35mm Primes

[andylo]

Sigma 30mm f/1.4. Pretty good lens!

[Rosh]

Agree with andylo. I have the sigma 30mm f1.4. Fantastic lens. Suits my style of photography. I found my 50mm to hard to shoot with at parties or functions. But the 30mm is great.

[nhutty]

from all the reading and reviews it seems the sigma 30mm 1.4 is a great lens. I've read some have focusing issues but it doesn't seem that common.

might go out and grab one!

[andylo]

from all the reading and reviews it seems the sigma 30mm 1.4 is a great lens. I've read some have focusing issues but it doesn't seem that common.

might go out and grab one!

Mate, between myself and my friends who use Canon - we gone thru about 6 copies of 30 1.4 and 50 1.4 from the shop (which they almost hate us now)

I picked the 50mm and the other 2 picked 30mm.... we got the sharpest copy (focus manually) we could get, but both of these copy needed to send to CR Kennedy to re-chip to get the AF spot on.

So make sure you buy from a shop that help.

Other than that, it's a great lens!

[pollen]

I'm going to go against the grain and say that getting a fast prime is often a waste of money

That said, corporate and family events were my specialty when I used to do a lot of paid work and my primary lenses were the 35L and 85LII

Even more important than the lens is the way you use your flash

I would happily take indoor photos with a 18-55 IS kit lens on a 40D, with an external flash unit, over using one of my 5D's and a 35 f/1.4L without the flash

Proper flash technique, to get natural looking lighting is essential

Bounce flash all the way!

[nhutty]

So make sure you buy from a shop that help.

Other than that, it's a great lens!

Thanks for the tip, i definitely will be buying the sigma 30mm 1.4 from a local seller just so i can have the peace of mind of getting it adjusted if i needed too. I didn't want to have the hassle of sending it back overseas if i got a dud thats for sure!

[sixfootfour]

Op is talking about framing not lighting technique. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the 24mm length to use on a crop 40D. I use my 35L on a 5d2 almost exclusively for party/crowd shots and it is perfect. I stand about 1-2 meters from subject. 24 on a 1.6crop = 38mm. Not sure on pricing though.

[pollen]

OP complained about high ISO - with flash ISO noise only becomes an issue for backgrounds as the foreground subjects are generally well exposed to negate the impact of noise right up to ISO 3200 on most cameras including 40D. The 30 f/1.4 siggy will enable higher shutter speeds, but let's not pretend it's fast enough to avoid using high ISO. At typical indoor events ISO 1600 will still be a must so no problem has really been solved

Recently I have been going longer and longer for people shots, and my favourite focal length is 85mm now for groups of 3-4 people at parties. It can be a bit too tight at times, but longer focal lengths give much better background blur and less feature distortion

[Bax]

Sorry Pollen, even though the noise on the 40D is pretty ordinary, my main issue was with framing.

The 50mm was far too close for me. It was for a costume party and if I got in close, the first thing people would ask was, can I get another with the whole costume in please. I was more than happy to oblige, but it just meant walking 10m back to get them in. I'm sure some people thought I'd forgotten about them. Or they'd naturally walk closer as I got further away.

I didn't/ couldn't quite achieve the effect I was going for with the flash, with an extremely dull background and lit people - but didn't play around enough because I didn't have time, essentially set it on ETTL and bounced. I think what I needed was the power turned right down and the shutter dragged out a little more? Either way, I'm still looking for alternatives, even considering selling the 40D. At this time though, the 24-35mm range is definitely winning. Perhaps next time I could just use my 10-20mm at 20mm.

[cadadblog]

+1 for the sigma 30mm f1.4. i reckon most copies out there are not exactly sharp, but a little calibration over at CR kennedy will do you heaps of good well, that's provided if you buy one with a local warranty! i'm on my second copy of 30mm. as long as you've got the warranty, i don't think it's gonna be a problem at all

[Tannin]

A few random thoughts. 35mm is a sweet length on a crop camera. I use my 35mm Tokina f/2.8 macro quite a bit and it is a lot of fun. (Even better on the 1D III, where it acts like a 30mm lens on crop.) But don't buy that one for what you want. Not thee right answer. F/2.8 is OK - you don't really need faster - but the slow non-USM focus is sub-optimal for that job.

The 40D will do what you need. Not perfect, but not half bad.

You need flash. Really. No, not the dreadful built-in flash, a proper stand-alone unit. There is absolutely no need to have your pictures look "flashed" just because you are using flash. Some very simply bounce techniques will soon have you producing very nice indoor shots with a very natural look.

[jdreamer]

I used to have a 35mm and it was on my 40D all of the time until I sold it to cash some fund for some personal stuff. It was one of my favourite lenses as well!!

[Arg]

EF 17-55 2.8 IS. Faultless IQ, decent width of angle, and IS a boon in the party atmosphere, I can shoot 1/4s hand held at 17mm, which gathers a fair bit of light at f2.8.