Min DOF Photography

I tested antoher Sigma lens yesterday in the ZOO, the 70-200 2.8 Macro. And it was just one more Sigma lens with frontfocus issues. I tested 9 Sigma lenses in the last few months and only 5 were without AF issues. Here’s a short summary:
-18-200 for Canon: ok
-17-70 for Canon: ok
-50-150 for Canon: minimal frontfocus (but unusable at f2.8 in the 100-150 range on close focusing distance (headshots etc) - because of the shallow DOF, where frontfocus is more visible, image is unusable)
-10-20 for Canon: ok
-70 2.8 macro for Nikon: ok
-300 2.8 for Canon: frontfocus
-8 mm f3.5 circular fisheye for Canon: ok
-30 1.4 for Canon: weird AF issues (read the complete review for details, posted a week ago)
-70-200 2.8 Macro for Canon: frontfocus

It’s really a shame that 70-200 2.8 Macro has frontfocus issues, because it’s tack sharp at f3.2 (very few Sigma’s are). Here are a couple of samples which came out ok (tested on Canon 350D):

f3.5. 1/500, ISO 200

100% crop from the photo above

f3.2

And this is the focus test. I focused on the line below number 50. Frontfocus is quite pronounced (f2.8, 200 mm):

Yeah, today I added two more leneses to the pile of equipment. The
two Sigma’s mentioned in previous post (100-300 f4 and 70-200 2.8 Macro). Today is a beautiful day too (warm and cloudy, perfect for the test), so I’m going to the ZOO with my boy Luc. Ufff, I’m going to be late…Ups I forgot one of the Olympus boxes.

Besides the two sessions that I had, I have to test a ton of photo equipment. Ok I’ll skip the Olyumpus mju (a colleague will do it), since I hate compact cameras, but the rest of the equipment is pretty interesting to test (especially the lenses and Pentax k10d). I should get two more lenses today, Sigma 70-200 2.8 Macro and Sigma 100-300 f4. I can’t wait to take them to the ZOO. The weather is currently sweet, 15C in January - crazy. And it’s supposed to stay like that during the weekend. Ideal for testing.

Today I’ve made my friend Vid book photos. He’s going to L.A. to attend acting workshops and to get a few auditions. He needed standard book headshots (not really interesting photos), so I’m going to show you those that I took after the “book session” was over. It was fun working with him, because he’s relaxed and doesn’t give a shit about how people are looking at us when we are doing a street session. I wish all my models were like him, it would make my work a lot easier.

All the photos are only converted from Rawshooter, no Photoshop work.

I’ll start with a standard one:

It’s overexposed:)




Canon, Nikon, lens, depth of field, flash, aperture, raw, jpg, Pentax, portrait, portrait photography

Today I had a session with a girl named Barby, who also dresses like Barbie. Pink white combination. She loves it. She also loves to model, so we had a session. I needed a photo for a magazine cover, she needed or better said wanted a few photos of herself. And here are the results:

Grrrr, she bites

Trashy

Urban part of the session

This time the reviewed lens is a fast, so called standard lens. The word standard means that its field of view is the same (or very similar) as when we are looking through our own eyes. It’s focal lenght 30 mm resembles classic standard lenses (50mm) on full frame camera (I’ve tested it on Canon 350D). Optically this lens is a great performer, regarding center sharpness, even wide open. Border sharpness is not that good, as you’ll be able to see from samples posted below the text. Vignetting is visible at large aperture setting (up to about f2), CA is below average for a prime of this focal lenght, it’s visible at all aperture settings. AF is pretty fast, but I expected it to be faster (it has HSM). Full time manual focusing is possible. It’s almost near silent, but has some weird accuracy issues. It doesn’t have classical front/back focus issues, but the focus sometimes misses although the subject appears in focus (it’s hard to explain and yes I’m sure it was in focus since I have a lot of practise of min dof portraits, where superb accuracy is needed). It kind of jumps into frontfocusing. I thought that this copy had some kind of AF defect (it also makes weird noises, when focal point is changed from min focus distance to infinity), but I’ve read, that issues like this (and exactly like this) are common. But quality is up to the EX class, feels very good and solid.

