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In short, Sigma appears to have taken a fresh look at how photographers now tend to use 50mm primes as a complement to zooms for low-light and portrait shooting, and optimised the lens to match, paying attention predominantly to high central performance at wide apertures over corner-to-corner evenness stopped down. The designers have also recognised the dominance of DX/APS-C as the current de facto standard sensor size, and ensured good performance across the frame even on this resolution-hungry format. The result is a 50mm F1.4 which is a far better portrait lens on APS-C than legacy primes designed for 35mm film, as well as an extremely competent standard on 35mm full-frame.
All is not perfect, of course; the 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM still can't achieve anything approaching genuine corner-to-corner sharpness on full frame at wide apertures, however it does much, much better than the other 50mm F1.4 lenses we've tested so far. Also, the older 50mm F1.4 designs measurably outperform it for corner-to-corner sharpness at smaller apertures on full-frame, so if you're shooting primes for absolute image quality at F8, it offers little advantage.
Of course the biggest negative currently against the Sigma is its price; it's significantly more expensive than the equivalents from the major camera manufacturers, and so the question becomes whether that optical superiority at wide apertures is worth the price premium. At the time of writing (August 2008), that's a very tough call, but it's important to understand that this lens is currently very much at the start of its product lifecycle, and if the price drops to a level much closer to the other 50mm F1.4s, then it will be quite simply a steal.
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