Canon EF 35MM f2 IS VS Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art

Dlee13 wrote in post #18545471
You'll find sharpness wide open the same but it would pretty much come down to a few specific things per lens.

35mm IS - Lighter, IS, better AF and slightly cheaper.

35mm Art - A stop extra light, less vignette wide open.

I love my 35 IS and if I was going to trade it for another 35mm on a Canon body, then it would be the 35L II. Although if you have a copy of the Art that has no issues with wide open performance and AF, I would recommend keeping it. Sigma make some really great lenses and if you do sell it and decide to buy one back, you may very likely not get as good of a copy the second time. I am hesitant to sell my Sigma 85mm F/1.4 EX for that reason, I may not find another copy that works as well as this one.

Actually the 35 1/4 does not give you an extra stop of light. DXO tests light transmission and utilizes a tStop value for comparisons. Testing shows that the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART has a tStop of 1.5 on full frame Canon bodies and 1.7 on crop bodies, while the Canon 35mm f/2 IS USM has a tStop of 2 on all bodies . So on a full frame body, the Sigma allows in a bit less than 1 additional stop of light and on Canon crop frame bodies it lets in a bit more than 1/3 stop of extra light.

fplstudio wrote in post #18545486
The Art is by a good margin better in terms of IQ. The Canon with its IS and smaller lighter size can be more versatile particularly if you travel a lot and take primes with you. That’s based on my personal experience.

DXO testing shows the two lens are optically on par in almost every respect and that when mounted on a Canon 5D Mark IV, the 35mm f/2 IS USM is actually slightly sharper. The build and handling of the Sigma is of course far superior. I've used both but much prefer the Canon myself. especially with its four stops of IS which is phenomenally useful shooting static subjects in very low light, handheld. One must also take into account the large number of people who have reported unacceptably high amounts of AF issues with their copies of the Sigma. Happily most people don't have that experience, but unfortunately too many people do

I was going through my old subscribed threads and seen this one.

A while back I switched to the Sony A7III and was using the 35mm IS on it for quite some time but a few months ago I got the 35 Art in native mount.

Although very close, I would say the 35mm IS has the slightest edge in sharpness over the Art. The f/1.4 does have a certain look to it that's unique to such fast lenses.

According to the Digital-Picture website, the Sigma 35F1.4 Art actually underexposed compared to the Canon 35F2 IS. I don’t get this, given reports on T stops. Whatever is going on, the difference is less than a stop, and not a full stop. The only way to tell would be to test both lenses in low light at F1.4 and F2 for the Sigma, and F2 for the Canon to compare them.

artyH wrote in post #18866563
According to the Digital-Picture website, the Sigma 35F1.4 Art actually underexposed compared to the Canon 35F2 IS. I don’t get this, given reports on T stops. Whatever is going on, the difference is less than a stop, and not a full stop. The only way to tell would be to test both lenses in low light at F1.4 and F2 for the Sigma, and F2 for the Canon to compare them.

I think this may have to do with how the camera interacts with the body. I remember with my previous EX Sigma lenses they would always underexposed by 1/3 of a stop. I haven't used the Art lens on a DSLR or AV/TV on Mirrorless, I shoot manual only these days.

malcolmp wrote in post #18539978
35mm is my favourite focal length for walk around and family events.

I had both of these lenses for a short time. I had the 35mm 1.4 Art which was amazingly sharp and had a nice bokeh but it had focus problems on my 5D Mark III which couldn't be fixed with micro-adjustments, so I reluctantly returned it.

I got the 35 f2 IS, which had the benefit of being small and light compared to the Art. The centre sharpness was good but not as good as the Art. The killer for me was the terrible bokeh! It's bad.

Finally I purchased a 2nd hand 35mm f1.4 L for not much more than a new 35mm f2 IS. The L is not as sharp as the Art but no problems with focus, and the bokeh is wonderful.

If your Art is working for you then it's a great choice.

Bad bokeh? What's bad about it? I have both the 35 f/1.4L II and the 35 f/.20 IS here and can barely see a difference in the bokeh, other than the 1.4 being slightly shallower, of course.