50L or 50 ART

Strictly for portrait type pics on a Canon 6D. Cost isn't an issue.

following

Despite having the same focal length, I feel that they are two different lenses. There is something very magical about the 50L's rendering of color and light, while the A beats it in sharpness. If I could, I would get both. Hell, maybe I will (mental note).

I am pretty sure you will be happy with either - for different reasons. It boils down to 1) budget; 2) defending your choice to yourself, once you have made it (AKA personal preference)

I accidentally clicked on 50A. I have no preferences as I don't have 50mm at this time.

Arutemu wrote in post #17468265
Despite having the same focal length, I feel that they are two different lenses. There is something very magical about the 50L's rendering of color and light, while the A beats it in sharpness. If I could, I would get both. Hell, maybe I will (mental note).

I am pretty sure you will be happy with either - for different reasons. It boils down to 1) budget; 2) defending your choice to yourself, once you have made it (AKA personal preference)

This would be my response as well, very well put. Even though I am a happy 50A owner, I love going through the 50L lens sample photo thread. If I could justify owning both, I would.

To a certain extent, I can imitate the 50L's colors in PS. I can't imitate the sharpness of the 50A. But that's just my way of defending my decision once I get past the $600 savings. My 135 L was $750 refurbished. My 50A and 135L are my favorite combo right now to take out and about. Best of both worlds that way, at least until I can afford an 85Lii/200f2 combo

I own a 50L, it's my favorite lens, but I vote 50A, as it's a better lens for the money.

Thinking of picking up 50 art and 135 as portrait combo. I had 35 art but felt it was a little wide for what I do.

I'm going to order a 50A sometime today, I do agree with the outlined differences though. Colors are the strong suit of the 50L, sharpness and cost is the strong suit of the 50A.

I've never used or owned a 50L but I did recently purchase a 50A. Very impressive lens.

You can make color adjustments in post but you can't make a soft image sharp.

I can't really say that the 50A is 'better' than the 50L as I've never used one (so I haven't voted) but I can't see you being disappointed with it.

As usual, it depends entirely on your interests. If you're primary interest is sharpness and you're the kind of photographer that puts stock in tests, graphs, charts etc, then the 50A is the lens for you (provided you get a good one, of course!). It's clinically sharp to the edge of the frame, and suffers much less from chromatic aberration. Very large and heavy though, and its bokeh isn't the best.

The 50L is a completely different lens, designed to take quite different pictures. It's not meant to be sharp at the edges. It has strong vignetting wide open, strong chromatic aberration wide open, and it's not only soft at the edges but also flippin' impossible to focus anywhere close to the edges of the frame, wide open. But it's sharp as a tack in the centre, wide open, and produces the most amazing bokeh which, along with it's razor-thin depth of field (if you want it), gives superb subject-isolation options. At all other apertures it behaves in a much more civilised way, and its superb sharpness and colour contrast really do combine to make images that have an almost unique 3D 'pop'.

Despite its challenging idiosyncrasies, I'd pick the 50L any day of the week.

Voted 50L as it is 1.2 and i buy used everytime so the used prices are not that far apart from the sigma

With the help of Greentoe, my 50A was $768 shipped brand new. My first new lens.

With work, one can find the 50L for $1k used. $232 in savings over a used 50L, not bad.

I purchased the 50 Art a month ago. Even with the sigma dock and attempting MF adjustments I could never get my copy to be in sharp focus so instead of exchanging it I returned it after reading many many others having the same problem. I heard if you get a good copy that it is an amazing lens indeed

mickeyb105 wrote in post #17469780
With the help of Greentoe, my 50A was $768 shipped brand new. My first new lens.

With work, one can find the 50L for $1k used. $232 in savings over a used 50L, not bad.

That's an awesome price! How long ago did you purchase?

sbkanut wrote in post #17470358
That's an awesome price! How long ago did you purchase?

My bid was accepted Dec 8. I didn't bite on counter-offers of like $840 and $815. Someone accepted $788 and I got a $20 rebate, bringing it down to $768.

I'm very happy with the lens, but I am also positive I would have been happy with the 50L. I was worried about the focus-shift problems of the 50L, as I shoot my two toddlers a lot on the go, but at the right price I would have been happy to own one all the same.

There are no wrong choices between these two lenses, it is a great problem to have for us as photographers.