Reddit reviews Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

Have you considered the Sigma 30mm f/1.4?

Sigma's 30mm 1.4 sounds like a good choice for what you're doing.

http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-30mm-Canon-Digital-Cameras/dp/B0007U0GZM

If the 50 mm 1.8 is your go to 99% of the time for your family shots, check out the Sigma 30 mm 1.4. It will offer a much more versatile focal length on your crop sensor for indoor photos. 50mm is "normal" on a full frame, but more of a portrait lens on a crop. This combined with your kit lens may be all you need if most of your photos are of your family.

the t2i or t3i have the exact same video sensor as the 7d. The advantage the 7d has is faster stills shooting, a weather sealed body and the real thumbwheel for overall faster operating. This is not essential for video. The t2i and t3i have the magic lantern custom firmware available to them, which will result in these cheaper models outperforming the 7d for video works. I wouldn't recommend an SLR for wedding stuff though. If you want to put together a clean image film, an SLR is great. If you want to quickly capture wedding material, you are better off with an HDV recorder such as the sony fx1 or comparable. The reason for this is that you'll want to pan around a lot and be moving and you'll want a reliable autofocus. The material has more of a documentary look, but can also be nicely graded. This is a 3CCD sensor, which means no rolling shutter, which you will have with the canon SLR's. Also, if you are using strobes, you have to make sure their frequency settings are in line with the frame rate you are shooting at. Say you are shooting in NTSC 1080/30p mode (standard for US) and you are using strobes that are running on the US 60Herz power grid, you'll have to make sure your strobes are flickering at a rate divisable by 30, or else you'll get very nasty black bars across your image, because your sensor isn't picking up/reading out at the same frequency. The light performance in the dark will be poor on any camera below $1000, unless you can find a used 5dMKII in that price range, but you'll still be short of lenses. The kit lens on the t2i and t3i has a minimum f/stop of 3,5 and 5,6 on the tele end. This is bad for your low light performance. You'll want something like this amazon and amazon, which means you'll already be over budget. If this is for a one time image film deal, you are going to want to hire someone who has the knowhow and equipment to provide you with what you are looking for. What you don't want to do is purchase a third of the equipment needed and struggle to meet your bosses needs, who is going to be dissatisfied and pin the low quality on you.

Get yourself the Sigma 30mm f/1.4. I have the same camera as you, and trust me, the extra light that 1.4 can let in will blow your mind the first time you try it in less than perfect lighting conditions. It's truly awesome. A 50mm, I find, is far too restrictive to really be my "walkaround" lens.

I have the [30mm Sigma] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sigma-30mm-Digital-Canon-Mount/dp/B0007U0GZM/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1335220868&sr=1-1) and the Canon 50mm as the guy above mentioned and some older lenses I use with an adapter.

Just remember it's a cropped sensor. So your 50mm lens is going to be around a 70mm on a full frame sensor. This isn't too big of a deal, but it's the reason I grabbed myself the 30mm. (That gives me around a 50mm on the 5d MkII) the standard film perspective.

If you want anymore tips;

Install [CineStyle] (http://www.technicolor.com/en/hi/theatrical/visual-post-production/digital-printer-lights/cinestyle)
This is to get the flattest image possible, because of the DSLRs compression you do not want to over expose or under expose the image. You won't have any wiggle room in post to bring it back down. Once you've lost that info, it's gone!


Keep your shutter speed around 50-60 to give you the best filmic look, you might not realise, but film is quite blurry. It's not overly sharp. You might find this hard to start with, the image may be too dark. This is where you use your ISO, although because you're doing a horror, if you have lots of shadows be careful of grain when using those higher numbers.


Pick yourself up some ND filters if you're filming with sunlight, this will let you keep the apature low without over exposing.


Don't use your hands to film with, the low form factor of the DSLR means you get horrible jello footage you won't be able to fix in post.

Careful with your apature, don't just stick to the lowest number possible to get extreme shallow DOF. Be creative, use shallow DOF when you need too. (Especially in scenes where there might be a lot of detail in the background, builds, fabric, book shelves etc) The camera hates this. But if you have two people talking to each other make sure they are both in focus.

Take your time and have fun!
Sorry this is most likely very terribly written, bed time for me!

Honestly the only lens I'd recommend is this one. It's the highest quality lens you can get for your budget.

Don't overlook the Sigma 30mm lenses (the older EX DC HSM and the new DC HSM A), they aren't the super sharp lenses Sigma is becoming known for but are very usable and are much better suited for every day shooting with their 48mm equivalent focal length. I own the EX version and use it for nearly everything I shoot.

That's so cool. I want to organize mine, too! I didn't know you could do that. I hope I can figure it out.

Oh, yeah. Favorite item. Sigma 30mm ƒ/1.4.

Get the Sigma 30mm 1.4
It's easily my favorite lens in my bag, It looks better than my L series zoom.
http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-30mm-Canon-Digital-Cameras/dp/B0007U0GZM
Wait for a sale, I've seen it go down to like $260 before.

I picked up a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX a few years ago used and that almost never came off my camera. I recommend going for something like that if you're on a budget.

