Sigma 50 1.4 review

I had lunch the other day with the Most Interesting Man in the World, and that's what he told me.  Hit the jump for our review.

Sigma 50 1.4 on a D3

I got a full frame camera mostly because I wanted more control over the depth of field.  Call me shallow.  I first used the D3 with the Tamron 28-105 2.8.  The shallow dof that I wanted was definitely there, even at 28mm.  However, I wanted an even shallower DOF at conversational distances (i.e. not with a telephoto), so I started thinking of getting a fast 50 and/or an 85.

Eventually I decided against an 85 for reasons I'll discuss next time.  Meanwhile you know how cheap I can be, so naturally my first instinct was to look at the Nikon 50 1.8D, the cheapest fast 50 for Nikon.  The problem with the 50 1.8D is that the bokeh is not very good.  I'm not a bokeh connoisseur, but I figured if I was getting a lens because of the shallow depth of field, I may as well get one with nice bokeh.  So I considered the 50 1.8G and the 50 1.4G, both of which have better bokeh than the 50 1.4D and 50 1.8D.

As I did more research though, I saw side-by-side comparisons with the Sigma 50 1.4.  I had never considered the Sigma previously because it actually costs more than even the Nikon 50 1.4G.  However, I could not deny that in comparisons, it had the smoothest bokeh.

I read up on reviews of the Sigma.  Photozone wrote that it is sharp at the center but soft at the "borders." I found this discouraging but I also checked out DPReview's lens comparison tool, which shows the actual size of the zone that is sharp and the part that is not sharp. 

It showed that the Sigma is sharper than the Nikon 50 1.4G at wide apertures except at what I would consider the edges.  With this kind of lens, I don't consider edge sharpness important insofar as I mostly take photos of people, not landscapes.  In addition, I was planning to use this lens wide open anyway, which meant that unless I was focusing on a subject at the extreme edges of the frame, anything at the edge would most likely be outside the depth of field anyway, making any discussion of sharpness moot.  Reviews also agreed that it has low chromatic aberration and low vignetting.

So I got the Sigma, dubbed by some, to the dismay of Leica fans, as the Sigmalux.

FOCAL LENGTH

Before we talk about the Sigmalux, let's talk about normal primes in general.

A.  ON FULL FRAME

Almost all my lenses are and have been zoom lenses.  When I used the Sigma 50, I initially found it very limiting.  Sometimes it's too wide, and sometimes it's too long.  But my coauthor mshafik wisely suggested to stick it out.  After using it for a while and looking at the shots as a whole, I found that I got many kinds of shots from it, from shots of locations, to environmental portraits, to headshots, to details of objects.  Pretty much the same variety of shots that I get from a standard zoom.

shot of a location

environmental portrait

3/4 length portrait

details

So, I believe the normal prime is an alternative to the do-it-all 24-70.  You may want to know that Henri-Cartier Bresson shot most of his photos with a 50mm lens.  True, a 50mm doesn't have the same control over focal length that the 24-70 does, but in return I get better control over DOF, better sharpness (at f/2.8) and a higher shutter speed if I need it.  A reasonable trade IMO.

Moreover, after I resumed using my standard zoom again, I found that I was using it at 50mm more often.  What happened?  Here's what I figured out: I had been consciously choosing the focal length in determining my composition (considering the perspective, etc.).  That's good practice.  However, sometimes a normal perspective, neither exaggerated nor compressed, is exactly what I want.  This is not the same as passively disregarding the effect of focal length and "zooming with your feet" (which is faulty advice).  Instead, sometimes I consciously choose a normal focal length, for example when I don't want to distract the viewer with the focal length and instead want to invite the viewer to look at other aspects of the photograph such as its substance or lighting or depth of field or any other aspect.

B.  ON APS-C

As if the Sigma's versatility weren't enough, as a bonus, I can use the Sigma on an APS-C body as a short portrait lens with an equivalent focal length of 75mm.  It's shorter than what I would like for a portrait lens but I can get upper body portraits or even head-and-shoulders portraits with this focal length, especially if I want to make the background or environment a significant element of the composition.

