Canon prime ~30mm, which would you choose and why?

griffo_001 · 31 May 2010 at 08:55

As we all know, primes are made of win, so I've decided to add to my collection

I was looking at going back to the old skool, how I leant the basics - Full frame 35mm film with 50mm prime, except this time on my 40D, and to maintain the "natural" field of vision that you get from a 50 on full frame I'll need a prime ~30mm. It'll be a fairly general purpose lens, just to make choosing slightly harder for you

Looking to spend £300-£400, preferably buying new (I've tended to find with a little shopping around I can find them new as cheaply as "mint" used examples)

One that originally caught my eye was the Sigma 30mm f1.4 (Found for £320 new), but I've seen Canon models in 24mm and 28mm forms, but can't for the life of me find a proper comparison of all the lenses in this particular bracket

Anyone got any experience of any of these lenses? Are the Canon's built as badly as my 50mm f1.8? Teach me please

It'd be boring if it was an easy question

Cheers guys,

Matt

p0ss3s3d · 31 May 2010 at 09:07

The Sigma is going to be the best lens of the three - build is okay. Not great. But not bad (think two thirds of the way to L). It'll be the sharpest @f/1.8. Sharper than your 50mm. Plus IIRC it's a proper hsm (quiet fast AF)

The canon 28 f/1.8 is your other choice - build wise it's slightly behind the Sigma. Sharpness- again not quite on the level of the sigma...

But TBH sample variation (both from canon and sigma) could skew these results either way. I'd go for the Sigma myself unless your going full frame...

griffo_001 · 31 May 2010 at 09:12

Wow you work fast

Cheers for that

That's my on reservation with the siggy - My only siggy is a 10-20 and its hardly what you'd call pin sharp

Guess that's the risk you take buying online

Have I missed any other competition out? Do tamron do something similar?

Tomsk · 31 May 2010 at 09:26

griffo_001 said:
I was looking at going back to the old skool, how I leant the basics - Full frame 35mm film with 50mm prime,

This is the very reason I purchased my Sigma 30mm F1.4 to go with my 7D. I had been getting a bit lazy using my old 20D as a P'n'S and I was inspired by Raymond Lin's HK trip with only a 50mm.

Unfortunately working 7 days a week means I've not had a chance to get out and do some photography yet. This is the first picture I took with my Sigma.

jaybee · 31 May 2010 at 09:44

Well there is:

Canon 28mm f/1.8 = £448
Canon 28mm f/2.8 = £285 (No USM)
Canon 35mm f/2 = £289 (No USM)
Sigma 30mm f/1.4 = £339

The Sigma is generally raved about but like with all Sigma lenses (I talk from experience) you sometimes have to put up with a few bad copies before you get a good one. Major hassle sometimes and this lens is no different. A bit hit and miss. Atleast with the Canons this is highly unlikely.
35mm is a tiny bit longer than a "standard" 50mm at 56mm. 28mm a bit shorter at 44.8mm and the Sigma 30mm at 48mm. I'm sure you knew all this.
Id go for any of the above 3 that came up first second hand if it was me.

griffo_001 · 31 May 2010 at 09:50

So there isn't much in it in terms of the different Canon lenses? Thats useful to know, cheers

I think I'd still want USM for when I'm feeling lazy, which means I should probably be looking at the Sigma and Canon 28mm f1.8 in more detail

Cheers for the info guys

EDIT:

Right, looked up some quick prices online, Sigma is £320 and the Canon £380 (Interestingly both off the same website)

Given that the Sigma won't work on my EOS 3 (I assume anyway, because its DX format?) I will probably look into the 28

Cheers for the help guys, the fastest thread conclusion in history

p0ss3s3d · 31 May 2010 at 10:04

One thing- your all complaining about sigma qc- I've only had one soft lens of five... So that's 80% of them were perfect. So your chance of getting a bad lens twice is something like 3/4%. I honestly don't believe the number of stories of poor Sigma QC...

With canon I've also had one bad lens of seven bought... So 85% of the lenses were good. 15% bad... 3% chance of two bad lenses in a row?

The guy from lenses for hire I think mentioned that of the hundreds (180?) canon lenses he bought only a handful were poor. I think he had also bought about 50 sigmas or something like that and he had only a few too send back...?

I don't think there is actually that much difference between Sigma and Canon QC wise. I think they are both pretty good. Canon are better for sure, but sigma aren't making one good lens for every five bad ones like some incinuate!!!!!

D.P. · 31 May 2010 at 12:44

I don't know how the canon 30mm compares to the Nikon, but sigma 30mm .14 falls a long way behind the Nikon 35mm 1.8 and is only worth if you need the extra light.
The sigma suffers form poor edges and corners.

Amp34 · 31 May 2010 at 12:44

If I remember rightly the Canon primes in that range are getting on a bit now and ripe for replacement. Nothing necessarily wrong with that but usually never (and i'm talking 20 years never) lenses are better so I'd probably go for the Sigma as well.

About the sigma QC issue, I remember reading the stats from an American version of StewartR's website which has been running a lot longer and has far more lenses. On it it had the faliure rates of all the lenses and Sigma took up about 8 of the top 10slots...!