Or replace your kit lens with any 17-50mm (or 17-55) f/2.8 lens. I use that (Sigma again) almost constantly now when I want some zoom.

The 24mm is good too and cheaper than both of those I mentioned. Just wanted to expand your options.

Problem solved: Sigma 30mm f/1.4
http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-30mm-Canon-Digital-Cameras/dp/B0007U0GZM

To me it's a tie between this one and the Canon Nifty Fifty. I've seen so many good shots and amazing video from the Canon and it has a 4.5 star rating on over 1,700 reviews.

The Sigma only gets 4 stars.

I just looked and apparently there are two different 30mm 1.4 for Canon, do you know between these two which one doesn't perform well? Or is it both? There's [this one](https://www.amazon.com/Sigma-30mm-F1-4-Lens-Canon/dp/B00BQXL8BU/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1526669852&sr=8-1- spons&keywords=sigma+30mm+1.4+canon&psc=1&smid=A2ZH1V1LBSRVIC) which is the Art, and this one which is the other type.

I'm still shooting with a 40D and it's a really great body, less flimsy than the rebels but easier to carry around than the bigger full frame bodies. I'd recommend checking out 3rd party lenses as well like tamron, sigma and tokina. If you aren't shooting pro I doubt you'll be able to tell the difference from canon/nikon lenses (usually sharpness and chromatic aberration aren't as up to par), and you're paying for significantly less. Typically you're gonna want 3 types of lenses, a wide angle, around 12-20, a walk-around lens, 30-55, and a telephoto, 70-200+, and the usefulness of each is going to depend on what kind of photography you'll be doing, like wide-angle is really useful for architecture and landscape, walk-arounds for street photography, telephoto for sports or birdwatching. FWIW I use mostly a Sigma 30mm prime. Do a lot of research, read all the reviews, and try stuff out first in a camera store if one is close to you.

Thanks! All of them except the two faked ones (I'll let you guess which ones those are) were shot with my Sigma 30mm f/1.4.

I actually have a 70D as well, and i use a Sigma 30mm f/1.4, i got one on eBay in immaculate condition with the hood and case for $207.00 shipped. I like this lens a lot, its not super sharp until f/1.8-2.0, but even then it manages to pull a lot of light in, and its focus is able to be adjusted manually after AF without damaging the AF motors, which is pretty handy for super busy shots where you want to get that very narrow range of focus just right. Also, 30 x 1.6 (aps-c crop factor) = 48mm, the closest youll get to the equivalent of a 50mm full frame. I definitely recommend

Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0007U0GZM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_lIiWCbMFMSC9X

Thanks! I just searched Amazon and found the Sigma 30mm, and yeah, it's about twice my current budget, but I'll start saving. The good news is it's an f/1.4, which is better than my current prime (50mm f/1.8), which itself was leaps and bounds better than my 17-85mm f/4-5.6.

Seriously, I know everyone here intuitively grasps f-stops, but for me to make the jump to that 50mm prime, and see just how much more light it lets in was... well, a revelation!

This is the exact model: https://www.amazon.ca/Sigma-30mm-Canon-Digital-Cameras/dp/B0007U0GZM

Great suggestion. It makes the camera look a lot smaller too. If you need an even faster lens, I can highly recommend the Sigma 30 mm f/1.4 <http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-30mm-Canon-Digital-Cameras/dp/B0007U0GZM>

Set the camera in aperture priority mode and set it to lowest aperture number (wide open), manually set your ISO, starting around 400 and adjust upwards to get yourself the needed shutter speed to eliminate blur. It will all depend on how much light is in the room and what aperture you have.

IMHO, a 50 mm will not be wide enough for you.

Any idea what the difference between "Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras" and "Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DC HSM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras (Black)" is?

Amazon automatically prompts me to go to the second one because it's newer, but I don't see what the difference is.

Which lens are you looking for? and how important is the adapter?

i have the non-art lens in very good condition but do not have the adapter.

The Sigma 30mm f/1.4 (both old and new "Art" versions) are crop-sensor only. They DO work with full-frame in the sense that they attach and communicate with the camera and take pictures, but they exhibit heavy vingetting.

The Sigma 35mm f/1.4, however, is full-frame compatible, and is apparently an amazing lens. But it's a little bit on the expensive side.

Are you sure there isn't a switch for autofocus/manual?

This one has a switch for AF/M - you can see it in the lower right of the photo.

https://www.amazon.com/Sigma-30mm-Canon-Digital-Cameras/dp/B0007U0GZM?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Its annoying how this subreddit downvotes everything immediately. I'm gathering you're looking for a quality wide angle lens that's good got filming video with? The problem is that a sharp zoom lens that also is good wide open is going to be expensive. I'm not sure what you're filming, but I would say you may be able to get away with a good 35mm lens. Sticking with a prime will allow you to get a good quality lens with a wide aperture for close to the budget that you want. I know Zeiss makes excellent video lenses, but they are expensive. One that I have used is the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens. Its sharp, bright, and can be used in manual focus decently, althought I'm not sure it has image stabilization (which I'm assuming you want for video?). Certainly not an expert, but hope this helps.