Sigma on APS-C (Fuji S5)

Sigma on APS-C (D70)

DESCRIPTION

The 50 1.4 is part of Sigma's EX line of professional lenses, meaning it has a higher build quality than their non-EX lenses.  Like Sigma's EX lenses, it has a matte crinkle finish.  It does feel very solidly built to me, but to be honest I'm not very particular about that sort of thing and am more concerned with performance.

The most distinctive physical quality of the 50 1.4 is probably its size.  It is quite large for a nifty fifty.  It is about the same size as the Nikon 85 1.4D.  Size comparison here.  The filter size is 77mm -- huge for a 50 1.4 lens -- but very convenient because it is the same size as several of Canon's and Nikon's better lenses (e.g., 24-70, 70-200).

PERFORMANCE

A.  Bokeh

Bokeh is the quality of the out of focus areas.  It is subjective but most people prefer a smooth-looking bokeh (words such as "creamy" are often used to describe the bokeh of lenses such as the Nikon 85 1.4).

How smooth is the bokeh of the Sigma?  It's so smooth that if you rubbed a baby's butt on it, the bokeh would get scratched.  Yes, the Sigma has one of the smoothest, if not the smoothest, bokeh for a 50mm f/1.4 lens.

hypnotic bokeh

I also noticed that in a few shots, the bokeh seems to form a circular pattern around the middle of the frame, sometimes called "swirly bokeh".  I think it is a cool effect for portraits, but I can't get it consistently.

Is your head spinning?

Not all is perfect however.  When used wide open the Sigma does occasionally show onion-ring bokeh, which can bother some people.  This is because the Sigma has aspherical elements to minimize aberrations.  This is an issue that also affects other lenses such as the Nikon 50 1.4G, Nikon 24-70 and Canon 85L.  In the case of the Sigma, the rings are not very obvious but they can be seen on some highlights when closely examined, moreso than on the Nikon 50 1.4G.  Last test shot with a doll, I promise:

onion rings visible... if you can peel your eyes long enough from the bokeh blobs

The rings don't show up on farther highlights, and they also don't show up when the aperture is narrowed to f/2.0.  In any case, in the sample photos on this post, I did NOT screen out photos with the onion bokeh so you can see how often it shows up and judge for yourself how much of an issue it is in the real world.

B.  Sharpness

The Sigma is sharp at all apertures.  Wide open, it is reasonably sharp:

Glass orb at Bellagio Conservatory

Stopped down to f/2.0 it is very sharp.

Foie gras mushroom burger from Smith & Wollensky

From f/2.8 to f/8 it is crazy sharp (although at these apertures, Canon's 50 1.4 and Nikon 50 1.4 are just as sharp).

f/2.8 - SOOC, no sharpening or clarity adjustment

C.  Focusing

If you have not used a 50 1.4 lens before, be aware that at an aperture of f/1.4 the depth of field can be exceptionally thin when the subject is close.  With the slightest delay between the focus lock and the actual shutter release, the image won't be in focus.  When using this lens wide open for people shots, I usually hold down the shutter button, which means the camera will release the shutter as soon as focus is acquired.  I also get better results using flash and/or a very high shutter speed.  If the subject is moving, I narrow the aperture to f/1.8 or f/2.0.  If the subject is moving around a lot or there is more than one subject, then f/2.8 is probably the widest aperture I would try to use.

With those limits, the Sigma focused with reasonable speed and accuracy.  On my D3 I had to enter a -10 microfocus adjustment on my copy.  On my other cameras (S5, D70, D90) I don't have a microfocus adjustment capability but the lens focuses just fine.

Note: in Canon forums that discuss this lens, a number of people have expressed an issue about the Sigma's autofocus, exhibiting both front- and back-focus on the same copy (making it impossible to correct even with microfocus adjustment).  Many Canonistas who use this lens said that it required exchanging the lens a few times to find a good copy that doesn't have focusing errors.  Alternatively, some Canon shooters have sent their copies to Sigma for recalibration, with good results.

