09-25-2013, 05:51 AM
This argumentation has sort of weak spot: Magic lantern will only calibrate to one fine tune pararmeter, this is for each lens only one distance. Done with the dock, there are four different distances. on my copy, it turned out that -1, -1, -1, +1 gave the best sharpness - some Nikon lenses go over -10. Of course, for ergonomics it would have been cool to plug a cable to the lens instead of mounting and dismounting it. But while I used the dock twice, this socket would always be there as costly to make but weak point for weather resistance. Given the price, each Nikon /Canon 35/1.4 should have such a possibility.
The dock is useful and I can't recognize the pain you suffered from. On the contrary, I'd be more than happy if some genuine manufacturers took the courage and the trouble to make one by his own. But it is kind of work to get reliable parameters, if I don't want to believe only one shot but make a couple at each adjustable distance.
The firmware update is also very nice for users who get their copy early - with each other manufacturer there's no possibility to adapt a lens to a newer body (in case there are improvements necessary).
As for the rest of your post - I read a similar opinion or observation in another forum about the 35/1.4: "razor sharp if it focusese accurately" (which always includes the sentence "but it doesn't always" So I think that can be an issue, that some Sigmas do have a failure, although they're controlling 100% of the A, C and S lenses. In my experience, my Sigma might have slightly more sharp shots than other lenses I own and of all for f/1.4 I have, this one is the best and most reliable if it comes to sharpness by AF accuracy. Maybe it has something to do with being my always on a D800. Maybe it's because that body is a challenging thing for my AF skills. Maybe it's because I know I can make crops down to 30% of original size, if my skill and the AF worked nicely together. But - I don't believe the phase AF is always 100% reliable. Especially if it comes to continuous shooting in AF-C mode I use to get the sharpest shot at the beginning of the row, the others are not bad but not as good as - always talking about aperture wide open, so close to zero tolerance. It's not always the lens. And it's not always the genuine lenses are better as given fact.
On the other side, sometimes it's not lens or skill but just a confused AF. I trash quite a bunch of pics just because the big square of the AF indicator box is sometimes too large to get the exact branch of a tree with a bird sitting on it and prefers the tree's needles or leaves behind the bird - hard to discover while shooting and concentrating on the subject. I admit I'm biased: I didn't expect so much sharpness at this price, I didn't expect this reliability and I din't expect the love for details Sigma's engineers put in their first "A" lens which hit the market and blew more people away than left impressions like yours. I agree that's not a nice impression. But if I have such an impression I tty to counter check with a trusty person's findings. Too often it was my mistake or my need to improve my skills.
The dock is useful and I can't recognize the pain you suffered from. On the contrary, I'd be more than happy if some genuine manufacturers took the courage and the trouble to make one by his own. But it is kind of work to get reliable parameters, if I don't want to believe only one shot but make a couple at each adjustable distance.
The firmware update is also very nice for users who get their copy early - with each other manufacturer there's no possibility to adapt a lens to a newer body (in case there are improvements necessary).
As for the rest of your post - I read a similar opinion or observation in another forum about the 35/1.4: "razor sharp if it focusese accurately" (which always includes the sentence "but it doesn't always" So I think that can be an issue, that some Sigmas do have a failure, although they're controlling 100% of the A, C and S lenses. In my experience, my Sigma might have slightly more sharp shots than other lenses I own and of all for f/1.4 I have, this one is the best and most reliable if it comes to sharpness by AF accuracy. Maybe it has something to do with being my always on a D800. Maybe it's because that body is a challenging thing for my AF skills. Maybe it's because I know I can make crops down to 30% of original size, if my skill and the AF worked nicely together. But - I don't believe the phase AF is always 100% reliable. Especially if it comes to continuous shooting in AF-C mode I use to get the sharpest shot at the beginning of the row, the others are not bad but not as good as - always talking about aperture wide open, so close to zero tolerance. It's not always the lens. And it's not always the genuine lenses are better as given fact.
On the other side, sometimes it's not lens or skill but just a confused AF. I trash quite a bunch of pics just because the big square of the AF indicator box is sometimes too large to get the exact branch of a tree with a bird sitting on it and prefers the tree's needles or leaves behind the bird - hard to discover while shooting and concentrating on the subject. I admit I'm biased: I didn't expect so much sharpness at this price, I didn't expect this reliability and I din't expect the love for details Sigma's engineers put in their first "A" lens which hit the market and blew more people away than left impressions like yours. I agree that's not a nice impression. But if I have such an impression I tty to counter check with a trusty person's findings. Too often it was my mistake or my need to improve my skills.