Help Me Think Through This

Okay - so . . .

My t2i with Sigma 30 1.4 was stolen.

I purchased a t3i and now have that, the kit lens, a 55-250 and a 50 1.4. Oh, also have a flash, though I'm not proficient with it.

Am sorely missing my 30 1.4 and find myself constantly compromising either with the 50 1.4 (I like to use a wide aperture and shoot in low light without flash) but missing the wider focal range OR I use my kit with high ISO and am unhappy with IQ. Don't love the look of flash.

HOWEVER, I do like the range of the kit, and part of me wants to take the plunge to the 17-55 IS instead of rebuying the 30 1.4. Background is that I LOVE my 50 1.4 and started my DSLR life four years ago shooting exclusively with it. So I kind of view myself as a prime lover. My first zoom was a Sigma 24-60 and I was not satisfied with either the width nor (more importantly) the image quality - didn't seem to provide the contrast/color pop or bokeh that I was used to.

Like I said, I miss my 30 1.4, but don't LOVE it in the way that I love my 50. I really like the focal length of the kit. Will I be happy with the IQ of a 17-55 at 2.8 and a high ISO? Will it have that POP and contrast and bokeh that I was missing in my 24-60 and kind of in my kit lens?

What would you do?

Sorry to hear about your stolen body and lens
My thinking is:
The 17-55 IS can do 90% of what you need
However
f2.8 IS NOT f1.4 in terms of DOF particularly on a crop body, and Sigma was smart enough to introduce the Sigma 30 1.4
IMO if you miss that lens go get it
However the 17-50 IS will be a more versatile lens
Both have its place
Regarding your Flash, learn it, read about it, it will open a new world for you

Sorry to hear about your stolen body and lens
My thinking is:
The 17-55 IS can do 90% of what you need it has IS and is obviously more versatile

However
f2.8 IS NOT f1.4 in terms of DOF particularly on a crop body, and Sigma was smart enough to introduce the Sigma 30 1.4
IMO if you miss that lens go get it
However the 17-50 IS will be a more versatile lens
Both have its place
Regarding your Flash, learn it, read about it, it will open a new world for you

I agree with borism 100%. I want to focus on the last part of his advice. Almost universally when I read a post that says, I like shooting low light with a fast prime, that person usually is saying. "I dont know how to use my flash".... A fast prime will allow you to get enough light to take certain photos, but there is more to light than quantity. Make a sincere effort to learn and get the most of your flash, if you do it will have a bigger effect on your "people" photography than any other technique you learn.

gonzogolf wrote in post #12998789
I agree with borism 100%. I want to focus on the last part of his advice. Almost universally when I read a post that says, I like shooting low light with a fast prime, that person usually is saying. "I dont know how to use my flash".... A fast prime will allow you to get enough light to take certain photos, but there is more to light than quantity. Make a sincere effort to learn and get the most of your flash, if you do it will have a bigger effect on your "people" photography than any other technique you learn.

+1

Flash works like magic if use properly. People often have the misconception of only use flash during low light situation! That's totally wrong. Using flash in daylight is very essential when taking good portraits.

@ OP, the sigma 30mm is a very focal length for a crop camera indeed. But again, depends on what you shoot usually. I use my sigma 30mm as a walk around lens. When shooting portraits, I still use my 50mm most of the time.

What about considering a Sigma 17-50 2.8 + a Sigma 30 1.4 instead of a Canon 17-55 2.8?

Sigh. I didn't mean for this to be a flash lecture. But as it is, here's my issue with flash: How do I achieve bokeh with flash? Flash is too bright when priority is AV, and shooting in Manual while setting both aperture and speed makes my head hurt, and certainly the moment is lost. My use of flash is this:

When I'm indoors and I just want a "capture the moment" shot - I set it manually to a speed of 100 and an aperture I'm relatively happy with, test the shot, usually with bounce flash. If it's too dark, I change speed or aperture as desired. I usually can get a shot that manages to "capture the moment", but I never get results that match with the aesthetic I like. Like, I like variance of shadow and light on a person's face - I don't want a totally even fill.

Here's an example of one of my shots which I feel like I couldn't get unless I figured out off camera flash, which is just not what I'm looking to learn.