COMPARED TO OTHER 50MM LENSES

Here are some comparisons between the Sigma and other lenses.

• vs. Nikon 50 1.4G and 50 1.2 AIS: on Flickr's Sigma 50 1.4 group
• vs. Nikon 50 1.8D, 50 1.8G, 50 1.4D and 50 1.4G: Mansurovs review of the 50 1.8G - This is the only review I've seen that not just noted but also lambasted the Sigma for the onion bokeh.  Personally I think this review doesn't sound very neutral, but I'm providing it here anyway.
• vs. Canon 50 1.4 http://tommeinenphotography.com/50mm/ and  http://www.flickr.com/photos/-cr/6110453692/
• with Canon http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=943520&page=5 and http://www.flickr.com/photos/-cr/6110453692/
• with Pentax Super Takumar, Pentax SMC Takumar, Sigma 50/1.4 and Zeiss 50/1.4 AE: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/661966

SAMPLE SHOTS

Here are some more shots I took with this lens.  They have what I consider to be minor edits.  To give a more accurate idea of this lens' field of view, I avoided cropping and cropped only to change the frame ratio or to straighten the image.

A.  FULL FRAME

B.  APS-C

CONCLUSION

Although the Sigma is larger and more expensive than Canon's or Nikon's equivalent lens, it has bokeh that is quite possibly the smoothest of any 50mm lens in its class.  Moreover it can produce sharp photos even when used at wide apertures, including wide open.

I would say the Sigma is for someone who...
- Wants a lens for full frame with a focal length range that works with a wide range of subjects (not just portraits) or wants a short telephoto lens for an APS-C camera;
- Wants the smoothest bokeh bar none;
- Doesn't mind occasional onion ring bokeh;
- Wants the sharpest lens for full frame at wide apertures (wider than f/2.0).  Note: For crop-sensor, sharpness is just about the same as that of the Canon 50 1.4 or Nikon 50 1.4G;

- Gives higher priority to center sharpness than edge-to-edge sharpness;
- Doesn't mind the large size.

Note: There are fewer complaints about autofocus in the Nikon mount version of this lens, compared to the Canon version.

OTHER SAMPLE PHOTOS
Photography on the Net "Sigmalux" thread.  I didn't go through all 500+ pages of the thread, but I like the ones posted by Ximix .

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Lightroom 4.1 now available

Lightroom 4.1 now available for download here.

Besides fixing some bugs and supporting additional cameras, LR 4.1 can process HDR TIFF files, has additional controls for correcting chromatic aberration, and can save photobooks in JPEG format.

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Chocolate Fondant

 

There's this restaurant in Maadi (one of the nice places in Cairo) that has a very famous dessert, they call it "Chocolate Fondant". People go there just for this dessert, I went with my family last weekend, and we had a very swell time.

 

 

This is how it looks like, it is normally served with one scoop of vanilla ice cream, but this time I ordered an extra one. See that sponge cake in the middle? Don't let it fool you, once you dig the spoon inside, delicious molten chocolate gushes out of this cake, the dark hot taste of chocolate with the cold vanilla ice cream is just exotic.

 

The place is elegentaly and simply decorated from inside and they service is very good, I would recommend it to anyone to go and try this dish.

 

 

I was armed with my 5D Mark II and the excellent 50mm f/1.4 lens, lighting was tungsten spotlights from above, and I like the warm white balance used.

 

And this is how much I enjoyed the dessert, no traces to be found. :-)

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Food Photography Assignment

I was asked by one of my friends to shoot a couple of dishes for his cousin's restaurant, and since I wanted to experiment with shooting food, I readily agreed. Click through for the details.


It's no secret that I never shot a paid assignment before. Although 95% of my photos are of people (mainly family and friends), I never warmed up to the idea of shooting other people for money, whether it's portraiture, weddings, etc... However, I am fine with shooting non-animate objects, I shoot some female dresses & accessories for a project run by family members, and very recently one of my friends convinced me to start a business out of food photography, fine by me, so I used this opportunity as a test to see how the experience and the photos turn out.



