Which looks better? 35mm shoot out.

http://www.bershatsky.com/Family/35mm-shootout

I got a used sigma 35 mm f/1.4 the other day and the usb dock to tweak the lens.  It was front focusing severely and needed quite a few adjustments.

I've dialed it in to the best of my ability and spent the day shooting with the Sigma and the Canon 35mm f/1.4 lenses.  Lightroom displays the metadata of the lens to make it easy to see which is which.

I shot everything at f/1.4 to see which lens has a better hit ratio for focusing. Beyond that, I would appreciate some  opinions on which looks better.

Shot these as jpegs in faithful rendering.

As I type this, I am uploading all of the files I shot today.  Of course, I'm not going to keep all of these images, it was more for testing.

I downloaded a few of them, and they all seem to be shot with the 35L?

I viewed just a part of the series. The Canon seems to be more in focus most of the time. This makes the Sigma the softer lens in real life.

Is there an easy way to download all of them?

sigma will look better. it all comes down to that.  so its hard to just compare images. you have to get a feeling of how quickly and accurately both lenses focus.  at f 1.4, the sigma will be sharper.  I own the canon.

Sigma 7 is awesome, S12 is good, a lot of the Sigma shots are focused on the subject, but the depth of field is so thin that it isn't always on the eye.  Did you focus on the eye?  Did you use spot focus?  Did you recompose?  Did you sway??  Did they move?

C11, C14, C15 (the still live) are quite nice too.

The Sigma seems to be in focus as often as the Canon, the Sigma is clearly sharper when in perfect focus.  They both seem to miss a bunch but that's not too surprising when shooting a prime lens like this wide open and close to the subjects.  I looked at your select 30, so if someone looked at the larger set and came to a different conclusion that's certainly possible, but I wonder how much anti-Sigma backlash will show up here.  They have a checkered past and some people are very much brand loyalists.

In the end at f1.4 I'm not sure I'd be using either lens a ton wide open for closer subjects.  The distortion isn't flattering and they both sharpen up when you stop them down a bit.  Shooting wide open is tough with any prime, especially hand held.  It's tough with Sigma primes, and it's tough with Canon primes.

Thanks for uploading; I looked through all of them several times ...really a lovely series of images. From what I could see you managed to nail focus very well on more or less all the images. For me the quality and look & feel are very similar so it would come down if Sigma’s “in focus hit rate” and consistency is as good as Canon’s.

I have the 35L since many years and it is a great lens but if was buying now I would certainly consider the Sigma, my only real concern would be its AF performance. Canon’s present lens-pricing really opens a lot of possibilities for 3’d party lenses ….. In Sweden the 35L (design year 1998) is 60% more expensive than Sigma’s new 35/1.4, it is not reasonable. Furthermore the 35L AF-design is not up to date, even if it works well most of the time my feelings are that for example the new 24-70/2.8 II is on another level.

Sebastian

I think the biggest difference I see is in color.  The Canon is cooler and the Sigma warmer, I like the Canon better here a little bit, but that's easily adjusted in lightroom, you can even configure it to do this automatically.  I can't tell you which to keep, personally I think the Sigma is sharper and from your top 30 it seems just as consistent as the Canon.  With the price difference I think I'd keep the Sigma and buy another lens with the leftover.  Or consider the 35 f2 IS, if f2 does it for you.

The Photo Ninja wrote:

http://www.bershatsky.com/Family/35mm-shootout

I got a used sigma 35 mm f/1.4 the other day and the usb dock to tweak the lens. It was front focusing severely and needed quite a few adjustments.

I've dialed it in to the best of my ability and spent the day shooting with the Sigma and the Canon 35mm f/1.4 lenses. Lightroom displays the metadata of the lens to make it easy to see which is which.

I shot everything at f/1.4 to see which lens has a better hit ratio for focusing. Beyond that, I would appreciate some opinions on which looks better.

Shot these as jpegs in faithful rendering.

As I type this, I am uploading all of the files I shot today. Of course, I'm not going to keep all of these images, it was more for testing.

I know these are just test shots, and I do not mean to be harsh, but the f1.4 aperture and/or the 35mm FOV wasn't appropriate for at least a significant percentage of the subject matter so the point is, I am not sure if these "gun-slinging" shots (aka handheld shots) are a fair "competition" for either lens in terms of focusing and sharpness. I know I would do a controlled test on a tripod to take the human touch out of the equation before allowing such shots and the opinions of random contributors on DPR (including me) influence your decision (if you are trying to decide which to keep).

The 35mm FOV seemed more appropriate for the indoor tighter shots unless you intend to do a lot of cropping. You are probably closer to your subjects while indoors. The closer you are the more often shots where one person is in focus and the other is oof (or half a face in focus and the other oof) will be the norm and this doesn't agree with me eg mother and daughter in the booth. These shots I presume are about the interplay between the two people which I believe both should be "featured". If you are trying to isolate one or the other person, why not just crop out the blurry person?

The bokeh in the bottom left on Canon 1 of 15 is truly fugly but the bokeh in other images seems ok.

To answer your question, generally, the in-focus portions of the 35L images seem sharper and appear to have more (better?) contrast. This contrast could be attributed to superior coatings perhaps. My takeaway: I could work with either lens in PPing primarily because I shoot with tri/monopods and LV most of the time. If the issue is AF, it appears that the 35L is nailing it more often.

The reason I do not own either one: I own the Zeiss 35/2 ZF instead. 1.) I rarely shoot a serious image below f2.8, 2.) The Zeiss' color and contrast is more desirable to me than the that of the 35L and 3.) the lack of AF is actually helpful and forces me to dial in the correct focus. If I need AF @ 35mm, I'll use the 24-70 II.