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

So I think I know the answer to this. The answer being that this is a personal decision and no one can really help me with it.

Right now, I shoot with a 85mm Art 95% of the time, since I do portraits almost all of the time. Occasionally, I'll use a Sigma 30mm art to shoot 4k with a 5D4. Or I'll even use it for photos since I can crop the corners for wider shots.

The rest of the time I use an M6 with a EFm 15-45mm, a EFs 10-18mm, 24mm STM, 18-55mm STM, 35mm STM, (Vivitar I think) 8mm fisheye. This is mostly for casual video use.

I want a wider lens on the 5D4 since the 30mm Art IQ isn't that great on FF.

On the one hand, the 35mm would be more on my style since I can do full body portraits with this. On the other hand, the 20mm would be easier to handle on a 5D4 and Gimbal if I do video since it'd be 36mm with the crop. The 24mm is kind of just there in between and I'm not too excited over it.

I rarely shoot events unless someone really twists my arm. But for video and events, I appreciate a wider angle so this is where I lean towards 20mm, since it gives me something I don't have. Plus it's a very interesting focal length and aesthetic at 1.4. The 35mm would be more handy for everyday use but I would likely still use the 85mm over 90% of the time since I really like 85mm for closeup and full body portraits. There's just the occasional time I want a wider angle and for people, 35mm would be more ideal.

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

I know there's the 20-35mm, but I prefer to stay at 1.4 since I shoot in bad light once in a while and I don't like pushing past ISO1600.

rmexpress22 wrote:

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

I owned the 24mm ART for a while and liked it - it's not optically perfect but centre performance pretty good at f1/.4 but needs really f/2.8 for truly sharp edges (when needed) - my copy autofocussed accurately on all of my canon bodies most of the time. It did show a little fringing and coma (not the coma-monster the canon 35 f/2 IS is at the edges at f/2) and did not have the "wow" factor wide open quite of the best - but easily beats my current 24-70 f/4 when both at f/4.  Sold it only due to me establishing I did not normally have a need for 24mm f/1.4 after about 18 months. I did like the lens though and would buy one again rather than the canon equiv..

I bought a 35mm ART at one point and optically was quite good - and to be honest struggled with it on AF accuracy, even playing with the sigma dock. Also saw some a little fringing and coma at f/1.4, not horrendous.  But the lens to my surprise did not work for me. Returned it due to AF issues, which the 24mm simply did not have in the same way. Many others love the lens - so maybe I had a bad copy?  The canon 35 f/2 IS AF was perfect in comparison (both tested at f/2).

The 20 does look really interesting - but again I suspect I'd not myself have a use for it. Video perhaps if you can live with the vignetting?

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!

KevinRA wrote:

I owned the 24mm ART for a while and liked it - it's not optically perfect but centre performance pretty good at f1/.4 but needs really f/2.8 for truly sharp edges (when needed) - my copy autofocussed accurately on all of my canon bodies most of the time. It did show a little fringing and coma (not the coma-monster the canon 35 f/2 IS is at the edges at f/2) and did not have the "wow" factor wide open quite of the best - but easily beats my current 24-70 f/4 when both at f/4. Sold it only due to me establishing I did not normally have a need for 24mm f/1.4 after about 18 months. I did like the lens though and would buy one again rather than the canon equiv..

I bought a 35mm ART at one point and optically was quite good - and to be honest struggled with it on AF accuracy, even playing with the sigma dock. Also saw some a little fringing and coma at f/1.4, not horrendous. But the lens to my surprise did not work for me. Returned it due to AF issues, which the 24mm simply did not have in the same way. Many others love the lens - so maybe I had a bad copy? The canon 35 f/2 IS AF was perfect in comparison (both tested at f/2).

The 20 does look really interesting - but again I suspect I'd not myself have a use for it. Video perhaps if you can live with the vignetting?

Thanks Kevin. AF reliability is definitely a concern so that's a big turn off with the 35mm. I hadn't even thought about that since the 85mm Art has been extremely reliable on a 6D and 5D4. I don't mind vignetting at all with the 20mm. I actually prefer it since my subject is always center frame and I feel like that helps keep the visual focus on the subject.

Chez Wimpy wrote:

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!

I totally agree with you on your points about 20mm for people in pictures. This would be more of my wide angle for tight spaces where there's a group of people. But yes, for single portraits it'd be more of an artsy thing where I'd get interesting wide angle shots with the distortions. But more than that, the 20mm would give me FOV of 36mm on crop, so it has that dual purpose also.

ffabrici wrote:

I have used all 3 lenses discussed on 5DIV and 5DsR and I own the 20ART. The newer the ART lens construction is, the more consistent is the AF on Canon bodies.

35ART is a fantastic lens, optically almost on par with the Canon 35L II but it is the oldest ART lens and the AF is unfortunately inconsistent unless you are lucky to find a consistent copy.

