35mm Lens?

No - I don't believe it's really being hijacked - I don't understand the reasoning behind the so-called focus shift and I'm just trying to see what I may be missing. On the surface it doesn't seem to make sense. However I have not seen evidence of this in my Canon lens, which may be relevant to the OP's final choice of lens.

I know focus shift, but never find a need to use it. I don't have issue with it either. Never a problem to me so far.

I was just facing the same decision and I actually went with the canon 35mm f2is, Its amazing for the price and has IS

white venom wrote in post #17407950
I was just facing the same decision and I actually went with the canon 35mm f2is, Its amazing for the price and has IS

I agree! I am very impressed with its performance as well...I can shoot at 1/6th a second, it's sharp wide open and it focuses fast and reliably. The build quality is very good as well. The focus ring turns so smoothly...very similar to my L lenses.

So for still subjects...this lens beats having an F1.4 by at least 2 stops.

Here are my impressions of the 30/35mm's I've owned

Sigma 30mm F1.4 (non-art)
pro:
-Sharp wide open
-Small!
Con:
Iffy focus reliability
Somewhat stiff focus ring

Canon 35 F1.4L
Pro:
-Sharp wide open
-Great focus reliability
Con:
Somewhat large
Expensive
Purple fringing in highlights is pretty bad (shows that it is an old lens design)

Sigma 35mm F1.4 Art
Pro:
- Super Sharp wide open
- great price
Con:
- Questionable focus reliability
- Huge and heavy (for a prime)

Canon 35mm F2 IS
Pro:
- Sharp wide open
- Fair price
- IS!
- Reliable autofocus
- Fairly small
Con:
- F2
- No red ring?
- Vignetting wide open is significant on FF

Boy...I guess I never realized how many lenses I've gone through. If I had to pick my favorites it'd be the two Canon's as focus reliability is king to me. Keep in mind I'm not talking focus accuracy here...the Sigmas did a fine job most of the time with hitting focus....then problem is the 20% of the time where they just decided to completely focus in the completely wrong area. For some people this might be acceptable but I need reliability and the Sigma's didn't provide that. These tests were all done with a Canon 7D.