I used the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM for two separate shoots yesterday. One was a senior portrait session and the other a basketball game. I thought the Sigma lens performed very well in the statis portraiture shots, even under challenging AF conditions (I was using the Singh Ray Vari-N-Duo set to a heavy variable ND setting).

It missed AF on some shots, but several of those may be attributed to focus and recomposition when using a wide f/1.6 aperture. This ended up being my favorite from that session:



The Singh Ray filter adds its own warmth to the image. I could have reduced it in post (which I did slightly), but I ended up liking its impact on the skin tones more so than not and certainly appreciated the filter's polarizing effect.

Note that I cleaned up a great deal of the subject's acne in post which reduced the sharpness of what was achieved in the originally captured image.

As far as its performance as the basketball game, I'm afraid I wasn't able to draw a firm conclusion as to its AF performance. It nailed a lot of the closer shots, but it missed many that were further away. After changing my AF setting in the AF preferences from Case 1 to Case 4 I got better results. That said, I don't know if it's because I was locking onto my subjects for a longer period of time prior to actually snapping the first frame in a burst or if the chosen Case was doing a better job.

You can find an example of one of my favorites from the game here. Please note that it was processed with a Topaz Clarity filter that gave it a somewhat HDR look. I was also shooting at ISO 3200 and the processing caused it to look worse from an ISO standpoint (highlighting detail contrast). Overall, I liked the effect (and so did the subject).