24ART is also fantastic optically but is unfortunately suffering from coma like the Canon 24L II if you want to use it for astro. AF on the single lens I tested was very consistent and I haven't seen a huge debate about the AF problems like with the 35ART.

20ART is slightly sharper than the 35ART in the center, but it obviously has soft corners wide open due to the wider angle of view. The AF is very consistent and I use it along with my 35L II and 135ART as the preferred FL's that I need primes for. It suffers from extreme corner coma, which disappears at f/2.8 like the 24ART.

I would recommend both the 24ART and the 20ART, mainly because their AF is consistent in addition to the excellent optical performance that you get from all ART primes.

Good luck with your decision.

Thank you for your thoughts. It's noteworthy that AF reliability of the 35mm Art is also a concern for you and it seems like it is for others also.

arty H wrote:

This is not a recommendation, but a personal view. A 35 is as wide as I need for people photos. I would rather not get closer than this view provides, and it is rare that I need wider than this. When I do want a wider view, it is for travel or architecture, and then I use a wide zoom, generally an ultra wide.

I use the Canon 35F2IS, but if money were no object, I would go for the Canon 35F1.4 II. It is very rare that I want a faster aperture than F2, and the IS is very helpful

I would love to go for the Canon 35mm II but it's out of the price range that I want to spend for a lens that I won't use that much. Optically, it does look amazing.

Thank you all for your opinions. Since this essentially came down to the 35mm and the 20mm, I'm going to go for the 20mm. This give me the FOV that I prefer on crop and the extra width that I want on FF, as well at the AF reliability that I want to have. I do own a Canon 20mm 2.8 that no longer AF's so I do know I like the focal length already.

Nice choice!  I own the 20mm f1.4 and it is one of my favourite lenses.  Not my most used, but when I do get it out it never fails to bring a smile to my face.  Yes there is coma and yes it occasionally mis-focusses, but it is a stunning lens.  The light gathering and sharpness is truly quite something.

knutte wrote:

Have you thought about the new 28/1.4 ART?

It does look a good one - albeit a big and expensive...

Looks like also from Bryan's review at the digital picture .com it may have AF accuracy issues on DSLRs albeit not the mirrorless bryan says.....

In case anyone cares, I thought I had my mind made up on the 20mm, and I ended up going with the 35mm.

What changed is that I have the 22mm f/2 for the EOS M now, so even with the larger aperture, the focal length was too close for it to give me anything different.

I just got the 35mm today and have been testing it with the 5D4.

First impressions, I tested it in the car while my girlfriend was driving. The AF was spot on, but everything was up close and in good light.

When I had a chance to use it in a bigger space at home, it severely front-focused. This is the first lens I've used with the 5D4 that required AFMA. I had to dial +20, which is a lot, but it AF's perfectly now. I tested it with various different things and the hit rate was pretty high. The weird thing is that due to the adjustment, anything closer than a few feet back-focuses now. I'm not reaching the MFD either, since the focus is slightly to the rear. Granted, this was in bad light and I was at ISO1250 f/1.4 1/50th, so I cut it some slack. I ordered the Sigma USB dock since I was some cushion with the camera's AFMA. I typically AFMA during an actual shoot since I never get repeatable results when I AFMA indoors and then shoot outside.

I only tested using the very outer AF points since it's what I normally use on a shoot. Center AF might have fared better, but it's rare that I use anything but outer AF points so I didn't bother testing with center AF.

I'm a little surprised that the 35mm Art is sharper than the 85mm Art, but I have no problem with that. I am pretty happy with the 85mm's sharpness, but this is something else.

I'm hoping the close focusing fares better in daylight. Even if I can't AF up close, I might just keep it since I'll use it more for environmental portraits and so far it's working perfectly for the distances that I usually shoot in.

The 20mm is still not out of the question in the future. It's just that I don't do enough video to justify buying a lens solely for that purpose. I might buy a 24-105mm STM in the meantime because I don't have a FF wide angle ever since I lost my 24-105mm L, and the STM motors are excellent for video.

Edit:

Took it out too shoot during the daylight and at +15, it worked fairly well except at, or close to MFD. It fared okay when shooting against a good amount of backlight during golden hour, but it missed some shots also. Again, this was with the outer AF points, so I'm not disappointed at that. It fared a little better than my 85mm does with backlight, so that's good enough for me since I could just do center AF if I really need to nail focus.

Got the dock. I had no idea you could AFMA for different distances. That pretty much solved the issue I was having and the 35mm works just as consistent as my 85mm now.

So far, I'm enjoying the lens. It's crazy sharp wide open and it has great contrast. I have the 30mm Art, which works well after AFMA with the dock but the improvement with the 35mm is significant.

Great stuff, glad it worked out.  AF seems the achilles heel with several sigmas - sometimes no issue, sometimes OK as-is with the dock and sometimes never consistent enough - optics are superb.

When we all go mirrorless, hopefully all of this will be sorted