, and untouched raws is a myth - it's down to your import preset which is driven by either your in-camera settings or your import settings.
 
Alastair said:
User error or false expectations. See the lower eyelash on the right of the image, your DOF is wafer thin at f/1.4.

None of these look particularly washed out they look as I'd expect for the lighting conditions, and "untouched" images says very little about the lens. SOOC JPGs are at the mercy of your in-camera JPG engine settings, and untouched raws is a myth - it's down to your import preset which is driven by either your in-camera settings or your import settings.
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They didn't look as bad today as id been thinking of them, more a case latish last night and was fairly disappointed when I viewed them and instead of waiting to look again had a little rant. Looking at them now I think my main disappointment was the fact they don't have the same pop as the longer focal length primes and even though the background blurs nicely theirs not the same subject isolation ive come to be used to from my 85mm 1.8 which being logical theirs never going to be.

Ill have a play with them in lightroom at some point and see just how they can wash up.
 
It'd help me understand if you could have a go at defining what you mean by pop. If you mean subject isolation and depth of field then you'll have to adjust camera to subject and subject to surrounding distances, if you mean something else such as contrast, saturation and vibrancy all I can say is that I found the lens up to the task but there is the possibility of tweaking the image in your raw or jpeg processor or by adjusting your in camera settings.

My lens was pretty sharp at f1.4 but as has been said depth of field can be thin especially at reduced camera to subject distances. One thing this lens suffers from is field curvature but I never found that to be a real world issue, not if the point of focus is the main subject and certainly not in a whole image.
 
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Hard to tell if they are critically focussed at these sizes but...

The first two look OK to me, and actually I like the second one quite a lot, not easy to get a decent picture of a child on a swing.

Highlights are blown in the second and third, not much you can do as the light looks really hard.

Looks like the DoF caused you a problem in the fifth as her left eye is out, right eye looks good though.

Sixth is nice and shows the reason I used to like my Sigma 30mm, it has a nice warmth to it.

Like you say you won't get the isolation you get with an 85mm. If it's the Canon 85mm you have at least the Sigma won't constantly wind you up with its long MFD! :)
 
studioworks said:
I've always been a big fan of the Canon 85mm 1.8 where generally I'm happy with the photo straight out of the camera, even the 50mm 1.8 seems a lot more pleasing, first time I've had a sigma prime so could be more what I'm used to I guess.
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Sigma primes are as good (if not better in a lot of instances) than Canon primes :)
 
Basically you've git a lens that was never regarded as a stellar performer and compared it to two significantly better lenses! The 30mm f1.4 reviewed reasonably at the time of release but was never a wow lens and it hasn't aged well!
 
at 1.4 your focal length is very short indeed, some of the shots look fine. I have the 35mm F1.4 art and its an amazing lens - at 1.4 though I have to be in their face and the in-your-face shots look fine.
 
a1ex2001 said:
Basically you've git a lens that was never regarded as a stellar performer and compared it to two significantly better lenses! The 30mm f1.4 reviewed reasonably at the time of release but was never a wow lens and it hasn't aged well!
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Ever used the 30/1.4?
 
woof woof said:
It'd help me understand if you could have a go at defining what you mean by pop. If you mean subject isolation and depth of field then you'll have to adjust camera to subject and subject to surrounding distances, if you mean something else such as contrast, saturation and vibrancy all I can say is that I found the lens up to the task but there is the possibility of tweaking the image in your raw or jpeg processor or by adjusting your in camera settings.

My lens was pretty sharp at f1.4 but as has been said depth of field can be thin especially at reduced camera to subject distances. One thing this lens suffers from is field curvature but I never found that to be a real world issue, not if the point of focus is the main subject and certainly not in a whole image.
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Yes I was meaning subject isolation, I'm more used to the 85mm and the 70-200 where the subject literally looks like it's popping into the picture rather than being an in focus part of the background.
But I think that was more false expectations as just not going to happen at 30mm no matter how wide open.

SixToes said:
Hard to tell if they are critically focussed at these sizes but...

The first two look OK to me, and actually I like the second one quite a lot, not easy to get a decent picture of a child on a swing.

Highlights are blown in the second and third, not much you can do as the light looks really hard.

Looks like the DoF caused you a problem in the fifth as her left eye is out, right eye looks good though.

Sixth is nice and shows the reason I used to like my Sigma 30mm, it has a nice warmth to it.

Like you say you won't get the isolation you get with an 85mm. If it's the Canon 85mm you have at least the Sigma won't constantly wind you up with its long MFD! :)
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To be fair I think they must of focused fairly accurately just from the examples the subject doesn't seem to get really sharp unless very close.

Yea I was impressed with the amount of keepers from the swings, considering how basic a camera the 100D is the servo focusing worked extremely well. Certainly better than the Canon M it was destined to be a replacement for.

Unfortuantly bright sun light so probarly wasn't the best of days to take it for it's voyage outing, will have it out again today, looks like it will be a whole lot less challenging lighting wise.

Carlh said:
at 1.4 your focal length is very short indeed, some of the shots look fine. I have the 35mm F1.4 art and its an amazing lens - at 1.4 though I have to be in their face and the in-your-face shots look fine.
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From what I tested this lens is the same, great sharpness when your in close but unfortuantly not at a more commonly used distance.
 
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