Todd wrote:
Hey guys/gals.... here are some of my first real portraits with my new 58mm and the D800
When I first read your comments about this lens not being for you, I thought "hmmm, an astrophotographer who's not interested in this lens? Let's give him a week or two".
Now I'm waiting on your shots from the next Texas Star party...
Ok..... Here are some star tests with the 58mm. This lens has some coma at the very edges but its not bad compared to the 50mm f/1.4G or D. This is why this lens will be great for astrophotography at f/2.8! Below are some examples. I tested several at F/1.4 and went as high as f/2.8. At f/2.8, nearly all of the coma goes away, however some is still there (minor) as seen on a FF 36.3mp resolution. There is some light pollution in the sky & that is why some images are not evenly exposed. Some are brighter on the left of the image due to the light pollution. Anyway, this should give some of you an idea of how well the lens performs when imaging stars.
There was some CA on the brighter stars, I removed that with NX2 CA removal. There is also vignetting at f/1.4 (brighter in the center) but the vignette removal tool in Capture NX2 will take it all away. So.... astro images can be taken at f/1.4 if needed with the addition of CA & vignette removal. Well, enjoy shooting the sky with your 58mm!
This fist image is of the constellation sculptor, it was shot wide open at f/1.4 @ ISO 200 for 3 minutes on my astrotrac. I even caught a meteor passing through and burning up... Also NGC 253 (Silver dollar galaxy) & NGC 288 (globular cluster) can be seen to the lower right....NGC 247 is just above those.
This image is a 100% crop of the top extreme right corner (horizontal)....
Here is a full shot of Orion. Its not processed the best, but I'll try again later.
ISO 400 @ f/2.8 for 5 minutes.
Here is Jupiter in Gemini:
Gemini is horizontal and of course Jupiter is the brightest object at lower center of the constellation. Taken at f/2.8 for 5 minutes
dasams wrote:
When I first read your comments about this lens not being for you, I thought "hmmm, an astrophotographer who's not interested in this lens? Let's give him a week or two".
Now I'm waiting on your shots from the next Texas Star party...
dasams wrote:
I love seeing galaxies, however small, in DSLR photos as it boggles the mind to think about the vastness of the cosmos. Thanks for posting.
Yeah it blows my mind how far the cosmic objects are and yet we can still see them with a small scope or a digital camera and a normal lens. I'll post more when I can get out and capture the night sky again.
MikeW wrote:
Has anyone with this 58mm got the siggy 35 & find it could replace it i.e just have the 58mm?
I don't have the 58mm, but I have the 35mm sigma, 50mm nikon and 85mm nikon. I find I use the 35mm and 85mm as a pair quite a bit, but the 50mm sits in my bag. I think the 50-58mm is a good jack of all trades lens, but I'd much rather shoot 35mm and 85mm for what I'm trying to accomplish 95% of the time. For me, it is just not wide or long enough.
Yeah I have the 35 & the 85 but this lens is intriguing. I can't justify having them all. I don't touch my 50mm 1.8g. Not because I don't care for the focal length, but because it is such a poor performing lens. I wish I had my 50mm siggy from DX days. Maybe I should buy another
Oh, adencamera in canada has the 58mm on sale too if anyone is looking, I was/is.
MikeW wrote:
Has anyone with this 58mm got the siggy 35 & find it could replace it i.e just have the 58mm?
I have both. When you need a 35 you need a 35. However the siggy cannot render anything much like the 58G. The 58G truly is something special IMO.
low325 wrote:
I have both. When you need a 35 you need a 35. However the siggy cannot render anything much like the 58G. The 58G truly is something special IMO.
This is the best response you're going to get. The 58, like Noct-Nikkor before, is a unique lens. Right now I wrestle with 85 and 58, which to grab for portraits.
This is nothing fancy, just a snapshot. It's an exceptional lens in that it 1) has a modern rendering (i.e. decent contrast and doesn't look pictorialist), 2) can clean up the most cluttered background and turn it into a backdrop, 3) is has good definition wide open. It's a modern, low-contrast, high-resolution, lens with very pleasant reproduction.
, That is true... I guess you had me pegged.