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Boingy - I'm worried that the sigma wouldn't provide the POP that I'm looking for because of my previous experience with sigma (24-60 2.8) - although yes, I've pondered that option myself, and I guess it's still on the table.

lookingforaname wrote in post #12999332
Sigh. I didn't mean for this to be a flash lecture. But as it is, here's my issue with flash: How do I achieve bokeh with flash? Flash is too bright when priority is AV, and shooting in Manual while setting both aperture and speed makes my head hurt, and certainly the moment is lost. My use of flash is this:

When I'm indoors and I just want a "capture the moment" shot - I set it manually to a speed of 100 and an aperture I'm relatively happy with, test the shot, usually with bounce flash. If it's too dark, I change speed or aperture as desired. I usually can get a shot that manages to "capture the moment", but I never get results that match with the aesthetic I like. Like, I like variance of shadow and light on a person's face - I don't want a totally even fill.

Here's an example of one of my shots which I feel like I couldn't get unless I figured out off camera flash, which is just not what I'm looking to learn.

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eta I can't seem to get my image to post, here's my link:
http://www.flickr.com …/22934181@N06/5​552227600/

Whether you use a flash or not has no relevance on bokeh. Plus you are misuing the the term. Bokeh is a quality, not a quantity, you mean you want less depth of field or more blurred area. I'm not sure what all that means about being too bright in av.. But it reinforces my point that you need to practice with your flash until you understand and control it. Unless you have some special ambient light (and it does happen) flash can duplicate most indoor lighting by means of creative bouncing.

1) You should be able to shoot up to at least ISO 3200, and with proper ETTR, your shots should come out very nicely. At least up to 1600, so there seems to be room for improvement there, both with exposure settings during the shot and post processing after the shot.

2) I am not sure what pop you are looking at from a lens, like the 24-60 2.8, but most of the pop is simply the aperture (and distance and FL), and not so much the brand of lens itself. Sure it's not the sharpest lens, but with some post processing, the image will be fine.

3) I am not a flash guru, but I do know that just putting on the flash, bouncing it up and off a bounce card (like what is on a 580ex) will produce very nice images without much work. If I don't like the light level, I just set FEC accordingly negative or positive.

Keep at it, and just try something different each day, and you will most likely find little tricks here and there to give you more flexibility in what you shoot.

For example, this is what the Sigma 24-60 would look like on the APS-C at ISO 3200. Sure I shot this with the 1D4, however, I bumped up the aperture a bit to provide roughly the same DOF as f2.8 would on the APS-C, and also the T3/T3i should be right around 1 to 1.5 stop worse noise-wise. If you like the no-flash look, you will need a combination of faster lenses and higher ISOs in low light situations. About any of the lenses I listed before should provide even better IQ than the 24-60, at some amount or another too.

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lookingforabrain wrote in post #12999363
Boingy - I'm worried that the sigma wouldn't provide the POP that I'm looking for because of my previous experience with sigma (24-60 2.8) - although yes, I've pondered that option myself, and I guess it's still on the table.

How can you say that? Were you disappointed with the Sigma 30/1.4?

LudwigVB wrote in post #12999636
How can you say that? Were you disappointed with the Sigma 30/1.4?

The comment was made in relation to the Sigma 17-50 OS, not the 30 f1.4.

- ISO: With ISO 3200 and the kit lens, I feel like my images are a little soft. I'm not sure if it's just pixel peeping as I haven't printed anything of 3200 yet.

- the "Pop" I'm trying to describe is some kind of color/contrast that comes out straight out of the camera. I swear that my 24-60 just didn't have it - I sold it with my first camera (xti, which I had bought without the kit lens - only a 50 1.4). My kit lens is much better. Yes, I could get better results with post processing, and yes, I post process every shot anyhow, but honestly, it just didn't have the same feel as with either my 50, or now, with any other lens I've owned.

- Yes, I bounce flash all the time, but I still don't feel like I have control over it, and I really prefer the depth of shadows/highlights that an image with natural light has. I agree that I might not understand FEC or how to adjust that correctly.

- Yes, I understand the term bokeh, although, yes, this probably also has to do with my not understanding how to use my flash. Let me take a stab at this again. I primarily shoot in AV mode. When I shoot in AV mode with my flash, I cannot use a wide aperture without getting too bright of an exposure. When I change to Manual mode with flash, I find that I now have to play around with both Aperture, Speed, and ISO to get the exposure correct, and by that time I'm getting really bored/annoyed faces in my subjects . . .

LudwigVB wrote in post #12999636
How can you say that? Were you disappointed with the Sigma 30/1.4?

I'm worried about a Sigma zoom, although yes, I may be being unfair to the Sigma 17-50.

Have you tried auto-ISO? In manual, you set a low aperture, a minimum shutter speed to compensate minimally for the longest FL you will shoot at and also enough to stop the action, and let the ISO float. Then you just have to play with the flash settings and nothing else, may have to set the flash to HSS if it has it though.

Also, did you shoot raw with the XTi? Or just JPG?