Help me decide my next lens!!!

Yeah I think i'm going to fill out my prime lineup in the next few months.

There was a time (the golden days) when no pro would choose a "zoom" lens. They just didn't have it.

The new ones are amazingly sharp. But I like how a prime handles. It just "feels" right to me.

I can still MF the new zooms. And really nail focus though.

You know you are on a beginner forum when everyone is sending in their lenses to be calibrated. "It don't focus good". Canon must have a person writing return labels as a full time job.

MLKstudios wrote: There was a time (the golden days) when no pro would choose a "zoom" lens. They just didn't have it.

The new ones are amazingly sharp. But I like how a prime handles. It just "feels" right to me.

I can still MF the new zooms. And really nail focus.

Zooms have come a LONG WAY. Primes still have a feel to them completely agree.

Next up will be the Nikkor 35 1.4 or the sigma 30 1.4.

Scotty wrote:

Shadowfixer1 wrote: I've heard the Sigma is good, but I'm like Matthew. I'm a lens snob. If it ain't Nikon, I'm not buying it. I bought a Sigma 12-24 one time for an interior job. That lens sucked. I could barely get suitable sharpness, at least for me at f-8.0. Sold it at half price to get rid of it. Let us know which you pick.

Adrian has a sigma 50, he's been pushing me to get one. I will. Going tomorrow to buy it.

I'd have never got the 50mm Sigma if I thought Nikon did a better job. But here's my problem with Nikon in this case.

The Nikon is sharp to be sure, but the bokeh on Nikon primes is quite busy in certain circumstances. To me a fast prime is about using the bokeh to your advantage to a smooth bokeh is really important.

The problem I have with the Sigma 50 is that Sigma often need recalibrating (unless you're lucky). Now on a Canon it seems to be a greater problem than on Nikon for some reason. On a Canon body, if you use the AF micro adjust you'll get problems depending not the focus distance. On Nikon you can easily use AF micro adjust and it will focus correctly no matter the focus distance.

In my opinion there are 2 sigma lenses worth buying over Nikon (or Canon). The 50 1.4 and the 85 1.4. Thing is with Canon they do have the 85 1.2 which is special, but slow to focus and hard to use at 1.2 (Scotty use to own one) also it's darned expensive. Same with the Nikon 85 1.4. From what I've seen/read the sharpness on the Nikon 85 is a little better than the Sigma (both are sharp). BUT the bokeh (IMHO) is worse on the Nikon than the Sigma. Making the Sigma 85 1.4 the logical choice. You get 95% of the lens for a much cheaper price.

You can check my profile for the Nikon glass I own. All of it's excellent, so I have nothing against Nikon glass. It's just in this case, Sigma do it better in many ways.

P.S. Sigma seem to have the QQ issues addressed for the 85 1.4 too (much less problems). It seems Scotty's 50 1.4 is pretty much right on too, so maybe they've improved with the 50mm too?