Fast 50 mm lens shoot out

[jim kerr]

<p>Hey, Just for the sake of getting my 2 cents worth in.........I don't think it amounts to a hill of beans which lens brand you use as long as the aperture is the same if the body is digital, the digital screen is not capable of the resolution of the high resolution film. the pixels are just not small enough to get film's fine grain resolution........Jim</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Now you've done it, Jim.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Umm... yikes?</p>

<p>Nah, got gonna get involved. Let nature run its course.</p>

[tim_knight]

<p>I really like Jack Danial's on the rocks. Hansen "Cheers" for the work you put into the shootout of these fine lenses.</p>

[seismiccwave]

<p>I agree with every one about all those lenses are perfectly capable of producing perfectly good images in the right hands. I for one will not hesitate to use any of them. For that matter besides the four that I tested here I have other 50 mm lenses and for the most part they all perform very well with a few except of the older less well coated lenses.<br>

Matt, I use 2 X 100 watts tungsten continuous lights with no modifier at 45 degrees to the Jack Daniel's bottle. <br>

Yes, I don't know if I mentioned it earlier but yes I did notice a different shutter speed with the Sigma. I assumed it is because it has a slightly wider field of view and therefore gathered light a little differently. It happened again when I was doing the focus chart tests. <br>

Chris, I was not surprised at the front focus because that is fairly typical on the behavior on various lenses I checked. The only real variation I get was my Canon 5D where the camera body back focus a lot until I sent it in for re-calibration. I believe the focus tolerance on all four lenses is pretty good. <br>

I am just like every one else the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence until I actually do a test like this to see for myself.<br>

I would love to do a more thorough test to check the corner sharpness of all these lenses at various aperture settings. The problem is that these tests are so boring.;-) I have been wrecking my brains to figure tests that can actually be fun and the images beautiful. </p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>For anyone who's still tuned in and might want a little more anecdotal chit-chat on this subject, <strong><a href="../canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00RtVc?unified_p=1">here's a post from from R. Rubenstein</a></strong> where he mentions his real-world first chance to compare the Sigma 50/1.4 to Canon's on his 40D. A bit of a sidebar for this forum, but always interesting.</p>

[ned1]

<p>Matches my experience with my 50/1.2. Insanely sharp at 2.0 (looks sharpest of the four in your test), very slightly soft at 1.4, noticably soft at 1.2. At 2.0 and beyond it's my sharpest lens.</p>

<p>Something your test doesn't show is the bokeh for the 50/1.2. Gorgeous. It's the reason I traded my 1.4 in for it.</p>

[bill_keane2]

<p>As Matt mentions the Canon review, it is also interesting to note that the Sigma backfocuses with Canon full-frame bodies on subjects beyond 10 feet. I don't know if this has been resolved yet.</p>

[jeroen dommisse]

<p>I love these kind of tests. So funny. Happy to say that I've been out shooting all day!</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>Ah, but when you're traveling "out there" what better thing to do than type some posts at photo.net with a mobile phone? And 50mm lenses are always a lively subject - ironically they're all really good, but everyone seems to want to have the very best 50's or alternatively the one with the most "character" ;-)</p>

[Mike D]

<p>Just got the Sigma 50mm F1.4 a couple days ago. The attached image is cropped about 40%, D700 at ISO 800, aperture 1.4 at 1/200th second hand held in natural light. Focused on the eyes; note the smooth background.</p><div></div>

[jeroen dommisse]

<p>That's a nice cat.</p>

[sprouty]

<p>Thread kill!</p>