Sigma 50mm f1.4 review

Art Vandelay II · Aug 19, 2008

Andy Westlake said:
The Canon and Nikon 70-200mm F2.8s have major additional features
compared to the Sigma and Tamron, i.e. image stabilisation and
ruggedised, weather-resistant build, which give them genuinely higher
functionality. The Sigma 50mm F1.4 has HSM, but other than that
there's little on paper to distinguish it (and note this page is
about specifications, not performance).

--

Pretty weak reasons man. I'll give you weather sealing. I'm sure image stabilization matters to Canon & Nikon users, but to the rest of us it doesn't matter one bit since our camera body's already have it. "ruggedised"? All 4 are more than rugged enough. For me personally sigma's HSM (as well as Canon's) on the 50mm is more of a feature than image stabilization is on the 70-200mm's.

Casey Resey · Aug 19, 2008

The Sigma 50mm F1.4 seems to be a very decent lens. I hope Nikon would update the the 50mm F1.4 with SWM, VR, ED, and aspherical element.

Art Vandelay II · Aug 19, 2008

Also, what is your plan in the future for comparisons like this? I assume if the Canon or Nikon 50mm lenses had IS built in it would be highlighted in green. Do you plan on using some color or asterisks on the Oly, Sony, and Pentax counterparts since they don't need IS in the lens? It just seems incredibly unfair to highlight something as a positive or bonus feature when it would be worthless on other systems.

Andrew Westlake · Aug 19, 2008

Art Vandelay II said:
Pretty weak reasons man. I'll give you weather sealing. I'm sure
image stabilization matters to Canon & Nikon users, but to the rest
of us it doesn't matter one bit since our camera body's already have
it.

That's one of the least logical arguments I've come across for some time. If you're not a Nikon or Canon user, the Canon and Nikon 70-200mm F2.8 lenses are irrelevant to you, period. You can't use your in-body stabilisation with either of them, because you can't fit them on your camera.

--
Andy Westlake
dpreview.com/lensreviews

Art Vandelay II · Aug 19, 2008

I'm not saying I want to fit them on my camera obviously. I'm simply saying it shouldn't be counted as a bonus when other makers will receive no praise on their lens reviews for that "feature" even though they don't need it.

I simply think the IS feature shouldn't be highlighted green or red on your table as long as manufactures implement it different ways.

Andrew Westlake · Aug 19, 2008

Art Vandelay II said:
I simply think the IS feature shouldn't be highlighted green or red
on your table as long as manufactures implement it different ways.

It's simple, in-body IS gets highlighted in camera reviews, in-lens IS gets highlighted in lens reviews. There's essentially no inconsistency or cross-system conflict this way; it just gets considered a positive wherever it appears. If we remove it from lens comparison tables, then logically we must also remove it from camera comparison tables too, and that would go down a storm, I assure you.

--
Andy Westlake
dpreview.com/lensreviews

guttaperk · Aug 19, 2008

Andy Westlake said:
only in-lens IS is valid in the context of a lens review.

Andy, I see your point.

However, I do think that it's arguably misleading to demerit a Pentax lens for the absence of a feature that is in fact available to any Pentax shooter.

In the end, I think it's about providing accurate information to the reader, and your current stance has great potential to be misleading, even though arguments can be made justifying your position.

I'm not a Pentax user. I use Canon and lust after Nikon's D300.

Just sayin'.

--

-adrian charles-
barbados.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/guttaperk/

Art Vandelay II · Aug 19, 2008

I didn't say remove it. I said don't highlight it as a bonus, big difference.

However it should be highlighted in camera reviews. The reason is simple; it is a true feature on a camera body, it automatically makes every lens stabilized. If you don't have it built in to the body then you have to pay extra to get it in the lens.

I don't view it as a bonus (green) on lenses because it simply adds a function that brings that lens up to the same level as the others since they implement it through the body.

Andrew Westlake · Aug 19, 2008

guttaperk said:
However, I do think that it's arguably misleading to demerit a Pentax
lens for the absence of a feature that is in fact available to any
Pentax shooter.

