Sigma 35 1.4 Art Series

fhibbs12

Senior Member
Well I did it....

I wanted a 2 prime walk around kit for street/random portrait/landscapes.

I am no pro and this is purely a hobby. I truly enjoy taking pictures so I want the gear I use to fit my style.

I originally bought the 85 and 50 1.8g lenses. I quickly realized the on my D600 the 85 was SUPERB and the 50, not so much. I also realized what the point in both???? 50 was a mere step or two back from the 50. So sad to say, the 50 1.8g RARELY got used.

Then came my dilemma. I spent countless hours reading the 28 1.8 g from nikkor and all the up and down reviews seem scattered. The more I read the more I worried..... Damn forums. Then came the Sigma 35 1.4 Art Series.

I said screw it and just ordered it. I was not letting the forums persuade my gear selection and was going to learn for myself.

So this thing is a beauty. It is sleek/stylish. Hood clips on very securely. Has a nice pouch/case not the typical cloth one which I really liked. Shooting wide open at 1.4 between 5-10 ft this thing is incredible sharp to my amateur eye. The bokeh is amazing. It is heavy and just feels good. To me the distortion is very well controlled. I am sure the 35 compared to 28 helped.

HOWEVER, there is always a however :)

When focusing more on distance subjects/landscapes things seem to get a bit different. Handhold testing this morning on subjects(trees/signs/buildings) greater than 15-20 meters away this thing seemed to get soft very quickly. I just was not sure if this was a normal thing among wider angled lenses. Anything within a normal working distance from 1 - 10 meters is incredible. My close range focus seems spot on. At distance switching to Liveview seems to help a little. I am just not sure if I am nit picking or this is something typical.

What are some good tests to put this lens through its paces and test for quality and accuracy?

Thanks for reading.

Frankie
 
The first thing you need to do is to post and picture that you think you have a problem with here. Be sure to list the EXIF data with it. When you resize it make sure the long side is 1000px or smaller.

thanks

It might help also if you do a 100% cropped section so we can see detail better.
 

mr2_serious

Senior Member
You will probably gave to fine tune the lens in camera or buy the sigma USB dock. With the dock you can calibrate the lens for 3 or 4 different distances and its only $60 usd

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
 

fhibbs12

Senior Member
DSC_6730.jpgDSC_6684.jpgDSC_6655.jpgDSC_6686.jpg
 

fhibbs12

Senior Member
First bridge shot is wide open second is 2.8...... both focused at infinity... the only thing that bothers me is the grass at bottom is still clearly out of focus. Both guys focus on eyes the standing fellow was pop up flash. all jpegs directly from camera. nothing fancy just shit from here at work.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
Hey Frankie, I'm looking at this lens also, did you resolve the issue?

I'm thinking the grass was closer than the infinity focus , throwing it out of focus.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
I've been researching this lens a bit. Did you buy the dock and update the firmware? The dock also comes with an auto-focus fine-tuning program to adjust the lens (which is great, instead of messing with fine tune on the camera).
 

mr2_serious

Senior Member
I bought the dock as well. Received last month but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. Maybe I'll test it out this weekend

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
 

aroy

Senior Member
First bridge shot is wide open second is 2.8...... both focused at infinity... the only thing that bothers me is the grass at bottom is still clearly out of focus. Both guys focus on eyes the standing fellow was pop up flash. all jpegs directly from camera. nothing fancy just shit from here at work.

You will get foreground (grass) and background in focus only at higher F stops - F11 or more, else you have to use tilt lens.

The whole idea of f1.4 lens is to get only the foreground in focus and the back ground out of focus. For this sort of end to end focus you can try much less expensive F4 lenses which at F8 to F16 will be extremely sharp (diffraction will set in in that range).
 
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