Something For All Tastes - Sigma

I cannot remember -  were you meant to have red wine with head and shoulders portraiture and white wine with full-length shots or was it the other way round? And on which side of the studio do the fish knife and soup spoon go? I must look out my copy of Emily Post and make sure - nothing looks worse than ignorance of etiquette at 1/250 second and f:8.


In the mean time, consider two fresh lenses from Sigma. Fresh in the shop, I mean - not gutted and laid out on a slab, glinting in the sunlight.

First is the head and shoulders specialist - the 50mm f:1.4. This renders bokeh as it should be - with everything soft and no intrusive shapes of highlight points. It has very good figures for CA at the corners - look it up on DP review where it got a glowing comparison to other 50mm primes. It is a big lens, mind - 77 mm filter size and the feel of hefty glass within.

The second member of the studio team is the 30mm f:1.4. Same idea but a wider field of view and the ability to do a full-length figure at a distance of 2.7 metres with the model's limbs in proportion. You can get away with a 62 mm filter on this one. Note: both lenses have a lenshood and carrying case included in the price and both are supported by a two-year manufacturer's warranty.

Small bacon bits? Common lenses? Not interesting? Well, consider that the prime 1.4 is probably the best choice in the studio for most portraiture with APSC sensor cameras. You''ll have no distortion to bother you or the sitter and with no zoom ring to fight you'll be able to work faster than ever. If you need to adjust your image size, move closer or further away - it's a novel concept in the era of the zoom but run with it...

Oh, one final note - the Sigma delivery came in today and there are a lot more bits of fun glass there. Come down a peer through the macro lenses. At something really close.