This is the whole point. Red is demerit, green is merit. Lenses never get red for not having IS, they get green for having it. If you're looking to buy a fast telephoto for Canon, the fact that the 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM is the only one which gives you stabilisation is undoubtedly a positive point in its favour, and this needs to be acknowledged. However, if you're looking to buy a similar lens to fit Pentax or Sony, the addition of IS to a Canon lens simply has no relevance to you whatsoever.

--
Andy Westlake
dpreview.com/lensreviews

Andrew Westlake · Aug 19, 2008

Your logic falls over badly here; if you're interested in buying a fast telezoom for Canon, only the IS version is stabilised, and that's a true positive for a Canon user. Just because a Sigma or Tamron is stabilised on a Pentax body doesn't magically make it stabilized for a Canon owner.

Quite simply, this is our policy - image stabilisation will be highlighted as a positive when it appears on either a camera or a lens. You're free to disagree or argue, but it won't change anything, so from my point of view, there's nothing more to say.

--
Andy Westlake
dpreview.com/lensreviews

Art Vandelay II · Aug 19, 2008

Andy Westlake said:
This is the whole point. Red is demerit, green is merit. Lenses
never get red for not having IS, they get green for having it. If
you're looking to buy a fast telephoto for Canon, the fact that the
70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM is the only one which gives you stabilisation
is undoubtedly a positive point in its favour, and this needs to be
acknowledged. However, if you're looking to buy a similar lens to fit
Pentax or Sony, the addition of IS to a Canon lens simply has no
relevance to you whatsoever.

That's fine if you are simply doing individual lens reviews, however you are listing all these side by side in a comparison table. As readers scan across the table you see a lovely green box in the Canon & Nikon columns, but nothing for everyone else. For people that don't understand that Pentax/Sony/Olympus don't need that it shines a bad light on them.

Richard Butler · Aug 19, 2008

Art Vandelay II said:
That's fine if you are simply doing individual lens reviews, however
you are listing all these side by side in a comparison table. As
readers scan across the table you see a lovely green box in the Canon
& Nikon columns, but nothing for everyone else. For people that don't
understand that Pentax/Sony/Olympus don't need that it shines a bad
light on them.

And the opposite will happen in camera reviews. Canon and Nikon won't get that "lovely green box" in camera comparison pages. And, since more people currently read our camera reviews, that would mean Canon and Nikon are most disadvantaged by them. I'm sure it'll turn out to be a question of bias, I just haven't worked out how, yet.

Richard - DPReview

guttaperk · Aug 19, 2008

Andy Westlake said:
Art Vandelay II said:

First, as I mentioned earlier, you do not highlight the price of the
Canon & Nikon 70-200mm's in red in that comparison, but you do
highlight the price of the Sigma 50mm in red in this comparison. What
is you logic behind that?

Click to expand...

The Canon and Nikon 70-200mm F2.8s have major additional features
compared to the Sigma and Tamron

So the price is highlighted or not depending on the reviewer's subjective assessment of value?

That does seem to be rather questionable.

Clearly this site is a source of phenomenal, definitive reviews, but these two criticisms do seem to be both justified and easily addressed.

The solution:

don't demerit Pentax and Sony systems for the absence of features available to all users;
a footnote of clarification that IS is in-body on those systems would seem warranted;
let price comparisons be untainted by subjective considerations of value. Unless you're going to change the column heading to "Value" instead...

In the end, of course, it's not my site, and I would quite clearly distance myself from some of the more hysterical accusations that are made whenever the less popular systems are reviewed.

But these points do seem valid.

cheers

adrian.

