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Now reading: Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM 'Art' real-world samples gallery 32 comments

Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM 'Art' real-world samples gallery

Published Apr 17, 2014 | dpreview staff

The 50mm F1.4 DG HSM is Sigma's latest fast normal prime for full-frame cameras, and one of the most hotly-anticipated lenses of the year. It's a completely new design from the older 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM, with 13 elements in 8 groups, and a minimum focus distance of 40cm. But how does it perform in real-world use? We've been using the lens for a couple of days and put together a gallery of samples. We've concentrated on large-aperture shots to show sharpness and bokeh, but have also included several taken at smaller apertures.

View our Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM 'Art' real-world gallery

There are 31 images in our samples gallery. Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter / magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review), we do so in good faith, please don't abuse it.

Unless otherwise noted images taken with no particular settings at full resolution.

Tags: sample-gallery, gallery, samples, sigma

Comments

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DPR staff (1)

Oldest first

Wurli

Although it´s a big and heavy lens I´m loving it - especially it´s "pictorial effect" and bokeh. I have collected some of my test pics (taken with the 5DIII) at
https://flic.kr/s/aHsjXZRtdt

May 17, 2014permalink

David Smith - Photographer

I love it too. Now, below are a lot of rather negative comments about bokeh, creamy, Zeiss and how sharpness is not important. I bet all of these people are Zeiss loyalists with a bag full of expensive manual Zeiss glass, shocked by the fact that this cheap third party lens bests that glass in many aspects. Suddenly, those aspects like (corner) sharpness and CA are not important anymore. Just like autofocus isn't necessary right?

May 25, 2014permalink

HubertChen

Wow, amazing lens! Sharp wide open, nice bokeh, no purple fringing. And really very nice rendering. I am sold.

Except it is almost 1 kg and the size of tele. But then again no other 50 mm f/1.4 at this quality level is any smaller. Congratulations to sigma.

And thanks to who took the sample shots. Very useful for evaluating this lens! I would have cared for some landscape shots @ f/5.6 with a 36 MP sensor. I would hope it to be extremely sharp, but then it would be nice to see it.

I am very surprised for such an amazing lens only so few comments.

Apr 21, 2014*permalink

jtan163

Bokeh balls?
A ƒ/1.4 prime gallery and there are no bokeh balls?
What kind of outfit is this?
SRSLY!!??!
Kinda.

Apr 20, 2014permalink

David Smith - Photographer

Stop crying about bokeh, grow some bokeh balls.

May 25, 2014permalink

dstate1

Another in a string of ultra performance 50mm full frame lenses. Its funny how that focal length literally went decades without any major improvements (A 50mm lens from the 1970's is just about on par with anything from around 2001) and now in a matter of 18 months we have a flurry of updates.

Sadly the SIZE of these new lenses shows the lengths lens makers have to go through to produce visible improvements. The one exception being the absurdly priced Leica Apo Summicron 50.

Apr 18, 2014permalink

Rooru S

For a moment I thought about selling my Zeiss 50mm F1.4 SSM for Sony cameras, buy the new Sigma, and have some cash back to my pockets.. But then I saw the bokeh.. I know I know, not everyone is after bokeh, but I really love the bokeh rendering from Zeiss lenses. If I was looking for ultimate sharpness wide open I would buy it, but nope. Good to know Sigma is improving their optics.

Apr 17, 2014permalink

Liviu Namolovan

Judging by these photos, a verry good lens! Almost a Zeissness rendering. Messy/busy bokeh?! Now that's an exageration!

Apr 17, 2014permalink

JF69

Please Liviu, pleasssse……you've never used a Zeiss lens, have you? These samples are super sharp, but the samples provided are NOWHERE near the 3D "pop" that Zeiss lenses produce.
PS: yes, the bokeh is terrible, but we already expected that after having seen what the Sigma 35mm ƒ1.4 Art could do. It's surprising that this 50mm's bokeh is just as bad or even worse, even at wide apertures.
I am probably going to buy one, but definitely not for bokeh or OOF transitions.

Apr 17, 2014*permalink

HowaboutRAW

JF69:

Let's be fair to this lens and wait for raws, ideally from several examples of this lens.

Then monitor bit depth really matters, when making judgements about high quality optics.

So there are reasons for waiting, that's all I'm saying.

I've shot with the Otus, and haven't been as impressed with that lens as other Zeisses I've owned and used. (Yes, the Otus is very sharp, but the colour is odd, for a Zeiss. I'd like to shoot with it in other situations.)

Apr 17, 2014*permalink

Zeisschen

@ howaboutraw

For judging bokeh we don't need any RAW flies. Actually 1000*800 jpeg are enough to see hat this lenses bokeh is quite busy and sometimes distracting imho.

