As i said Ksanti im shooting on a MK2 so FF. And no, of course i dont need a forum to tell me which lens to buy i am perfectly capable of making the decision on my own, i just thought i might might ask owners of both lenses their opinion on the subject before buying.
Sorry if im being rude but i thought such places were exactly the place to put such questions out?
My apologies for not reading thoroughly.
Well the thing is the choice between a 50mm and a 35mm comes pretty early on in the 'what lens do I need' decision process, as they're quite substantially different focal lengths with quite substantially different uses. Usually the questions for forums fall between different lenses that are used for more or less the same thing e.g. a Sigma 85 versus the Canon 85s.
The reason this specific question doesn't really make sense on a forum is because the decision between a 35 and a 50 isn't really one we can help you make as it comes down more to what and how you shoot than the technical aspects of each lens. Sure, the 35L is a legendary lens and the 50L not so much, but if a 50 really suits your shooting then a 50L is better than a 35L. They're too different to really be compared.
I'll use cars to better explain it. It would be like asking us if you should buy a Range Rover, or a Jag XF. We /could/ say the XF will be better on fuel, the Range Rover will be better offroad etc., but they're so different that sort of shouldn't be the decision we're helping you with, as once we've established either way, we then have to decide whether a BMW 3 series or Mercedes E class would better suit you if you went with the XF, or if a Porsche Cayenne or Audi Q7 might better suit you if you went with the Range Rover.
There are aspects of the 35L and 50L that we could debate, but ultimately the debate between these two lenses would be decided largely by the arbitrary characteristics of the lenses e.g. shallower apparent depth of field on the 50 1.2, faster focusing on the 35 1.4, which are things that shouldn't matter as much as what the focal lengths do.
The first decision should be what focal length you want, be it a 35, a 50, and 85, or maybe a zoom etc. and then once you make that decision, deciding upon which one to get e.g. the shallow depth of field of the Canon 50 1.2, versus the faster focusing on the Sigma 50 1.4 as that will make the more subtle differences to your shooting than the focal length.
Better to set out to decide on the sort of lens you want then the lens itself e.g. wideangle>35mm>Canon 35 f/1.4L rather than decide you want to spend £1000 on a single lens and then decide between a Canon 50 1.2 and Canon 35 1.4 as if you go with the latter you won't get a lens that compliments your shooting as well and it almost certainly won't be the best buying decision for your photography.