--

-adrian charles-
barbados.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/guttaperk/

Art Vandelay II · Aug 19, 2008

I think Canon & Nikon should be punished for not having in body stabilization if when everyone else does have it if you want my honest opinion. It's fairly obscured at this point that they don't have it. If they believe lens based stabilizers are better and want to continue producing them then that is fine. However, that shouldn't prohibit them from catching up to the rest of the industry in their bodies. In-body stabilization could just be switched off when a stabilized lens is attached. Where exactly can I find a stabilized 50mm or 85mm prime for Canon or Nikon for example? Until every lens they produce has IS/VR built in they should be punished because they are simply missing a feature everyone else has.

Lenses are a different story though, every lens you mount on a Pentax, Sony, or Oly (the 420 withstanding) body is stabilized, so why highlight stabilization in these comparison tables like its a bonus that the others don't have?

Richard Butler · Aug 19, 2008

Art Vandelay II said:
I think Canon & Nikon should be punished for...

And that's where our approach differs. We're not about to start marking products down because you've decided that a different company's approach is different.

What we will do is mark products up for having additional features. And we do. It's up to the buyer to decide whether they absolutely must have IS on all lenses. If they feel that, then they'll buy a stabilized body and not consider in-lens stabilization to be such a big deal, regardless of the hue we apply to the boxes in our spec tables.

Richard - DPReview

Chad Marek · Aug 19, 2008

Andy Westlake said:
roweraay said:

These 3 extra contact points in a "D" lens,
communicates more than the flash information, from what I know.

Click to expand...

Please tell?

Andrew Westlake said:

So merely testing an ancient lens (when it has been replaced years
back with an updated version), is not very meaningful.

Click to expand...

Different coatings and the addition of distance information are
unlikely to make a major difference to our studio tests.

I do not know what the process is. Do you contact Sony and they provide lens(es) for you to test, or do you go out and buy them?

This seams like a very casual decision on DPReviews part. I would be very interested in learning more about the thought process that went into coming to that decision.

If I were seklling something, I would want to make sure that the product that was being reviewed was actually mine, and not a facsimily.

If I were reviewing a product, I would want to make sure that I had what was currently available on the market so that differences, if any, would have no impact on the results, regardless of how "unlikely" they may or may not be.

If you test 70-200mm f2.8 lenses, will you use the Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8 push-pull because it happens to be laying around?

The Sony and Minolta are not the same. They were not made in the same era, and they were not made by the same people, and appearently we do not know if they were made the same.

--
'Anyway, that’s my view. And it happens to be correct.'
-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
(Relax - it's 'sarcasm')

Art Vandelay II · Aug 19, 2008

R Butler said:
Art Vandelay II wrote:
What we will do is mark products up for having additional features.
And we do.

It's your site, do what you want, but as long as you chose to highlight debatable things as positives and negatives (such as price) on these comparison charts then you will open the door for accusations of bias.

I don't think anyone will have a problem with highlighting non debatable things such as battery life, LCD resolution, frames per second, etc...but when comparing across various systems debatable features should be colorless.

And to clarify, I don't want to sound like I'm pointlessly complaining here. I just want to keep things as neutral as possible. For the most part DPR does an excellent job of that, but there is always room for improvement.

Richard Butler · Aug 19, 2008

I appreciate the sentiment, but I believe our approach is more neutral than the one you are proposing.

Quite simply, a product having a feature gets marked up for it but we're not going to mark products down because of a strategic decision that can be convincingly argued from either perspective. It's up to the reader to form their own position on that argument.

Richard - DPReview

Makinations · Aug 19, 2008

What I'm getting is that you'd like bodies without IS to be marked down and lenses with it to not be marked up. Is that correct?

How, exactly, does that help me if I'm sorting through the several 70-200f2.8's for my canon?

cvye · Aug 19, 2008

"Resolution

Central resolution is impressively high even wide open, however edges and corners are nothing to write home about (not unusual for a fast 50mm prime on full frame). Sharpness improves progressively on stopping down, and the lens comprehensively outresolves the 21 Mp EOS-1Ds Mark II in the centre of the frame from F2.8 through F8 - impressive indeed. Corner resolution lags behind somewhat, reaching a maximum at about F7.1-F8. "

EOS-1Ds Mark III ???

Sigma 50mm f1.4 review

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