Sigma 311101 50mm F1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Canon, Black

Already owning and having great results from the Sigma 50mm F/1.4 EX Lens I decided to upgrade to the newer Art version.I will not go into the technicalities of this lens as if you are looking at it you will already know your stuff. Instead I will just look at my opinions and my experience for comparisons.Instantly I am impressed with the results, seemingly gone is the AF issues of the old lens, instantly focusing on the desired subject in all but the dimmest of lighting with a dark subject, this sending the lens on a chase looking for its mark. I have used this so far for around about 500 exposures in a variety of settings and the majority of these shots were extremely sharp with a very pleasing bokeh. The ones not quite perfect were more often than not down to user error and therefore the lens cannot be blamed.I use this lens paired with a Canon 5d mark iii and it does just what I want. It has been used so far mainly for portraits of my children and family gatherings and also at my sisters stables for capturing horses and dogs. Whilst at the stables I have used it in fast burst mode whilst my sister rides in the outdoor arena and had some fantastic results were the older version seemd to lack.In short this lens is my go to prime and I have since sold the older version. The bokeh is soft and pleasing, the AF now seemingly fixed and images nice and sharp, the lens nice and quick. If you are looking for a extremely good prime I would suggest spending the extra for this and you will have no regrets. I have also used the Canon F/1.4 and also F/1.2 and in my opinion this leaves them behind in terms of results, especially now with the fixed AF system.

I've always struggled with which is the best 50mm lens is on a Canon fit. Its an obvious lens to own if you are going down the prime route but there are so many options with vastly different prices out there that deciding which represents best value is very hard.This lens is a massive step up in quality from Canon's own 1.8 lens (aka niffty fifty) but inevitably is also much heavier and larger. Sigma has historically be plagued with both unreliable autofocus and quality control issues however in the last couple of years, since their Global Vision approach of banding lenses (Contemporary, Art and Sport) they seem to have gotten significantly better.The version I have received is very sharp, good at autofocusing in at a good speed. I believe it can be further updated using their docking station (available separately) but I've only gone as far as fine tuning it with microadjustments which were less than all of my Canon L series lenses.I've not owned the Canon 50L and so cannot make a direct comparison between the two, it is a little faster but also a lot more expensive. I know some semi-pro photographers are hoping Sigma will upgrade this lens to make it closer to the latest Art series lenses which are easily riveling Canon L but for me as a serious hobbyist this was the right balance of price -v- quality and I'd highly recommend it.

Make no mistake, this is a great lens! It is well built, good looking and gives better than expected results. Its low-light performance is excellent, auto-focus quick, and image quality is worth twice the price. Images are very sharp at the centre and acceptably sharp at the edges, there is minimal chromatic aberration and distortion and the colour rendition is excellent. It is heavy and has occasionally missed focus at f1.4, but then it is very tricky to nail focus at this aperture. This is well worth the money. Buy one!

I had read a lot of stellar reviews about this lens and after my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 was dropped by an assistant a few months ago I could never quite trust its focus, so I took the plunge with this one.I have shot a bit of video footage with it and recently took it on its first stills mission which was a test shoot in London on a beautiful fall day. You can see the results of that shoot here including a few notes on exposure etc...https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.736828319706288.1073741847.333578280031296&type=1Overall I'm very pleased with this lens. The build quality is excellent. It feels solid and precise. The autofocus is silent and very fast and when I could confirm that I'd grabbed the focus spot I was aiming for it was pin-sharp. When reviewing my photos it seems I missed my mark a few times, but this could be a fault of the 5D MKIII's focus system and not always being able define a small enough area in a photo for focus (the focus boxes I use in the viewfinder often focus on a small branch, or something near the subject if they're far away in the frame). The bokeh is superb. Really creamy out of focus highlights. The flare was hard to produce given the superb coatings Sigma have used to supress it, but when I was able to get flare with low sun it was a really nice effect which resolved beautifully in a reddish hue at the top of the frame (you will see this photo in the link provided above). If I moved the lens slightly I was able to get a more emerald hue. Lovely stuff for arty lifestyle, or editorial fashion photos.The only reason I'm not giving the lens 5 stars is because I find the manual focus ring a tad too sensitive. I'd like a longer throw on it for the video work I do as when focusing manually, you only need to move the ring 0.5mm in order to throw everything out of focus at f/1.4. I know this was meant for stills photography, but would be nice to have a little more play in the manual focus even for stills.One more thing... The lens came with a really well-constructed hood and a great, soft case.