sigma 17-70 or 50mm 1.4 - Which is a better indoor lens?

I run the 50 f1.4 indoors all the time. It's one of my favourite lenses. It's a great lens for capturing live music events but as previously mentioned you may find it a little long in your room. I get a bit less crop due to the larger sensor on my 1d too which helps.

f1.4 rocks... but you have to be careful with it, it's easy to overdo the shallow DOF.

i would recommend the 50mm- you will have greater sharpness with the 50mm stopped down to 2.8 than with the sigma wide open, you will loose flexibility but hey just use your feet
Canon 50mm1.4 is a great lens, and its reliable, how many threads are on this forum concern sigma build quality and callibration issues?- also the 50mm has full time manual which is a great feature.
I guess the sensible recommendation would be to look at the image archive - there you can see what each lens is capable of.

Ugh,...I hear you both. I just can't shoot at 80mm with 1:6 cropped. Its just too long for interiors in my opinion. I think that would work if I narrowed my focus to single subjects and portraiture. I'd just like to have some sense of space in the shot if I need it.

I've read about the sigma calibration issues and that does make me tentative. It seems like fast, wide angle lenses are still a fairly competive niche for APS-C sensors. I'm wondering now if I should wait to see what gets announced between now and fall. Hoping maybe Canon will do a fixed wide EF-S. I know that's wishful thinking.

extremely wishful thinking, chances are it would be more expensive than either of the 2 lenses that you are looking at. Why dont you tape your kit lens at 50mm and see if you can work with that range.
35mm f2 has focusing issues in low light- if you can stretch for it the 35mm1.4 is an ecellent lens that can be used wide open with little consequence.

I rented the 35mm f1.4. I fell in love with that thing. I just can't justify the purchase. I'll probably take my chances with the Sigma 30 and hope for the best.

Hard to turn down the triple threat. Fast, wide, and cheap.

good luck hope you get a sharp one

sr005 wrote in post #2812990
I'm looking into getting a value indoor lens. I'm really stuck between the 50 f1.4 and the sigma 17-70 f/2.8

The sigma offers a wider range with no crop, but the quality is not as good as the 50 at f2 or smaller. I'm not big on shooting scenes, but I'd like the flexibility of getting the whole room if I needed. I'm shooting with an XTi.

Also I'm losing fast AF with the 17-70, am I right?

Just a note, your post seems to imply the 17-70 is a f2.8 fixed aperature, it iis not. Only f2.8 at the very widest.

The Tamron and Sigmas mentioned are F2.8 through the whole focal range.

sr005 wrote in post #2834180
I rented the 35mm f1.4. I fell in love with that thing. I just can't justify the purchase. I'll probably take my chances with the Sigma 30 and hope for the best.

Hard to turn down the triple threat. Fast, wide, and cheap.

Treat me like a tourist wrote in post #2837758
good luck hope you get a sharp one

Yes, I hope you get a sharp one like the majority of purchasers do.

Why not the sigma that you mentioned and the Nifty 50?

Another vote for the Sigma 30/1.4 EX.
Great little lens, perfect FL for most shots, sharp @ f/2.0.

Best regards,
Andy