anyone use the sigma 50 f/1.4 or 85 f/1.4 for live music?

i find my tag team of 35+135L to be pretty decent for must venues, but i'm looking to give myself a few more options.

just wondering if anyone has any experience using either of these lenses for live music/low light photography.

thanks!

any insight into how either lens performs as far as low light autofocus goes would be appreciated. especially in comparison to their canon (50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.8) counterparts.

thanks!

No, I don't use either of mine for live music... both of them are completely tone deaf, can't carry a tune and have awful voices.

Oh, wait, you mean taking photos of live music events with them!

I don't shoot those types of events a lot, but hey, they'd work just fine. I would guess that the 85mm would be more useful to you than the 50mm, just because the 50mm is so close to your 35mm.

SOrry, I'm not using the Siggies, so can't say for certain... But both are HSM, so should be little if any difference from any Canon USM lens. The extra 2/3 stop light through the Siggy 85mm (compared to the Canon 85), should make it even better. Besides that, it's more down to the camera to AF in low light. And your 5DII is one of the most capable cameras for that.

amfoto1 wrote in post #13050999
No, I don't use either of mine for live music... both of them are completely tone deaf, can't carry a tune and have awful voices.

Oh, wait, you mean taking photos of live music events with them!

I don't shoot those types of events a lot, but hey, they'd work just fine. I would guess that the 85mm would be more useful to you than the 50mm, just because the 50mm is so close to your 35mm.

SOrry, I'm not using the Siggies, so can't say for certain... But both are HSM, so should be little if any difference from any Canon USM lens. The extra 2/3 stop light through the Siggy 85mm (compared to the Canon 85), should make it even better. Besides that, it's more down to the camera to AF in low light. And your 5DII is one of the most capable cameras for that.

thanks for your input! i find my 35L a little wide often, so was contemplating trading it for a 50L. still am, i guess. but if the sigmalux is pretty sweet (and affordable) i may keep the 35L.

The sigmalux is very sweet! I would highly recommend it. No focus issues in super low light.

Some of my Canon primes hunt more than my Siggy, but I can't give a comparison to the Canon 1.4 since I've never tried it. The Sigma is a nice lens, mine accidentally got dropped from my trunk and it survived without problems.

Bilderknipser wrote in post #13051914
Some of my Canon primes hunt more than my Siggy, but I can't give a comparison to the Canon 1.4 since I've never tried it. The Sigma is a nice lens, mine accidentally got dropped from my trunk and it survived without problems.

i hear that the canon 50mm 1.4 is very soft wide open which is a huge concern for me since that is where i do most of my shooting.

Mine really shines at 2.0, 1.4 is best for non-moving objects, at least in my experience.

Bilderknipser wrote in post #13053466
Mine really shines at 2.0, 1.4 is best for non-moving objects, at least in my experience.

this is your experience with the sigma 50?

Yes, I've had some good shots of moving objects at 1.4, but the keeper rate is definitely greater if I just put it at 2.0. Not sure if that helps your cause, sorry. I really like the lens though, especially for the price I think it's a good bang for the buck. I keep going back and forth on getting the L, and so far I just keep holding off.

http:// …
This was shot at 1.4, it's just a snapshot of my daughter dancing around. I don't think there's much sharpening and it looked better before uploading to flickr.

I'm also interested in hearing more opinions on this. I recently shot my first concert with a 5D/35L and 7D/50 f1.4 combo and really liked the focal lengths. For a FF body, I'd recommend looking at the 85 f1.8. It's very fast focusing and very sharp.

I did find that the 50 struggled to AF when the lighting was low. I didn't notice that on the 35L. I'm wondering if the Sigma 50 f1.4 will AF better in low light.

yep - used both, you can see some images here, all of these where taken with the 50mm/85mm sigmas

there are pretty dull images, but it shows its possible. The focusing on the lenses is pretty hit and miss (the 50 is pretty good, the the 85 less so) unfortunately, but thats my experiance with all wide appature primes.

All of these where shot at f1.4-f1.8