Sigma 30mm f1.4

Jean Dantes said:
Ahhhh, I see. Does the 7D have focus assist? Or do we have to wait for something like Magic Lantern?
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Yes, there's a focus assist feature. It's a basic feature of all DSLRs. Basically, it's the 5x and 10x zoom that's easily accessed via a button on the top right hand corner of the rear of the camera. It's labeled with a magnifying glass icon.
 
Here is the link to the video on youtube I shot FOR FUN last Friday night... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKZQjA5KnRw

My thoughts on the lens? I love it.

I've never been a fan of the standard 50mm field of view, it always looked too 'normal' to me. This lens feels perfect on the 7D: its light, inconspicuous and super fast. Prime lenses can't be beat. As dark as the room was I never would have considered using another consumer grade camera to shoot with. But at f/1.4 the camera sees much brighter than my eye does. The bokeh from the eight-blade aperture is buttery. I shot the video iso 1200 but if I were to do it again I'd crank it up to 2000(+) and adjust the contrast in post and grade it using Magic Bullet- which I did not use as I knew yall wanted to see the footage ungraded. On a side note, I don't know if I would feel comfortable going much wider than 50mm with the 7D without SOLID SUPPORT & IS. This was shot without a tripod or support- completely handheld, didn't even use my Z-Finder. It was tough to control the shake. So you need to watch yourself with movement as this camera will amplify all of it. The Sigma 30mm is a bit soft wide open, which you can see from the video, and the focus wheel is pretty tight and continues to spin to eternity without a hard stop.

I needed a fast lend so it was between this and either the Canon 24mm f/1.4L or the 34mm F/1.4. The 24 & 35 are sharper to be sure but for the money, dad-gum, I'm digging the Sigma.

I have a short that I'm shooting later this week using the 30mm under controlled conditions with slowmotion which I'll post when its cut. I've got other lenses so I'll shoot more stuff between clients as I can and get it up for yall to see. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll field them as I get them.

Cheers-

Ash
www.iniosante.com
 
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Attached are two stills from a shoot we just did this morning -
Two 7Ds, one with the Sigma 30mm, the other with the Canon 85mm (which is a SWEET piece of glass by the way).

But I have to say, not that I had any serious doubts, but after today I am fully sold on this Sigma 30mm. I think it's going to get used quite a bit in the weeks to come on any interview I shoot.
We've been going over the footage for the past hour or so - and so far it looks great.
 

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That footage and those stills looks good!

I owned one of these when I had a Nikon D50. This was a couple years ago and then there were some definite QC issues with the lens and many in Flickr groups have stated that they went thru a few different lenses until they found a "good" one. Since then I think Sigma has upped their QC. It was an awesome lens and I pretty much never took it off the camera. If I ever get one of these 7D's I would definitley consider picking up another one of these for sure.
 
From the lenses I've used, Canon's 28mm seems softer at all apertures than the Sigma 30mm- if that's the look you're going for, bravo. The Canon uses a 7-blade aperture compared to the Sigma having an 8-blade aperture... there is a difference in bokeh, it's not much but you notice it side by side. As Luis mentioned the Sigma is faster with better lowlight and a shallower DOF. The Canon is a tad wider but its negligible on a crop frame.

The QC issues with the Sigma 30mm revolve around it's auto-focus system. However this is a non-issue shooting video because you are required to manually focus with the 7D (at least for now).

Ash
www.iniosante.com
 
So the focus ring is nice? I don't mind if it spins forever or if it is a bit too dampened, so long as it is accurate. Would you say this is the case?

(BTW, not that it matters at all, but the HVX doesn't have a hard stop)
 
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USLatin said:
So the focus ring is nice? I don't mind if it spins forever or if it is a bit too dampened, so long as it is accurate. Would you say this is the case?
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Yes.

[And you're right about the HVX... I had a hard focus ring on the one I had a few years ago and forgot it wasn't standard.]
 
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iniosante, thanks so much for doing this!! Truly, truly appreciate it!! Great video!! Catchy song too! :)

Would love to see what you could do with shoulder-mount and your Z-Finder!

So is the "spin to eternity without a hard stop" gonna be a major problem? And is the focus ring so tight that a follow-focus would have a hard time moving it?

Thanks again!!!
 
great video. great music. i really like this lens and what you did with it.
do you know anything about the 20 or 24mm sigmas???
 
Jean Dantes said:
So is the "spin to eternity without a hard stop" gonna be a major problem?
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It shouldn't matter unless you are setting marks on a FF's disk and while shooting you go past the closest focusing distance or past infinity, at which point the marks would be useless and you'd need to measure them again. However you can continue focusing with a screen or with the small focusing scale (if you can see it).
 
USLatin is correct. Its not so tight you cant use a follow focus- but it is tighter than most lenses.

jsauce & Jean Dantes- thanks for the kudos. I haven't used the sigma 24 but I have used the 20... good underrated lens. Pretty sharp. You can find them on ebay for cheap too. Buy some used lenses and experiment till you find the field of view you shoot the most in then resell what you don't use the most. I find I shoot the majority of the time around the 11mm range, 30mm, 80mm, and somewhere around 200.

Ash
www.iniosante.com
 
thanks. good advice, from what i've seen of the 24 it looks good (theres a couple sample vids on youtube). the 20 is a bit more expensive. i love that both of them give you a macro capability.
 
I still have my heart set on this 30mm Sigma, but I've become rather paranoid as of late because I have read that some buyers here and there had to get their lenses recalibrated, and that Sigma has quality control issues. Maybe my eyes are just trying to find negative things...really don't know if I should fork out the extra $200 and get the Canon EF 28mm f1.8. Not because I think it's a better lens, but simply for the sake of "quality control" and not having to deal with recalibration. Being a novice to all this, I wouldn't even know where to begin going about recalibrating my lens...
 
Get the Sigma 30mm f1.4. Don't listen to the haters. Just get it as "local" as you can and make sure there's a 15-day return policy, or at the very least, that the place you buy it from is an authorized seller.

Saving some cash buying over the internet is good for some things, but if you're worried about getting a problematic lens, better to be safe than sorry.
 
Thanks for the reply SM :)

This is as local as I can get:

http://www.digidirect.com.au/camera...r_digital_slr_cameras/sigma_af_3014_ex_dc_hsm

http://www.digidirect.com.au/camera_lenses/canon/wide_angle/canon_ef_28mm_f18_usm_camera_lens

Turns out the Sigma is a bit more (the "$200 less" price I said above was from ebay sellers in Hong Kong, so don't really wanna be buying from Hong Kong if there are quality control issues), but I guess you're getting a faster lens. The Sigma has been out for a while, perhaps the quality control issues have been ironed out?

Being a complete novice to DSLR/VDSLR, I was wondering how I'd go about knowing if my lens is "good" (as in, doesn't need to be recalibrated). Perhaps someone in the store could hep me?
 
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