Exploring the wonders of creation through a 50mm lens...and other lenses too.

Here’s the final picture I’ll be sharing from my time with the Sigma 40mm f/1.4 ART lens, and I chose this one for a reason. It might sound corny, but I don’t think I could have gotten this particular shot with any other lens. But first, a bit of background: this was taken at the Big XII Equestrian Championship held at OSU back in late March, and even though OSU ultimately lost (but not by much!) we were glad we could go out and support the riders who had worked so hard to get there.

After one of the events one of the riders, who was a student in my wife’s class, brought her horse up for our boys to see up close. Normally I’d have my Fuji X100F for times like this but since I was evaluating the Sigma lens I brought that with me instead and even though I wasn’t exactly used to its sheer size and heft, I got some shots such as this one that I really like. What I find most compelling about this image is the way the horse is tack-sharp, especially its eye, but everything in the foreground and background is blurry to some extent. As the viewer your eye is immediately drawn to the horse but then you start to notice other elements like the man’s plaid shirt, the younger child in a blue coat, and context clues such as the overhead lights and the fact that my wife is wearing a hat. It all comes together to paint a richer picture of the entire scene than if it were just the horse by itself, and when you add in the fact that my oldest son is reaching out to touch the horse it’s kind of the cherry on top.

So why couldn’t I get this shot with any other lens? The options I had at my disposal were:

• Fuji X100F (23mm f/2.0 lens, 35mm equivalent on full-frame)
• 35mm f/1.8
• 50mm f/1.8

I’m not counting my 85 or 70-200 because I wouldn’t even think to bring them to a situation like this; they’re just not practical. And with each of those lenses I wouldn’t have been able to get the shot framed quite like this while also getting the foreground out of focus. The background, sure. But not the foreground. The closest might have been my 35mm lens but even at f/1.8 the man’s shirt (which I really like, by the way. The plaid pattern is just buttery smooth when blurred out) would have been too much in focus. If I used my 50mm I would have had to stand farther back to get a similar composition and then, as you might have guessed, the foreground wouldn’t be as blurry. Something about the 40mm focal length just worked ideally to capture this image, and even though I don’t plan on ever purchasing that lens (At $1300 it’s just too expensive) it sure does give photographers some interesting creative freedom.

Here’s a scene I have viewed many times, and often stopped to photograph, but was never quite able to get it to look how I wanted. This metal sculpture is on the first floor of one of the Engineering buildings on the OSU campus and every time I walk past it (which is maybe once or twice a semester) I think about how this, and other similar objects nearby, would be interesting photo subjects. But no matter what I’ve tried, I just haven’t really been able to capture what I think might be a compelling image. There’s always some kind of compromise or constraint I can’t overcome, and I’m left with kind of a shell of an image that doesn’t really do justice to the subject.

On my most recent stroll down this hallway I realized I finally had something that would help: the Sigma 40mm f/1.4 ART lens. (And yes, I realize that after a few weeks of posts about this lens I probably sound like some kind of corporate shill, but that’s not it at all. Sigma let me borrow the lens, but that’s it. I haven’t gotten a dime from them and I doubt I ever will. I just really enjoyed using the lens.) The 40mm focal length let me stand far enough back to get this entire sculpture in the frame, and shooting at f/1.4 meant I could get a smooth, pleasing background blur while keeping my subject in sharp focus.

I’ve tried similar pictures with both my 35mm and 50mm lenses and it just hasn’t quite worked. Either the framing wasn’t right or the background wasn’t blurred or the picture just wan’t quite sharp enough. But that 40mm Sigma lens worked wonders in this situation. I held my D70 down on the floor, flipped out the rear screen, and used Live View to compose the shot while zooming in to check focus. It was a fun shot to get and maybe the next time I’m in that same hallway I’ll try other pictures anyway, even though I don’t have that lens anymore. Maybe there’s shots I just haven’t considered yet. Hmm.

