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Lenses

Quick Informal Lens Comparison: Canon 35mm f1.4 L vs Sigma 35mm f1.4

Chris Gampat
No Comments
11/29/2012
2 Mins read
Sigma vs Canon The Phoblographer 35mm f1.4 (1 of 1)ISO 100

Last Updated on 11/30/2012 by Gevon Servo

I recently wrote about selling all of my Canon glass and going all Sigma. One of the biggest reasons: Canon has been letting me down as of late and one of the best and most affordable ways to take advantage of what my 5D Mk II can do is to use newer glass. As it is, Sigma’s 50mm f1.4 is better than the Canon 50mm f1.4 and Canon’s 85mm f1.2 L USM II is only a bit better than Sigma’s 85mm f1.4, but the latter beats Canon’s 85mm f1.8 USM.

That left one lens in the bag: the 35mm f1.4. Initial tests have come out testing the lens. Here’s a super quick and very informal comparison of the two; and this will be the first of a couple.

Test Procedure

The Canon 5D Mk II was set down on a tripod with the Sigma 35mm f1.4 attached. The shutter speed was set to 1/160th of a second. The camera/lens was then set to focus on the words, “Bessa R” then set the lens to manual focus mode to lock the focusing in place. Photos were shot at f1.4, f2, f2.8, f4 and f5.6. While the shutter speed remained the same, I needed to use a manual light meter to adjust my Paul C Buff Einstein E640. The lights were set off by PocketWizard Plus III units.

When the time came, I switched to the Canon L lens.

No post-product at all were done to these photos except for sizing them down for the web. The images are set to 72 PPI and set to 1.7MB large for ease of download and load speeds.

Image Samples

f1.4

Sigma f1.4
Canon f1.4

f2.0

Sigma f2
Canon f2

f2.8

Sigma f2.8
Canon f2.8

f4

Sigma f4
Canon F4

f5.6

Sigma f5.6
Canon f5.6

So What Do You Think?

Leave us a comment below and lets hear your thoughts! Full review of the new Sigma is yet to come.

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35mm f1.4 50mm f1.4 85mm f1.2 85mm f1.4 85mm f1.8 canon comparison image quality L Lens sigma
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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