Sigma 85mm Portaits (more added)

Your wife looks like my next door neighbour Joe :lol:

Yep, your wife is slightly out of focus due to the DOF but perfectly done.
 
Starastin said:
the same situation, I mean - about the primes. but it makes more sense to use zooms if your doing paid work. well, but who doesn't know that already :D
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Not at all. 2xbody and few primes. I never used zoom lens at any wedding!
You will never get same quality and look and f2.8... thats darknes! :D
 
Thanks Joe for sharing lovely images ...

By the evidence of the images and conversation the Sigma 85 seems a great lens.

Xmas has just gone and I already can see me spending again .
 
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Mad_Mac said:
Not at all. 2xbody and few primes. I never used zoom lens at any wedding!
You will never get same quality and look and f2.8... thats darknes! :D
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won't get rid of the f2.8 zoom ! :razz:

Just read an article about somewhat good wedding tog and he uses couple of primes and ONE body. :shrug:
 
cuthbert said:
... yes it is and it's only few quid on the cost of the lens, but hey that's a few quid in my pocket towards the next lens... rather it there than spent by our honourable friends on another pointless government computer system ;-)
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by less stuff that you don't need or want. people spend too much money on stuff they don't need, but hey ! that's how the economy is rolling.

Mad_Mac said:
2.5% :bang:
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oh ! :( and the VAT men said that I'm a brilliant mind.
to be honest - I'm not really bothered about the rise so I don't follow it.
 
Hmmm... no I can't!
Just bought 35L, my wife would kill me! LOL
Good shots! Love this DOF!
 
Lovely photos there Joe, very nice lens that
 
Mad_Mac said:
Hmmm... no I can't!
Just bought 35L, my wife would kill me! LOL
Good shots! Love this DOF!
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Mine too but it's a must , Come on join me in Camera heaven LOL.

Joe super shots . DOF is brilliant.
 
Amazing!!! Just had a look at new photos you posted.
You use the lens very well and very effectively Joe.
Very nice photos. Nice color, good contrast, sharp and clear.
The blur background works really well to me.
Cheer you got a nice set.
 
I hate to be a cynic here, but you pay a lot of money to get from f/1.8 to f/1.4. I don't see anything this lens can do that my 50mm 1.8 can't. These shots aren't that great (sorry joe). they're point-and-shoot family snapshots. not compositionally excellent. Anyone who owns this lens could take these shots. sorry!
 
bomberman said:
:The title of the thread is "sigma 85mm f/1.4 portraits" and it's posted in the Photo Critique and sharing > People and portraits section. Well half the people in the photos are OOF and that's what i'm commenting on. Perhaps this thread should be in the Equipment forums instead?
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Except that you started with a critique of the lens, and then tried to prove that your 50mm 1.8 could produce the same results, ie an argument about the merits of the kit, not the image itself.

As for half of the people being OOF, you have heard of selective focus haven't you?
 
I know what you're saying but don't agree..at all

Rather than seeing the oof areas as a point of critique, I looked at them as a good reference to gauge how shallow the dof is. Which is part of getting a lens like this. Sometimes shallow dof is preferable, its a subjective creative choice that the photographer makes.

In this case, the OP made a point of saying, these shots were taken at f1.6. And I personally appreciated seeing the varying examples at different distances and so on. It doesn't mean I want to go away and shoot everything at f1.6

You are not having a rational discussion. You are saying the 50 1.8 is as good. And you are most definitely wrong. The 85mm 1.4 sigma is not an expensive lens, its more than the 50, but 99% of lenses cost more than a 50.

And F1.4 isn't too narrow to use.
 
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The point was the op posted some photos in the Photo Critique > People and portraits forum and i gave him some honest feedback on how i thought he was using wide apertures for the sake of it and said it made his photos look a bit, well, poo.
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Perhaps a little abrasive for a light hearted C&C turned Sigma-85mm-owners-praise-thread? I know there's no bad will meant Tim, however with your distinctively blunt style you expect slightly defensive and similarly blunt responses to some of your posts :)
 
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bomberman said:
I think the sigma is probably better built, has better autofocus, probably a bit sharper and better contrast, but photographically i don't see anything the sigma can do that the nifty fifty can't.

Take a look at Danny (Mahoneyd187) photostream above on flickr, his shots are photographically and compositionally excellent and he shoots with a nifty fifty and Nikon D200. I don't think the magazine publishers looked at his photos and said "oooh i'm sorry, matey, we can only accept photographs taken with lenses with special low dispertion elements"
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Lol thanks for the compliment :)

You just said sharpness and contrast are better in the sigma, but photographically its not better? Bit of a conflict of terms there I think. Let me try and bridge the gap in our differing opinions...

It doesn't ensure a good picture no,in that right you are correct. A good photographer can take a great picture with a 50 1.8. BUT what you don't comprehend is,this same photographer,given a 50 1.4, now has a better built, sharper, etc etc lens, that's even BETTER in low light, thus allowing improved image quality and another stop to play with before upping the ISO and effecting the image quality to its detriment. And the general consensus agree, the bokeh is nicer, and an image shot at 1.4 or 1.8 has a large proportion of the image OOF, so the quality of the bokeh is important.
 
...and I say :

Nice bokeh.
Selective focus : each to their own.

I agree though that perhaps this thread would have been better in the "look at what I just bought" forum rather than the photo critique and sharing one :)
 
ok bomberman, seriously, you have some pretty big chip on your shoulder. The biggest mistake you are making is that what you think should and shouldn't be in and out of focus is actually fact rather than opinion.

all the parts of the photos in this thread where people are out of focus was deliberate and whilst you may not like this and have every right to express your opinion, understand that you arent right by default, this is just your opinion and others have a different one. I didn't put the mum out of focus by accident, my subject is my daughter and that was deliberate.

any of your critique on the images compositionally etc is valid but if you read back the onl parts i have contested is you trying to tell me that your plastic nifty fifty can achieve the images in this thread. Here you are simply wrong. The bokeh on that lens is disgusting quite frankly along with a whole host of other things already mentioned above. This is perfectly shown in the two photos you posted. Look at the horrible lights in 1 and the top right of 2 where it looks like someone smashed the bokeh up with a bin lid. Im not sure if you took these photos or they were jus a sample since you said you struggled to get both eyes in focus at 1.8 so apologies if that offends you but that bokeh is really, really horrible.

fact - my skills as a photographer are weak, im purely an amatuer
fact - your opinions on composition and subject matter etc are more than valid, but they are only your opinions, you aren't right by default

fact - your claims about the nifty being able to achieve what this lens can do is simply codswallop
 
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kennysarmy said:
...and I say :

Nice bokeh.
Selective focus : each to their own.

I agree though that perhaps this thread would have been better in the "look at what I just bought" forum rather than the photo critique and sharing one :)
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yes this is a valid point, on relflection this was more a test of the lens than real critique.
 
I like the first pic where the child is walking away. I am not sure about the second pic, would have liked to see both hands.
 
This thread has turned into a claw sharpening exercise. :(

Tim and Joe both have valid opinions, but defo in the wrong thread.
 
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Tim - hand over your fifty.
Joe - the 85 please.

I'll look after the lenses for you.

Now the pair of you sit in the corner!
 
nobody is getting their hands on my 85! it's permanently stuck to my camera!!!!!

I'll give you my 17-40L instead as I have hardly used it
 
joescrivens said:
I'll give you my 17-40L instead as I have hardly used it
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I'll give you a nice Panasonic GF1 for it :)
 
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