Sigma 35mm f1.4....?!!

Man of Honour
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1 more sample!
No sharpening applied, 1.4 :)

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Soldato
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Flickr: Secret Bunker signposted from Crewe These Flickr are at resolution (24mp 6016x4016) with hopefully exposure information available as well.

My first pics taken with the Sigma 35mm Art lens. These shots were at a Secret Bunker museum & I thought were a good first test for the lens. I shot some scenes twice; with the flash on so as to give as much detail as possible to see how sharp the lens is & another shot for effect using the natural low light. As a consequence of the low light these pics have a very shallow area of focus with more grain due to a higher ISO sensitivity. I noticed after a while that the lens hood gets in the way of the built in flash, even the high reach flash of the D610. I did a few Bokeh shots & noticed at f1.4 the orbs became elliptical but at f2.8 they were round with everything out of focus looking great except slightly out of focus detailed areas looking a little fussy. I corrected the lens distortions in Photoshop & also applied a typical amount of sharpness: amount=30-40 depending on ISO, radius=1.0, detail=25, mask=varied. I was tempted to just upload the camera jpegs for a default examination of the shots but it was too tempting to take advantage of the 14bit RAWs of the Nikon to recover as much detail as possible in the low light. Fortunately there were gantry rails I could rest on for some low light shots between 1/30th-1/45th sec but I even managed 1/20th sec hand held on one shot. Im very impressed with the edge to edge sharpness & overall clarity, finally a lens to challenge the full frame 24mp sensor of the Nikon D610.

Checkout the sharpness especially at the edges (sorry about the lens hood)
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Nice Bokeh at f2.8
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Soldato
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I want to love my Siggy 35, but the AF is ****e. I pretty much always go for the Siggy 50 instead (even though it's not as sharp wide open). I'm looking forward to the new Siggy 50, I just hope it has better AF than the 35...
 
Soldato
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Yeah my Siggy35 was back focusing every time at first use but yesterday in dark conditions I used single servo AF (with reassuring beep) & just the 1 central focusing point & it was spot on every time.
I'm going to build this AF calibration tool to be sure & check the other lenses too...
 
Soldato
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Yeah my Siggy35 was back focusing every time at first use but yesterday in dark conditions I used single servo AF (with reassuring beep) & just the 1 central focusing point & it was spot on every time.
I'm going to build this AF calibration tool to be sure & check the other lenses too...

I've seen a few people that are having that issue. Obviously with a camera and dock it's not much of an issue now, but there are a LOT of photos on Flickr I've noticed in the last 2 days where people don't seem to realise they're back focusing. I hope mine will be fine :D
 
Soldato
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Back focusing or simply people missing focus due to moving even a small amount during the shot?

Mine is certainly fine and needed no adjustment in camera or via the dock.

It could actually be them misfocusing to be honest, but my 85L back focused when I had it and it looks like that on the shot I'm thinking of. The situation in my mind at the moment is two people walking through a crowd, with a person on the left about 1ft nearer. The photographer is standing about 20ft away, so they've either accidentally selected the wrong focus point or it's wonky.

Whatever it is, I don't care as unless the lens is MASSIVELY out you're golden on a prime :D

I've been really lucky lens wise in the last 10 years. I've only had the 85L needing adjusting, and the Sigma 50 1.4 on FF. It was spot on, on the 60D. Not bad considering I've gone through about 15 lenses. I just wish they'd ship the damn thing :D I've got a music event I'm covering in 3 weeks and I've been told the lens won't get here until about the 12th or 13th as it wasn't in stock. Eek :D
 
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Soldato
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2nd shoot with the Siggy35 but outside this time.
Mostly of some streams as I wanted to relish in the tranquillity of not being worried about stopping down & losing quality & I was not disappointed with edge to edge sharpness at f16.
One thing I did notice was the depth of field scale is not entirely accurate & it back focused more than the DOF guide on the lens indicated, which also resulted in the distance being out of focus.

In this shot I focused on the wall in the distance then set that distance point just shy of the f16 DOF guide marker on the lens, but its ended up being just slightly out of focus & more foreground in focus than I thought there'd be.
2rogymx.jpg


Rest of the album here on Flickr.
 
Man of Honour
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f/16 and beyond you tend to lose any benefit of sharpness due to diffraction. You nay even find f8 being the sharpest aperture all round for general use outdoors!

Anyways, this is a 1.4 lens. I shall use it at 1.4 at every --reasonable-- opportunity!

Solent.jpg
 
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Soldato
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At f16 the Nikon kit zoom gives much poorer quality than the Sigma35, but hey it is a zoom.
I think the vegetating around the BMW is helping to compose the shot as well :)
I found the sweet Bokeh aperture to be f2.8 but yeah I agree shooting wide open can dramatically alter the composition.
 
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Lens seems to doesnt want to unmount from my camera ever since i first mounted it!

Go and tell me mines dont focus properly lol! all the, shots shot at f1/4 mate. i dont mess around. Why buy a f1.4 lens to shoot at f16 hehe
 
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Man of Honour
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I can't believe I haven't posted this one here yet, it's at f/2 but you can get a true sense of depth and how much life it gives to human faces which have lived.

This man owns the Igloo Hotel in Lapland.
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f/16 and beyond you tend to lose any benefit of sharpness due to diffraction. You nay even find f8 being the sharpest aperture all round for general use outdoors!

Anyways, this is a 1.4 lens. I shall use it at 1.4 at every --reasonable-- opportunity!

Solent.jpg

Wow, I LOVE the processing on this!
 
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