Which 50mm prime?

Im not sure a person who can set a camera to center focus, put it on a tripod and point it at something motionless then take a picture can make a mistake when testing a lens, especially if they have used a camera before and tested their current lenses using various methods.

Ive also just recently received a bum Sigma 50 1.4. So can add me to the list.
 
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twist said:
Im not sure a person who can set a camera to center focus, put it on a tripod and point it at something motionless then take a picture can make a mistake when testing a lens, especially if they have used a camera before and tested their current lenses using various methods.

Ive also just recently received a bum Sigma 50 1.4. So can add me to the list.
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thats fine, if you tripod'd it, used mirror lockup, used a remote then sure you have a duff one.

im just saying i believe the amount of duff ones to be exagerated greatly by people expecting handheld at 1.4 to be 100% sharp without great technique.
 
For the people with the Sigma lens Ive read it only focuses properly between 5 and 20'. Anything closer than 5' and it FF, anything further than 20' it BF?
 
nah, ive used mine loads under 5ft and no focus issues. dont know about over 20ft, not sure i ever use it for that distance i mainly use it down at the min focus distance end.
 
neil_g said:
nah, ive used mine loads under 5ft and no focus issues. dont know about over 20ft, not sure i ever use it for that distance i mainly use it down at the min focus distance end.
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I also would use mine under 5ft and its definitely front focusing loads. At F1.4 its roughly front focusing by 1" so when I focus eyes I get nose focused and eyes OOF. Hows your lens at focusing in a lit room? Thanks
 
wippers said:
Cheers Simon, I'd be interested to see these. :thumbs:
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Here you go Gareth...

The first one is shot at f1.4 and the second is at f2.8. Both were shot at 1/160sec at ISO50 on my 5DMKII. Neither shot has had any sharpening beyond the defaults applied by Adobe Camera Raw.

There's a noticeable improvement with the lens stopped down but I quite like the 'dreamy' effect of the first one. :)

IMG_4036tpedit.jpg


IMG_3985tpedit.jpg
 
Sigma F1.4 @ 1.4 - Focus on the left eye, definitely FFing grrrr...

 
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All Canon 50mm 1.4, taken at 1.4.
I'm really happy with this lens

1) My vintage 22 year old cat annoying me at my desk.
i-QXNr2xq-L.jpg


2) The neighbours Black Lab
i-x25RMgX-L.jpg


3) If you've got it - use it! (f1.4 that is...)
i-XmqW4Cq-L.jpg


4) Man from C&A
i-XQWBLSc-L.jpg


5) Cute puppy; the real star of the evening.
i-9Gzs5Z6-L.jpg
 
woof woof said:
I just personally believe, based on my own experience and watching other people, that much of the Siggy panic is way overblown, :D
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I wouldn't call it overblown, after receiving two duff lenses from WEX.:thinking:

I spent a whole weekend faffing around with each lens, trying to convince myself that it was something I was doing wrong. But you could tell from the first picture that something was amiss.

I have put a review on WEX's website about the siggy 50mm f1.4 with an image.

I could have sent it back to Sigma with my camera to be sorted, but I dont have the time or wanted to.

However all my Canon lens are tack sharp straight out of the box.:thumbs:

Spence
 
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wippers said:
Hi All - I'm looking to put a 50mm prime to my lens collection as am getting asked to do more portrait stuff just lately. Does anyone have any advice/experience of any of the following?

Canon 50mm f1.8 - circa £75 this is definitely cheap and cheerful and always seems to get good praise?

Canon 50mm f1.4 - circa £250 is the extra money worth it for the larger aperture? Does this offer much shallower DOF?

Sigma 50mm f1.4 - circa £300 I've always liked the build quality of the Sigma lenses compared to the cheap and plasticy Canon starter range.


Any advise is more than welcome.:thumbs:

Thanks for looking.

Gareth
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Gareth,

I had Canon 50mm 1.8 mkI and mkII. Both great lenses, mkI has a different focus system (a bit slower) and is better for manual focus.

I sold both and bought myself a NOS Canon 50mm 2.5 Macro. It cost me 140 euros and it was in as new condition.
It's a bit slower, but I feel it has the best optics of the 3 and it's very sharp at f2.5. Also, it can do some great macro shots.

I never tried the 50mm 1.4.
 
Well after a bit of thinking time and reading all the posts on here, I decided to go with the Canon 50mm f1.4. Due to all the concerns about focusing etc, I opted for a new one from my local camera shop (I like to support the local independent stores wherever possible). This way I could go into the shop with my 5D and try the lens out. It seemed fine focusing and so far have used it a few times with pretty good result.
I have to say it's pretty difficult getting a decent shot at f1.4. I did a couple of a friends 1 year old at the weekend at 1.4 and on some of them if I wasn't completely square-on, only one of her eyes were pin sharp in focus. :shrug:
Practice practice practice....:thinking:


Gareth
 
wippers said:
I have to say it's pretty difficult getting a decent shot at f1.4. I did a couple of a friends 1 year old at the weekend at 1.4 and on some of them if I wasn't completely square-on, only one of her eyes were pin sharp in focus. :shrug:
Practice practice practice....:thinking:
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That's because using f/1.4 at a short distance from the subject, the depth of field will be minimal, sometimes only a few millimeters. ;)
 
PitaDaVespa said:
That's because using f/1.4 at a short distance from the subject, the depth of field will be minimal, sometimes only a few millimeters. ;)
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I know all about this - I had an Canon MP-65e for a while and the DOF was ridiculously small, sometimes fractions of a mm even. :thumbs:;)

woof woof said:
It could also be because the lens focus is all over the place. Take a look at the test results here at post 17...

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=381789
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Cheers, I'll have a look. :thumbs:
 
woof woof said:
It could also be because the lens focus is all over the place. Take a look at the test results here at post 17...

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=381789
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Personally, I'd rather point a lens at a proper subject rather than sit there gawping at a some points on a graph! Real-world results are what matters and if the lens wasn't capable of performing properly, I'm pretty sure Canon would have ditched it years ago (or upgraded it)! ;)

Si
 
Spiritflier said:
Personally, I'd rather point a lens at a proper subject rather than sit there gawping at a some points on a graph! Real-world results are what matters and if the lens wasn't capable of performing properly, I'm pretty sure Canon would have ditched it years ago (or upgraded it)! ;)

Si
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The thing is that it's possibly a poor design. I'm not talking optically here I'm talking mechanically. It's one thing to obsess over QC and the possibility of having to send a lens back for calibration but if a lens just isn't capable of giving predictable and consistent results due to the sloppiness of it's focus mechanism then I think that's the time that you have to start to decide if it's got any place at all on a list of possible purchases.

If that graph is a real representation of performance I don't see how it could be bought with the intention of using it for real world wide aperture shooting as in the real world you'd probably need to stop it down to hide the intrinsic inaccuracies of it's sloppy focusing system.

c14.jpg


I'll keep my Siggy, it's good enough to use at f1.4 for real world shooting, by design :)
 
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