Throttle · 31 May 2010 at 12:49

I recently bought the Cannon 24 f2.8 after going through the same thoughts, nearly went for the sigy 30mm but the deciding factor for me was i wanted to shoot landscapes and found 30mm not wide enough although the f1.8 is usefull in low light. If you already have a zoom try setting it at 30mm for while & then 24mm etc. Im pleased with the 24mm, very low distortion, sharp and a lot more compact than any of my other lens it also has a close mfd

FreeStream · 31 May 2010 at 13:41

Throttle said:
I recently bought the Cannon 24 f2.8 after going through the same thoughts, nearly went for the sigy 30mm but the deciding factor for me was i wanted to shoot landscapes and found 30mm not wide enough although the f1.8 is usefull in low light. If you already have a zoom try setting it at 30mm for while & then 24mm etc. Im pleased with the 24mm, very low distortion, sharp and a lot more compact than any of my other lens it also has a close mfd

Buying a F2.8 prime (apart from it being cheaper) seems utterly pointless to me?

My 17-55 IS does more range, same light, focuses quicker AND has IS. (But costs 2 times as much!)

Why did you buy that if you don't mind me asking?

robmiller · 31 May 2010 at 13:51

Concorde Rules said:
My 17-55 IS does more range, same light, focuses quicker AND has IS. (But costs 2 times as much!)

And is also twice the weight, four times the size, has a further close focus, etc.?

There are lots of pros and cons to primes and zooms, it's not like the only reason to get a prime is for max aperture.

Also, mid-range zooms encourage laziness in composition, IMO: look at shots taken with your 17-55 and I bet 99% of them are at either 17mm or 55mm. You can stand almost anywhere with a mid-range zoom, and a shot of what's in front of you will be possible somewhere in the zoom's range. It seems like a blessing, but there's no encouragement to seek the best perspective, like there is with a prime; you just stand wherever you were standing and zoom 'til it looks okay—but just okay. A prime almost never looks even okay from the first place you're in: you have to hunt for perspective and thus actively compose, rather than just passively take snapshots. The only time a mid-range zoom is superior is, IMO, for wedding/PJ shooters where flexibility—and getting any shot at all—is far more important than aesthetics.

You can take good shots with a midrange zoom if you have discipline, of course, but people are naturally lazy

FreeStream · 31 May 2010 at 20:15

robmiller said:
And is also twice the weight, four times the size, has a further close focus, etc.?

There are lots of pros and cons to primes and zooms, it's not like the only reason to get a prime is for max aperture.

Also, mid-range zooms encourage laziness in composition, IMO: look at shots taken with your 17-55 and I bet 99% of them are at either 17mm or 55mm. You can stand almost anywhere with a mid-range zoom, and a shot of what's in front of you will be possible somewhere in the zoom's range. It seems like a blessing, but there's no encouragement to seek the best perspective, like there is with a prime; you just stand wherever you were standing and zoom 'til it looks okay—but just okay. A prime almost never looks even okay from the first place you're in: you have to hunt for perspective and thus actively compose, rather than just passively take snapshots. The only time a mid-range zoom is superior is, IMO, for wedding/PJ shooters where flexibility—and getting any shot at all—is far more important than aesthetics.

You can take good shots with a midrange zoom if you have discipline, of course, but people are naturally lazy

I think its because I photograph more for historical record with the odd moment looking for *that* shot.

50% of my library is Concorde/Party/Clubs and the rest is timelapses and random holiday stuff.

Prime, for me, is not a sensible buy

jaybee · 1 Jun 2010 at 09:47

robmiller said:
And is also twice the weight, four times the size, has a further close focus, etc.?

There are lots of pros and cons to primes and zooms, it's not like the only reason to get a prime is for max aperture.

Also, mid-range zooms encourage laziness in composition, IMO: look at shots taken with your 17-55 and I bet 99% of them are at either 17mm or 55mm. You can stand almost anywhere with a mid-range zoom, and a shot of what's in front of you will be possible somewhere in the zoom's range. It seems like a blessing, but there's no encouragement to seek the best perspective, like there is with a prime; you just stand wherever you were standing and zoom 'til it looks okay—but just okay. A prime almost never looks even okay from the first place you're in: you have to hunt for perspective and thus actively compose, rather than just passively take snapshots. The only time a mid-range zoom is superior is, IMO, for wedding/PJ shooters where flexibility—and getting any shot at all—is far more important than aesthetics.

You can take good shots with a midrange zoom if you have discipline, of course, but people are naturally lazy

Good post, I have a lot of love for primes for the same reasons. Sometimes it's nice to just have a small, light lens that doesn't grab attention. Primes tend to produce razor sharp images and are good bang for buck when you consider that they are on par if not better than most L zooms image wise.

The above posts are correct in that the Canon non USM ones are quite old. Arguably they havent needed to change since they are obviously good. However, the Sigma I think is designed specifically for Digital SLR use right guys? Can't remember off the top of my head.
I can only speak for myself with Sigma quality control, but it's not been good for me with any third party lens. I've had two bad sigmas, one bad tamron. My last attempt I got a good Sigma so stuck with it. Next time, Canon only. Never had a prob with Canon.

robmiller · 1 Jun 2010 at 13:10

jaybee said:
The above posts are correct in that the Canon non USM ones are quite old. Arguably they havent needed to change since they are obviously good. However, the Sigma I think is designed specifically for Digital SLR use right guys? Can't remember off the top of my head.

It is indeed, and will only work on cropped sensors.