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Debating between Sigma 20mm / 24mm / 35mm Art

Started Mar 14, 2019 | Discussions thread
Chez Wimpy
Chez Wimpy Veteran Member • Posts: 9,080
Re: Debating between Sigma 20mm / 24mm / 35mm Art

rmexpress22 wrote:

I'm mainly thinking (writing) outloud, but I'd love opinions or comments for anyone that has chosen between the 20mm and 35mm.

I have used all three focal lengths @ f1.4, but only the Art series 20mm (have owned both Canon 24L 1.4s and the Canon 35/1.4 mk1).  My experience is that, yes, the 20/1.4 is quite unique and useful for environmental people pictures, but f1.4 on a 20mm lens is not as dramatically shallow as it is on 24mm (or on 35mm) given working distances to your subjects stay about the same.  You really need to get in close with the 20 to isolate a portrait, and then the rectilinear distortion rears its ugly head.  Depending on the crop forced by shooting 4K on a given camera, the 20 might beat the 24 for usable field of view in practice, but for environmental portrait photos I prefer 24.  If I only had an 85mm lens however, I might go for the 35 because the gap between the two focal lengths is significant.  What I found shooting 24-35-50 was too much overlap, so the 35 got squeezed out.  For video on the old 5D2 I really liked the 35/1.4 though, the 16:9 crop felt about right for most planned shots (the lens seemed closer to a normal focal length) and there was great flexibility with DOF.  I was shooting before the advent of gimbals, so I imagine the potential has improved even more!

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-CW

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