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Advice needed: E-5 + Sigma AF 30mm f/1.4 EX HSM DC

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hellowin

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I'm looking for a fast aperture lens for my E-5, and thinking of getting the Sigma AF 30mm f/1.4 EX HSM DC.

I've read some reviews on this lens, 'bout it's softness when wide open, and it's tendency to back focus.
Please give me more opinions before I make the order to buy one.
Thanx before

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The back-focusing issue, should you run into it with an E5, should be easily correctable with the focus adjustments you can make with that camera. The softness at f1.4 is no doubt often enough people simply not realizing how paper-thin the depth of field is at f1.4. It's not an aperture where I would use the "focus and recompose" method of shooting. There are more than enough focus points to shift the focus to the appropriate part of the screen where you could just compose and shoot. I would think that would help a lot in keeping the focus set right when using the wide open f1.4 aperture.
 
You shouldn't have problems with AF since E-5 has AF adjustment.

As for the sharpness - I shot with one copy and it was very good, decent wide open and pretty good stopped down to f2 or so, so no real complaints there.
The only thing to note is that there's significant CA wide open.
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Cheers,
Marin
 
I use the Sigma 30mm f1.4 most often on my E5. Almost as my main lens. I prefer fast primes and this Sigma is a fine one. No back focusing problems and, as another guy said, be aware of the shallow dof at 1.4 and you will love the lens.
 
There was a pretty interesting thread here describing the exact problems the 30mm 1.4 was having in 4/3 as well as why the standard AF focus adjustment can not fix the problem (when there is a problem, as it doesn't seem to occur on all units).

Unfortunately, I can't find the thread.
 
I recently acquired one, and while I haven't noticed any back-focusing, it is soft and exhibits flare/ghosting at 1.4. It's much more usable at f2.
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http://www.pbase.com/jfinite
 
Its about inconsistent AF. I used the Sig 30 with me E-30 for almost a year and after struggling with 2 bad copies, I gave up and bought the PL25.

The E-30 has micro AF adjustment which I used with the Sig 30, but the problem is, this adjustment only works if the lens "consistently" back or front focuses, which doesn't seem to be the case with the Sig 30; its just inconsistent with AF.

The only other option was the PL25, which although a spectacular lens, is just too big and expensive IMO.
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Raj Sarma
http://www.nycstreetshots.com
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I had one for a while. Mine was not as sharp or contrasty as I would have liked as compared to my 14-54.
  • Jeff
 
In my experience the Sigma 30mm F1.4 is somewhat soft, wide open, but tends to sharpen up past F1.8. You are right about the extremely thin depth of field though, which I'm sure has led more than a few people to think that had a crappy copy of this lens.

Here's an example of just how shallow that DoF really is.



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http://www.morallyambiguous.net/

D620L -> D540 -> C750UZ -> E-500 -> E-510 -> E-3 + E-30 + E-P2
 
Hey Raj,

I found that my copy of the 30mm F1.4 worked very well, right out of the box, on my E-510. It was also bang on, on my E-3, when I bought it. Then I bought a E-30 and it was back focusing by a significant amount. Same thing with the E-5. It would seem that on the bodies that have the ability to adjust focus, I need to adjust focus for this lens.
rssarma said:
Its about inconsistent AF. I used the Sig 30 with me E-30 for almost a year and after struggling with 2 bad copies, I gave up and bought the PL25.

The E-30 has micro AF adjustment which I used with the Sig 30, but the problem is, this adjustment only works if the lens "consistently" back or front focuses, which doesn't seem to be the case with the Sig 30; its just inconsistent with AF.

The only other option was the PL25, which although a spectacular lens, is just too big and expensive IMO.
--
Raj Sarma
http://www.nycstreetshots.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rssarma
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Follow me on Twitter: rssarma
Click to expand...
--
http://www.morallyambiguous.net/

D620L -> D540 -> C750UZ -> E-500 -> E-510 -> E-3 + E-30 + E-P2
 
I use Sigma 30/1.4 on my E-620 and I can say it works pretty well. Saying this, I must also admit that my copy suffered from focus issue - which has been easily corrected by AF micro-adjustment. Hence I did not buy into Sigma before I upgraded from E-410 to E-620 (you should have no problems to micro-adjust with E-5).