This sample is taken at f4, 1/100, ISO 200. Below you can see samples from f1.4-f4.


f1.4


f2


f2.8


f4

f2, 1/250, ISO 100

AF issue, which I mentioned. Happens at cca 10-20% of the shots.
f1.6, 1/125, ISO 400 (+2 stops in Rawshooter)

CA at f1.4

CA at f8

f2.8, 1/2, ISO 200, flash, boosted contrast, decreased saturation

Can u say retarded? Re-tar-ded…f2, 1/250, ISO - a bit of contrast added

f1.8, 1/125,ISO 400, boosted contrast

Pros:
-center sharpness
-fast&silent AF
-built quality
Cons:
-border sharpness
-AF issues
-CA

Conclusion: I’m not sure if I’d recommend this lens. Without the AF issues, I probably would. So if you get your hands on a good copy and need a fast normal lens, then yes, I’d recommend it. I guess I’m so used to my wide open, border to border sharp Canon EF 85 1.8, which focuses bang on and has nicer, more saturated colours. I know that you can’t compare tele lenses with wide angle lenses ragarding sharpness, but there is no reason for the AF issues or “unattractive” colours. But a prime lens should still deliver better border sharpness. The biggest plus of this lens is the big aperture and built quality. The price is ok, but I couldn’t say it’s a bargain.

It took forever didn’t it;)? I named my blog Min Dof Photography and didn’t, untill now, dedicate it a single post, just a few samples in other posts. Shame on me…Ok, now I’m going to show you a few photos.

This one is a portrait of Oskar Karel Dolenc, master of photography. It was taken at Canon’s VIP lounge on Photokina. There was a product loan counter where you could get anything you wanted. I was playing with 85 1.2L II most of the time, it really amazed me. DOF at 1.2 is CRAZY if you get as close as I did with this shot (uncropped). The shot was taken with Canon 350D (with a FF camera you can’t get that close).

Below you can see 100% crop (unprocessed ofcourse). You can see, that only the eye is in focus, DOF is really shallow:

This one was already posted, but I just don’t want you to miss it. Taken with 350D and Canon EF 85 1.8 at f1.8.

This time I ain’t gonna bother you with text. This is the 4th session with her (out of 5 so far), I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

We had fun in the process

This is the next in line of Sigma lenses that I’ve tested. And is so far my favourite (out of cca 12 lenses). Image quality is very impressive for an ultrawide lens - as most of you probably know, (ultra)wide lenses don’t have a reputation of having great image sharpness. That’s why I was even more impressed. At 10 mm it’s a gem. Sharp wide open, both in the center and on the borders and very sharp when stopped down a bit (f5.6-8). I did most of the test shots on the 10 mm settings, because of the UWA perspective (you can do a lot of interesting, crazy things with it). Sharpness in the center is good across the whole range, however border sharpness drops a bit when you’re “zooming” towards the long end. Some moderate vignetting and CA is visible at 10 mm, but in the 15-20 range it’s only a minor issue. Again bare in mind that this is an UWA lens which usually have more aberrations etc. Barrel distortion is quite pronounced at 10 mm. Built quality is excellent. AF is very fast and silent (it has HSM), it has full time manual override, manual focus and zoom rings run smooth and are well damped. Filter size is 77 mm.

This lens is very usable for nature shots, panoramas, sports like snow&skateboarding (you can “blow” the skater into the sky, because of the UWA perspective), architecture and funny portraits (I messes around quite a bit with my friends). I can only highly recommend this lens to anyone who needs an UWA lens. The price is very good too.

Below are the samples taken with Canon 400D. The field of view when mounted on 400D, is equivalent to 16-32mm on a full frame camera. From the crops you can judge image sharpness (center and border) for yourself. All the samples have slo-foto.net watermark, don’t get alert - I made the test for that site and I’m the author of the photos.

Please view LARGER.

F6.3, 1/100, 10 mm, ISO 200

On the sample above you can see some CA

F6.3, 1/25, 20 mm, ISO 100

F5.6, 1/50, 20mm, ISO 100

F7.1, 1/30, 10 mm, ISO 100

F4, 1/13, 10 mm, ISO 800

Below you can see two examples of how UWA perspective can be used. Train appears to be infinitely long and the sky is also “stretched”:

F6.3, 1/80, 10 mm, ISO 100

F8, 1/320, 10 mm, ISO 100

If you’re interested in studio part of the test (resolution chart) it’s available here . All the shots were taken by Sandi Pelko. All the paramaters were set to 0 (sharpness, saturation etc), mine (taken outside) were set to the standard picture styles (sharpness 3 (on a scale 0-7, where 3 is really a normal setting). So the studio shots may seem a bit softer.

Pros:
-sharpness
-fast&silent AF
-price
-built quality

Cons:
-vignetting at 10-15 mm
-border sharpness at 20 mm

HIGHLY RECOMENDED.