Before going, I asked my friend (who went there before) about the location, the lighting used there, the colors of the walls (for bounce flash), and what did the client want to shoot and for what reason. Turns out the client was offering a very competitive price on one of their cheese burgers, and he wanted a close up of the sandwich to show its size and components for the ad. I was also told that the restaurant walls were beige, and the lighting there is very dim.



Being my first assignment in front of a client I don't know, I was worried I'd miss some piece of equipment that I left at home, originally, I knew I'd be using the 100mm Macro and bounce flash, but I brought along the lightstands and umbrellas, just in case. My equipment included the 5D Mark II, the 100 Macro L, the 24-105 in case I needed some wide angle shots and a couple of 580EX speedlites.

This was the main course I came to take photos of, but as you see, it was not very well presented, especially the bread, but that's what I had to photograph, in the next photo you will see a closeup where I tried to hide the bread's defects.

Simple as it is, taste wise, I certify that this is one delicious burger, the restaurant makes their own beef burgers, they don't buy frozen burgers and just fry it. Lighting wise, I was using on camera flash, usually bounced upwards and to my right in most of the shots, I varied the FEC based on what the histogram told me, I was working between +2 2/3 and +3 FEC, for some reason the camera decided that the correct exposure was way less than what I wanted. Before I shot any dishes, I used a grey card to adjust my white balance.

Next dish was a vegetarian pizza, using the same setup I took the obligatory full dish photo, and then I started trying to get more interesting angles (to hide the fact the pizza's edges are not a perfect circle like the dish) and imagining how they would look in the menu. Since I was shooting close, with a long lens and a full frame sensor, sometimes the DoF was plain shallow, so I varied my aperture based on the look I wanted, I was working between f/4 and f/8.

I think the photo above works better than the full dish. The last dish to shoot was a Fettucini pasta, this was the best prepared dish and easily looked good in photos without trying to get different angles to hide defects.

When I finished shooting, I uploaded the pictures from the camera to the iPad using the camera connection kit (iPad displays RAW photos) as a backup and to show them to the client, then we went through the pictures (~ 70) quickly, then we selected the photos the client wanted and deleted the rejected ones. This way when I got home, I plugged the iPad to my PC, and imported the photos directly into lightroom, no need for selecting or rating photos.



I learned a lot from that day, and we all agreed (me, my friend and the client) that the dishes needed better presentation next time we do a shoot. I am also looking online for more tips on how to make the dishes look better (using oil, etc...), so if you have any advice, please tell me in the comments.

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Update

Sorry for the lack of blog posts from me.  I've been busy lately because of work and because I did a prom shoot last weekend and have been editing the shots.  I will do a blog post on that at some point.  Meanwhile here are some of the reviews that I will be posting beginning next week:

• Sigma 50 1.4 - It's more expensive than Canon's or Nikon's 50 1.4.  Why would a cheap guy like me get one?
• Nikon 24-70.
• Tokina 11-16 - I had a Sigma 10-20 just a couple of months ago and I liked it so much... I sold it (!?) and got this ultrawide.  Is it worth the extra cost?
• Tokina 10-17 Fisheye review, plus tips for using fisheyes as opposed to a rectilinear ultrawide.
• UV Filters: high end filter vs. cheap filter vs. no filter.
• Nikon 70-200 VR.
• Sigma 50-150 (non-OS) vs. Nikon 70-200 VR.  Comparison of depth of field, slowest usable shutter speed, etc.

EDIT: links posted above for the posts I've finished.

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Lots of Canon Updates

Canon Rumors is obviously a rumors site, and I used to never care about rumors since they might not be true, until recently when I discovered that rumors "doesn't equal" not true, it might just mean that information is not official yet, and the site owner also has lots of trusted sources. I started following the site a while back, and I found it accurate enough, and anything that reaches the [CR3] rating, is pretty much on the money, so what's new to report?