I’ve posted a few sunrise and sunset photos over the years here on Weekly Fifty, but nothing quite like this one. And, true to form, it was a photo I almost didn’t take because I didn’t think it would be worth my time. Either that or I figured the results just wouldn’t be very good. Another in my series of images taken with the Sigma 40mm f/1.4, I shot this just outside my building on the way to work (about ten minutes later than I shot last week’s photo of the pond) and as I rode my bike past this tree I literally had to stop, think about the scene for a second, and then go back for the shot. I’m so glad I did.

Once again I shot this picture wide open at f/1.4 just to see what this lens could do, and once again I was not disappointed. It was pretty neat to shoot a scene like this wide open and get such good results, which is a testament not only to the lens but to the flexibility of shooting in RAW. See for yourself, with the original unedited image below.

When I got this into Lightroom I thought I wouldn’t have much to use because it was just so underexposed, but the more I worked with it the more I was surprised at the exposure latitude and dynamic range that I had to work with. After significantly raising the shadows, tweaking the highlights, and doing some simple color corrections like white balance I ended up with a photo that I really like. Regardless of the lens used to shoot this, it’s just a picture I enjoy and am glad I was able to capture. And once again, as I’ve said before, it was a good reminder of why it’s important to stop, turn around, and go back to get that photo.

On one hand there isn’t a whole lot interesting about this photo: it’s an urban pond with some trees. And this particular pond is only a few blocks from my house, which means I end up biking past it almost every morning on my way to work. What is a little different about this is the fog that’s hovering just over the left side of the pond, which isn’t something that happens all too often, and I wish I could have been here about 15 minutes prior when there was (I’m guessing) a much more pronounced cloud of mist. I’m happy with what I got though, and I’m going to keep my eyes open for future photo opportunities at this pond as well.

What is a bit different here is the exposure settings and the results I was able to get. Believe it or not, I actually shot this at f/1.4 on the Sigma 40mm f/1.4 ART lens. Normally I’d never shoot a picture like this at maximum aperture because the tree branches would be a blurry mess due to an overall loss of sharpness, but this lens is amazing even when using it wide open. If you click over to the high-resolution version on Flickr you’ll see that every little branch and twig is tack-sharp, which I didn’t expect at all when I took this photo. Mostly I was just experimenting for kicks and giggles, and I really was caught off guard when I saw the results in Lightroom.

Even though the sun isn’t up yet, and the light was super dim, I was able to shoot at 1/250 second and ISO 100 thanks to the f/1.4 aperture on this lens. I think that was one of my favorite parts about the lens for a couple of weeks–the freedom I had to use it at basically any aperture and know I wasn’t going to have to compromise in terms of image quality. I don’t plan on spending that much on a single prime lens any time soon, but it was neat to see performance like that firsthand :)

Just a bit about this picture behind-the-scenes before I get too deep into the weeds here. When I shot this I was evaluating a lens for Sigma corporation, specifically their 40mm f/1.4 ART lens that they sent me to test out for a few weeks. I’ve only used third-party lenses a handful of times over the years and always preferred first-party versions, but this thing was a whole other beast entirely. It was awesome, and I was super excited to get to review it. I only wish they had let me keep it!

As part of testing this lens I went around shooting a ton of pictures, several of which you’ll see here over the next few weeks. It was fun seeing the world around me in a bit of a different light, having never shot with an f/1.4 lens and certainly not one of this caliber before. Case in point: this magnolia flower, similar to others I’ve shot before, but on a whole other level optically speaking. The 40mm focal length of that Sigma lens meant that I could capture a wide field of view (not true wide-angle, but wider than a 50mm lens) and get a lot of context to the shot, while the f/1.4 aperture meant that I could all but eliminate the background entirely. Normally to get this much background blur I’d need to get closer, which would mean a narrower field of view and a different image altogether.

You can read my actual review of the lens over at DPS and I don’t want to waste your time just gushing over it here on Weekly Fifty, but I did enjoy shooting with it and seeing what it was like to capture the world at f/1.4 :)