06-09-2010, 02:31 AM
Hey Pinhole, did you manage to get out and take some nice pictures with your new Canon 50mm f1.4 lens? It would be nice to see your experiences with it.
I registered and saw your post too late to get my own 2 cents worth, but thought I'd mention my own limited experience anyway. For very similar reasons (concert photography, with rapidly changing coloured lighting conditions) I decided to get a new 50mm lens to replace my Canon 50mm f1.8 (nifty fifty) primarily because its autofocus was noisy and ultra slow. Decided upon the Sigma 50mm 1.4 with HSM to pair with my Canon 5DM2 and having just read the review here (um, thanks by the way, I think) see that unlike DPReview the whole point in getting a high resolution lens for low light work was wasted really.
The Sigma 50mm f1.4 (well my copy anyway) is a very poor performer AF-wise, at least in low light conditions (as described above). I'd been pleased with the resolution but am wondering right now if it isn't just my own subjectivity telling me it's good, since I pretty much ignore corner performance in favour of judging a picture by how sharp the centre is (which is where focus is or should be most important). Anyway, I'm not totally displeased with it suffice to say it's pretty useless in bad light for AF, so no good at all really. I thought the Sigma was well known for generally quite poor AF compared to the Canon 50mm f1.4 (especially in low light) so was not hoping for miracles but a focus lock on at least once in a while would have been nice.
Anyway, it'd be nice to see some samples from your own pics or just to hear more about how you've been getting on with your new Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. I think I'd love to play with the 85mm f1.4 Zeiss on my Canon 5DM2, but will have to wait a long time till I've saved up enough money!
I registered and saw your post too late to get my own 2 cents worth, but thought I'd mention my own limited experience anyway. For very similar reasons (concert photography, with rapidly changing coloured lighting conditions) I decided to get a new 50mm lens to replace my Canon 50mm f1.8 (nifty fifty) primarily because its autofocus was noisy and ultra slow. Decided upon the Sigma 50mm 1.4 with HSM to pair with my Canon 5DM2 and having just read the review here (um, thanks by the way, I think) see that unlike DPReview the whole point in getting a high resolution lens for low light work was wasted really.
The Sigma 50mm f1.4 (well my copy anyway) is a very poor performer AF-wise, at least in low light conditions (as described above). I'd been pleased with the resolution but am wondering right now if it isn't just my own subjectivity telling me it's good, since I pretty much ignore corner performance in favour of judging a picture by how sharp the centre is (which is where focus is or should be most important). Anyway, I'm not totally displeased with it suffice to say it's pretty useless in bad light for AF, so no good at all really. I thought the Sigma was well known for generally quite poor AF compared to the Canon 50mm f1.4 (especially in low light) so was not hoping for miracles but a focus lock on at least once in a while would have been nice.
Anyway, it'd be nice to see some samples from your own pics or just to hear more about how you've been getting on with your new Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. I think I'd love to play with the 85mm f1.4 Zeiss on my Canon 5DM2, but will have to wait a long time till I've saved up enough money!