1- Canon 650D (Rebel T4i)
18 MP sensor (not sure if it's the same as the 650D), 9 cross-type AF points, touchscreen LCD and continuous AF in video, there's also a new EF-S 18-135mm lens rumored to feature silent focusing motor to work with the continuous AF in video.

2- Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 Pancake
A very slim and light lens with a not-so-common focal length, rumored to be around the $300 price mark.

3- Canon Announcing 2 non-P&S Cameras In June
Certainly an exciting piece of news, one of them is almost certain to be the Canon 650D, the other one is said to be a mirror-less camera, and I hope it is. There are lots of speculation about a 70D and a 7D Mark II, but nothing true yet.

4- Official Discontinued Products
Most importantly the Canon 24-70 and the 580EX II speedlite, now when I'm in the market for a new flash, I might as well buy the 600EX-RT, and why not a 2012 body (5D Mark III?) to make sure all the wireless features work?

I have always been quite intrigued with small mirror-less & EVF cameras, but recently my interest peaked a lot with the Olympus OM-D EM-5, the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 and the Olympus 45mm f/1.8. With such fast lenses you still have some control over the DoF with a Micro 4/3 sensor, and the image quality at high ISO has come a long way through. What is more interesting is that Amazon had an offer on the Panasonic GF3 with the 14mm f/2.5 pancake for a $314, that is an amazing value for such a camera despite it not having lots of buttons or a viewfinder, I would take that over the Canon G11 and it's brethren any day.

What does this have to do with the announcements, you say? One thing, mirrorless cameras, I want a small good one, I am waiting for a really attractive offer (sub $800) for a good mirrorless compact with a good EVF and just one 50mm equivalent fast lens.

RELATED POSTS:
Olympus OM-D First Impressions and Comments on DOF
Hands-On: Canon 40mm Pancake
Canon 60D vs. 550D (and 600D)

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Tonal Adjustments in Lightroom 4

I came across this very useful post talking about tonal adjustments in lightroom, I believe this is a must read post, I enjoyed it a lot.

 

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Shooting Football - 5D MarkII + 200mm f/2.8

Our company has organized a football tournament between the different departments, and I went last week to one of the games to cheer for my colleagues' team and try out my 5D's tracking along with the 200mm f/2.8. I ended up enjoying the game (my colleagues won 5-4), but the photography experience was disasterous. Click to read more.

As usual I took the camera and one lens, I wanted to see how the Canon 5D's continuous focusing and 4fps fares in such conditions, my lens of choice was the 200mm f/2.8, I have already shot a few football games with my 60D + a 35mm and an 85mm, the 85mm on a crop sensor gave me enough reach from the sidelines, so I thought a 200mm focal length would be enough, especially that it would enable me to stand farther away, well, things didn't turn out very good.


See that opening picture? Look carefully, can you see the sidelines? Can you see the wall behind the sidelines? The court was in the middle of a very crowded buildings area, so the space was barely enough for the football field, with no place to stand far away, first problem, the 200mm was too long, and ai could barely fit people on the other end of the field.

See that ugly yellow wall and those ugly player colors? Second problem, the lights used in the field had a wierd color temperature, I tried setting a custom WB before shooting, but the colors turned very bad, so I shot RAW anyway and decided to tackle this matter in post, nothing worked, the photo you see above has major color tweaking (hue & saturation) done in post, it is as close as I could get to what I saw there, and to make matters worse, there were these awful yellow colored walls behind the players most of the time, at the end I made another copy of the photos in B&W to hide these problems, what do you think? Which ones are better?

Third problem, light levels were very very low, it isn't my first time shooting football, and I usually end up shooting f/2.8 at ISO 1600 or something to get reasonable shutter speeds, not here. I used manual mode, lens wide open at f/2.8, and in order to get 1/320 ~ 1/400 shutter speeds, I had to increase the ISO to 12,800 (first expansion ISO, not native), all these pictures you see here at shot at that ISO, and I used my usual luminance noise reduction in LR4 at 20, didn't spend anytime trying to get rid of the noise, pictures just aren't worth it.

