Sigma's autofocus performance?

[jwalamukhi]

Hello!

Recently made the switch over from Sony and I have a few questions regarding Sigma's ART glass. I'm using a 1DxII and currently have a Canon 24-70 2.8 II & 70-200 2.8. With Sigma's ART offerings, they do look quite nice.

My question is for anyone that has experience using Sigma glass with the dual pixel autofocus - How does it perform compared to native Canon glass when shooting video? Would you put in the extra money to invest in native Canon glass?

Thanks!

[shadowsports]

The majority of people here will advise you to put Canon with Canon whenever possible. 

The second advice you'll get is always buy Canon unless they don't have an offering in the focal length or a Canon specific equivlent.

I have 3 Sigma lenses, only one is Art.  I have used 2 of them for video.  My Sigma lenses have been nothing short of spectacular.  I haven't had any issues with focus and my Sigma lenses have behaved similarly to my "L" series glass. 

My Sigma experience... I have zero regrets and would buy another one of their lenses tomorrow without thinking about it.

Forum regulars...  ebiggs1, wq9nsc and jrhoffman75 all shoot with 1DX series camera's.  Lets see what they say.

[jrhoffman75]

I do not have any Sigma lenses, so can’t contribute. 

I have 1D X which does not have DPAF. 

[RobertTheFat]

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@shadowsports wrote:

The majority of people here will advise you to put Canon with Canon whenever possible. 

The second advice you'll get is always buy Canon unless they don't have an offering in the focal length or a Canon specific equivlent.

I have 3 Sigma lenses, only one is Art.  I have used 2 of them for video.  My Sigma lenses have been nothing short of spectacular.  I haven't had any issues with focus and my Sigma lenses have behaved similarly to my "L" series glass. 

My Sigma experience... I have zero regrets and would buy another one of their lenses tomorrow without thinking about it.

Forum regulars...  ebiggs1, wq9nsc and jrhoffman75 all shoot with 1DX series camera's.  Lets see what they say.

---

I've owned several Sigma lenses, including a 50-150mm f/2.8 that I particularly liked. (I might still be using it if I hadn't gone FF.) But Sigma used to have a reputation for poor quality control, and many people avoided them for that reason. They've apparently gotten their act together in recent years, though, and contributors to this forum (like Rick, for example) now speak highly of their Sigmas, particularly the "Art" and "Sport" series. I think this has to be considered A Good Thing; competition tends to make everybody better.

[wq9nsc]

I think Rick gave you excellent advice because he has first hand experience with current Sigma lenses and he obviously gets very good results from them.  You will never get total agreement on any product choice (i.e. try to find ANY product on Amazon with more than a dozen reviews where at least one person completely loves it and at least one person thinks the same product is worse than poison).  So as you research choices treat reviews with a grain of salt and use major negatives as something to research further but not to accept as fact based upon an individual user experience.  I was reminded of that when I was at the dealership this week getting a software update for my pickup and the service manager, who was a former college student of mine, told me they just resolved a customer situation where the guy had posted all over social media about how poor his new truck was performing.  They found the "custom" floor mats he had installed were preventing the accelerator pedal from going over half throttle when he had it "floored".  Yes, those types are out there 🙂

The only caution I can offer is you really need to try any lens on the body and shoot video before deciding to buy that model.  Canon has some notes in the owner's manual that certain lenses, under some conditions, can create video noise in addition to audible noise.  I haven't shot a lot of video with either my 1DX or 1DX 2 bodies, maybe 3 hours total.  The lenses I used were Canon 24-70 F2.8, 70-200 F2.8, and 300 F2.8 and none of these created any video noise but all were clearly audible on the audio track.  I suspect using an external mic with a cardiod pattern with the camera in the null of the pattern will greatly reduce the audio noise problem from most lenses. But I would carefully check any lens under a variety of conditions for video issues while the return window is still open.

The last video I shot was with a Canon XF-400 and camcorder noise wasn't an issue but I would have much preferred lens noise to a pair of very loud "romantic cattle" from a farm next to the soccer pitch who were extremely audible on the soundtrack 😞

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

Rick I could have written this.

"The majority of people here will advise you to put Canon with Canon whenever possible. 

The second advice you'll get is always buy Canon unless they don't have an offering in the focal length or a Canon specific equivlent.

I have 3 Sigma lenses, only one is Art.  I have used 2 of them for video.  My Sigma lenses have been nothing short of spectacular.  I haven't had any issues with focus and my Sigma lenses have behaved similarly to my "L" series glass. 

My Sigma experience... I have zero regrets and would buy another one of their lenses tomorrow without thinking about it.

 ...

[ebiggs1]

Although you did not ask, Tamron has some very good glass.  Not all of them but a few are worth considering. They work well with Canon cameras. For instance the Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 for Canon EF.  Again Canon does not want to make a lens in this focal range and at this price.

Tokina has one lens, the Tokina AT-X 16-28mm f/2.8 Pro FX Lens.   The Tokina AT-X 16-28mm f/2.8 Pro FX Lens is not only good it is outstanding. Avoid all the rest.

[Waddizzle]

There are two ways lens can make noises that can be easily picked by an internal microphone. One way is when the lens focuses.

The other way is when you change aperture, which can be surprisingly noisy. You do not normally hear the aperture moving when shooting stills because the shutter drowns it out.

Of course, you may hear noises when you alter the zoom focal length. But, that is another topic.

Test lenses by putting the camera into video mode and altering focus and aperture. My EF 24-105mm f/4 IS USM is noisy. I use primes mostly for video.