Apr 18, 2014permalink

InTheMist

Sigma 35/1.4 has the best bokeh among lenses that can autofocus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edJStBgM6GQ

Apr 18, 2014permalink

HowaboutRAW

Zeisschen:

I've not looked at the boken in detail yet, it's not the only important characteristic for judging the optical quality of a lens. And right, I realize it can be examined with jpegs.

Apr 18, 2014permalink

HowaboutRAW

Zeisschen:

The background blur of that flower looks good, though I've not examined the full res jpeg yet--waiting for a better monitor than the Macbook Air.

Is it as good as the best Zeiss? I'm not sure, but it's good. Not busy, or showing evidence of aperture leaves.

Apr 18, 2014*permalink

AndreSJ

As a bokeh lover am i the only one who finds it a bit messy and static like?? Very sharp lens though

Apr 17, 2014permalink

new boyz

That's the price of sharpness. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Nikon 58mm that is not as sharp, but render a very smooth bokeh.

You can't have it all, at least for under USD4k.

Apr 19, 2014permalink

(unknown member)

new boyz - you should spent more time reading and researching, every point you mad is wrong, but you sound so sure that it makes it even worse...

Apr 20, 2014permalink

(unknown member)

Poor bokeh, horrid out-of-focus areas and poor focus-transition rendering...this is welcome though as it makes the original (and better in these areas) Sigma 50 1.4 cheaper! :-)

Apr 17, 2014permalink

AndreSJ

Ii thought i was the only one who didn't like the bokeh, i find it very messy

Apr 17, 2014permalink

steelski

It is a bit of a charachter....less lens IMO

Apr 17, 2014permalink

Zeisschen

crappy bokeh is always called "character"...
LMAO

Apr 18, 2014permalink

steelski

Zeisschen.
I don't think you get it. Laugh all you want, but the out of focus at these apertures is always more important than the infocus. The fact that the lens has great sharpness and contrast seems to just make for a boring image. You also misunderstand the term character . As you know we all have character, good or bad, just like we all like the antihero vs the goodytwoshoes trying to do what's right. Although we respect him.

Apr 18, 2014permalink

Zeisschen

steelsky

actually I agree with you in almost all of your points. Just the term "character" is mostly beeing used for lenses who have some imperfections like this nervous bokeh on the Sigma. Of course character can be good or bad and peoples tastes are different.
I'd never buy this Sigma because for me it has "too much" character. I'm just used to the suoer creamy Zeiss Bokeh and love it, I know it's hard to find some alternative lenses for me. I think I'm addicted ;)

Apr 19, 2014permalink

BTPhotography

Don't you guys maybe think advertising "Buy on GearShop: $499" for the *wrong* lens is maybe a bad idea? Plus it's all over the bottom of the page in Amazon ads. All for the wrong lens.

Apr 17, 2014permalink

Barney Britton

Thanks, sorry, it's a known issue. For products that are very new, sometimes the automatically-created commercial links point to older versions (especially an issue with lenses, which have long product titles with a lot of commonality between varients). We're working on a new way of driving this.

Apr 17, 2014permalink

qwertyasdf

LOCA very apparent in F1.4_12IMG_6056
I miss the days when I just started photography, I didn't care about sharpness, don't know what's vignette, CA, let alone LOCA!
Now it's the first thing I see!

Apr 17, 2014permalink

ManuelVilardeMacedo

That's because they're living la vida LOCA...

Apr 17, 2014permalink

steelhead3

I enjoyed your slideshow...I should probably shoot 50mm more often if can get subjects like yours, good eye.

Apr 17, 2014permalink

Zeisschen

Bokeh is quite busy imho. And the transmission (see DXO) is at T 1.7, so it's more a F1.8 lens to me. You can get a Zeiss Sonnar with ultra creamy bokeh and same transmission for the same money...
For Canon and Nikon DSLR a good alternative though.

Apr 17, 2014permalink

jnd

I don't know about the exact designed f-stop, but light transmission or t-stop is a different quality than f-stop for DOF purposes, so you still get the background blur wide open but at slightly lower exposure.

Apr 17, 2014permalink

Zeisschen

True, but I thought it's about light gathering when we're talking about "fast" primes. And like I said the bokeh doesn't look that pleasing to me, which is more important than just the degree of blur.

Apr 18, 2014permalink

HowaboutRAW

Given that this lens is about things like subtle colour, can we have 4 or 5 raws shot with this lens for download.

Doesn't needs be an extreme range of ISOs, just a few simple flower shots with the background in focus and then with the same background blurred.

Apr 17, 2014permalink


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