To sum it up, the 5D did well in tracking the action, I don't think I had OOF shots, and I like the B&W shots much more because they don't show the ugly colors and they seem to hide (or maybe suit?) the noise pattern. What do you think?

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Workflow Tip: Sort in Reverse

Here's a simple tip for sorting through your photos during post-processing: try reviewing them in reverse.

I usually take several shots of a particular subject, and I tend to get new ideas as I shoot, so my best shots tend to be my latter shots.  It also takes me time to warm up the photography neurons in my brain so that as a whole, my shots later in the day tend to be better.  By sorting in reverse, I find the better shots faster and I can go through the other shots more ruthlessly. :)

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5 Tips for Using Flash Outdoors

I like using bounce flash because it gives me soft and directional light when used with proper technique.  Outdoors, however, bouncing flash is not so easy, particularly when it's bright and sunny.  Those were the circumstances when I took the shot above.  What flash technique did I use here (or did I not use flash at all)?  Take a guess!  What technique would you have used here?

Answer: I used direct on-camera flash with no modifiers.  (cue the thunder and lightning)

When I first learned about lighting, one of the first things that was drilled into me was that direct on-camera flash is terrible. The light quality is hard (because of the small size of the speedlight), flat and unnatural (because the light is coming from the camera's direction).  I've taken some extreme measures to use anything but direct on-camera flash, sometimes using a handheld umbrella to soften the light and control its direction.

However, there are times when using a direct on-camera flash is perfectly fine.  One such instance is when you are outdoors and there's no place from which to bounce a flash.

In the shot above and the ones below, that's exactly what I did - I used an on-camera flash pointed directly forward, but in my opinion, the use of the flash is not obtrusive and improves the images.

You may be wondering: it's bright enough, so why use flash in the first place under these circumstances?

1. Shadow detail.  When taking photos outdoors in bright sunlight, the sunlight often casts deep shadows.  Using flash, we can illuminate those shadows to bring out relevant details that would otherwise be harder to see.

Without flash - faces in shadow

With flash

2. More saturated backgrounds.  Another reason to use flash is to get more saturated backgrounds.  When your subject is in shade, you can expose for the subject but the background, which is not in shade, will then become overexposed and washed out, just like the trees in the sample below.

Without flash - washed out background

With flash - more saturated background

Some tips to make the best use of flash outdoors:

1. Be aware of the direction of the ambient light and use it as key or rim.  It's still a good idea to use lighting techniques to show the subject's form.  One way to do this when using direct on-camera flash to use ambient light as a key or rim light by carefully positioning the subject (or waiting for the subject to move into the right position).

2. Control the intensity of the flash and use it as fill.  This is a corollary from the previous point.  When flash is acting as fill, it has to have a lower intensity than the ambient light that is acting as key or rim.  Otherwise, if they had the same intensity, the shaping effect of the ambient light will be negated.  Moreover, if the fill is just as bright as the key (or rim), it makes the use of the flash more obvious.

To control the flash intensity with TTL flash, you decrease flash exposure compensation (sometimes though the system is smart enough to know that the flash is acting as fill and will therefore decrease the flash exposure automatically).  See the TTL Flash Tutorial.

3. To minimize shadows, avoid having the subject next to objects.  One way the use of direct on-camera flash becomes obvious is when the subject casts shadows from the flash.  First, the on-camera flash shadow doesn't have the same direction as the ambient light.  Second, the flash direction is from the camera's axis (or close to it) which is an unnatural direction for light (you could try to create the sense of direct frontal light from sunset, but if that's your intent you should gel the flash).

4.  Use an external flash.  A popup flash is closer to the axis but is limited to the sync speed (thus requiring narrow apertures in bright conditions).  Using an external flash allows high speed sync, which in turn allows you to use wide apertures for shallow depth of field.  As an extra benefit, the use of flash becomes a little harder to detect because most people are less accustomed to seeing a shallow depth of field in flash-lit photos in bright conditions.

5. Finally, one more way to disguise the use of flash is to clone out specular highlights.

Unedited shot - note the specular highlights on the posts.

Edited shot - specular highlights cloned out

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