{"id":19933,"date":"2014-11-12T22:29:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T02:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=19933"},"modified":"2017-11-08T06:57:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T10:57:00","slug":"review-sigma-50mm-f1-4-art-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/review-sigma-50mm-f1-4-art-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"review: Sigma 50mm f\/1.4 ART lens"},"content":{"rendered":"

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review: Sigma 50mm f\/1.4 ART lens<\/h1>\n

The moment you hold the Sigma 50mm f\/1.4 ART lens<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>)\u00a0in your hand, you know it is a serious lens. It is hefty. It feels like quality. It just feels like they took craftsman-like care in designing and manufacturing this lens!<\/p>\n

Sigma has somehow turned their image around from being just a third-party lens-manufacturer, to a company that needs to be taken seriously for quality optics. It started with the Sigma 35mm f\/1.4 ART lens, which proved to be a spectacular lens! (Here is my\u00a0review: Sigma 35mm f\/1.4 DG HMS art lens<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

There’s been an incredible buzz around this lens – the Sigma 50mm f\/1.4 ART lens. The initial reviews are unanimously impressed with this lens’ optical performance. Right up there with the very best. When the 50mm lens was first announced the rumored\u00a0price was around $1,500 but with its official release, it came in at a\u00a0relatively moderate $949.00 … but for that price, we’d expect a truly quality optic.<\/p>\n

The good news – it really is all that! I would heartily recommend this lens.<\/p>\n

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sharpness of the Sigma 50mm f\/1.4 ART lens<\/h2>\n

To test the Sigma 50mm lens (Nikon version),\u00a0I compared it against\u00a0Nikon AF-S 50mm f\/1.4G<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Nikon AF-S 58mm f\/1.4G<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>). When I first tested the Nikon 58mm lens, I liked\u00a0it. Here’s my\u00a0review: Nikon 58mm f\/1.4G lens<\/a>. The image quality was a slight improvement over\u00a0the Nikon 50mm lens. But it is an expensive lens at $1,700 so I thought it would be a good complement to this review, with the Sigma coming in half-way in price between the Nikon 50mm and 58mm lenses.<\/p>\n

Yes, I will do a follow-up review comparing the Canon version against the Canon 50mm f\/1.4 and Canon 50mm f\/1.2L<\/p>\n

While shooting images for the review of the Nikon D750 camera<\/a>, and also shooting images for the article on\u00a0full-frame vs crop-sensor comparison<\/a>, I took numerous photos of\u00a0Glass Olive\u00a0<\/a>, a New York model.\u00a0\u00a0I also took photographs specifically to see\u00a0how the Sigma 50mm f\/1.4 ART fared\u00a0at widest aperture … and I consistently came up against the Sigma completely out-performing the other two lenses.<\/p>\n

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These 100% crops of images shot with the various lenses, with the camera on a tripod, are typical of the results. I found I could easily pick out the Sigma images while flipping through the numerous photos, simply by how sharp the images were when viewed at full resolution.<\/p>\n

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The\u00a0Nikon AF-S 50mm f\/1.4G<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Nikon AF-S 58mm f\/1.4G<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>)\u00a0had about equal sharpness, with the 58mm sometimes displaying this slight haziness. Neither were as sharp as the\u00a0\u00a0Sigma 50mm f\/1.4 ART lens<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>) at the wider apertures. Noticeably so!<\/p>\n

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Sequence after sequence, shot at various places, with\u00a0the Sigma giving razor-sharp images at f\/1.4<\/p>\n

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Edge-to-edge sharpness of the Sigma f\/1.4 ART lens<\/h2>\n

The images above all showed superb central sharpness, but a lens also has to show excellent edge-to-edge sharpness to be impressive.<\/p>\n

For these, I had to resort to photographing walls. Really, as uninteresting a subject as a wall might be, it is about the best option when you want to shoot a flat subject to see edge-to-edge sharpness. Again, I shot numerous sequences at various wide and wide-ish apertures, with consistently results like this – the Sigma beat the other two lenses hands down!<\/p>\n

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Bokeh\u00a0of the Sigma f\/1.4 ART lens<\/h2>\n

Before we go any further, a few\u00a0notes:<\/p>\n