But - finally, at this moment I am upgrading my lenses to "higher level". I upgraded my standard wolk-about lens from the kit one to 14-54 MkII and recently I upgraded from 70-300 to 50-200 SWD lens as well. Now I am pondering to replace Sigma 30/1.4 with PL 25/1.4, but I did not decide yet - the 30/1.4 work pretty well, as I said.

--
Petr
Zenfolio gallery at http://medsved.net
 
Ditto. 30mm on E-620.

I would have bought PL25 if it had better close-up capabilities. Yet it has the same ~40cm closest focusing distance. (I'm definitely spoiled by the 12-60.)

I also do not mind the softness, as most of the time I employ the Sigma for available light photography: getting focus right in low light is a chore anyway; getting a shot at focus set not at infinity is already a success.

Though MF (+ zoom in Live View) works really well with the lens. Hint: it has real focus ring, not the focus-by-wire thingy (which of all Zuiko lenses I own works OK only on the 50mm).

wbr.

P.S. BTW, would upgrade to E-5 help low light AF with the 30mm?
petrbur said:
I use Sigma 30/1.4 on my E-620 and I can say it works pretty well. Saying this, I must also admit that my copy suffered from focus issue - which has been easily corrected by AF micro-adjustment. Hence I did not buy into Sigma before I upgraded from E-410 to E-620 (you should have no problems to micro-adjust with E-5).

But - finally, at this moment I am upgrading my lenses to "higher level". I upgraded my standard wolk-about lens from the kit one to 14-54 MkII and recently I upgraded from 70-300 to 50-200 SWD lens as well. Now I am pondering to replace Sigma 30/1.4 with PL 25/1.4, but I did not decide yet - the 30/1.4 work pretty well, as I said.
Click to expand...
 
I use the Sigma 30/1.4 with my 620 for available light shooting and am reasonably pleased with the combo. No front/back focus issues, just the 620's weak AF. Allows me to keep the ISO down / shutter speed up and better blur distracting backgrounds indoors, which is what I wanted it for. Build quality is really nice too.

My copy is decent in the center wide open and sharpens up very quickly on stopping down -- f/1.8 is already quite good. The corners are soft at virtually any aperture I'm likely to shoot at. This generally isn't a problem since shallow DOF at wide apertures means theres no detail in the corners to lose. However, the quality of the bokeh changes toward the corners; usually this isn't noticeable, but when it is, it's a change for the worse. CA can be pretty horrendous at times.

Even though it's designed for APS-C, I think the Sigma 30/1.4 is a better match for 4/3. The larger sensor area of APS-C magnifies it's flaws, while 4/3 is more in need of its strengths.
 
I got this lens a few weeks ago, and my copy seems fine on my E3. This is wide open in a pretty dark room, DOF is pretty thin



 
Thanx Raj and Rob,

So I guess the problem would be getting the bad copy of that lens, and that would be one hell of a problem here in Indonesia, since there's no money back guarantee here.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/h3ll0w1n/
 
Rob MacLennan said:
Hey Raj,

I found that my copy of the 30mm F1.4 worked very well, right out of the box, on my E-510. It was also bang on, on my E-3, when I bought it. Then I bought a E-30 and it was back focusing by a significant amount. Same thing with the E-5. It would seem that on the bodies that have the ability to adjust focus, I need to adjust focus for this lens.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately all copies of the lens I had showed AF issues, but I must say that the lens was more consistent with back-focus on the E-510 as opposed to my E-30.

--
Raj Sarma
http://www.nycstreetshots.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rssarma
--
Follow me on Twitter: rssarma
 
Perhaps my experience has something to do with my preference for centre/small focus point?
rssarma said:
Unfortunately all copies of the lens I had showed AF issues, but I must say that the lens was more consistent with back-focus on the E-510 as opposed to my E-30.

--
Raj Sarma
http://www.nycstreetshots.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rssarma
--
Follow me on Twitter: rssarma
Click to expand...
--
http://www.morallyambiguous.net/

D620L -> D540 -> C750UZ -> E-500 -> E-510 -> E-3 + E-30 + E-P2
 
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