A Day at the Museum

You’ve probably heard that some museums have banned the selfie stick, and while this means you'll have to forego a selfie with your favorite Rembrandt or Picasso, there are still a lot of photo ops to be had in a museum.

What to carry: Many museums will not allow large bags, backpacks or tripods. Make sure you check the museum's website or call ahead and find out what is ok to take in and what's better left at home. Some museums may also refuse to check valuable equipment in their cloak rooms so don't get stuck lugging around a lot of extra stuff that you won't even be able to use.  If you have your heart set on using a tripod, some museums will allow it with a permit, so allow enough time to apply for and have the permit issued. Also, most museums do not allow flash photography so disable your on-camera flash and don’t bother to pack the attachment.

Choose one lens and stick with it. We like a nice prime, as it allows for shallow DOF enabling you to highlight small details or artifacts. Or go with an all purpose lens like this one from Sigma (save $200 through the end of June 2015!). Remember that with a prime you will, in some instances, have to move physically away from your subject, something that can prove tricky in a small or crowded gallery.

Keep your camera out and around your neck to avoid having to reach into your bag when you see a shot. It also saves room in any bag you do decide to carry for your phone, a notebook, a map, guidebook or snacks. If you do decide to take a bag, we like the Billingham compact, small and, like the name says, compact (also really stylish too!).

What to shoot: As anywhere lots of different types of people are thrown together, you can find lots of interesting people in any museum. From full on portraits to surreptitious candid shots, images of people looking at art can be art.

Images of other people taking pictures can make for interesting shots.

Art students concentrating on their sketches. 

A little girl on her first museum trip!

The museum gift shop will carry tons of postcards or books with fantastic images of the artworks themselves, and if you’re at a very crowded museum or visiting on a crowded day, chances are you may not be able to replicate those pristine views, so instead why not focus on the details? If you’re shooting paintings, you can focus on the faces or other element, get up close (not too close, remember to always respect the artworks and the museum's policies!) and shoot the painting's texture or home in on another detail.

If you can't fit the entire piece in the frame, choose one
area to highlight.

Lovely detail on a light fixture with shallow DOF. 

There may be times when you’ll want to focus on something that’s behind glass, and this brings a special set of considerations. Look to see where the light is coming from and position yourself appropriately, either straight on or at an angle. There’s no one hard and fast answer, experiment and see which option gives you less or no glare. A polarizing filter as well as a lens hood can help! In some cases you may be able to position your lens directly up to or on the glass, but this will be the exception and not the rule.

 If the museum or gallery you are visiting has an atrium area or any other area where you can shoot with natural light, take advantage. Natural light is great for shooting people and sculpture.

The ladies in this shot add scale to the huge Egyptian temple.

We hope you're inspired to take a trip to a museum soon, and that you'll not only look at the art, but maybe make some of your own while you're there! 

The Sigma 50mm EX DG HSM vs the Sigma 50mm F1.4 Art lens by Jack Howard

About Jack Howard: Jack Howard first picked up an SLR camera as a teenager years ago and has been exploring the photographic process ever since. Starting in the wet darkroom and now exploring cutting-edge digital imaging techniques, he's thoroughly embraced the evolution of the photographic process. 
Jack is Sigma Corporation of America's New Media Specialist, where he blogs, builds community, and shares his passion for photography with loyal and future Sigma customers every day.


The Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM | A sets the new benchmark for fast standard prime lenses for full-frame DSLRs, and is offered at a very fair price for its total performance. And the Sigma 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM, originally introduced in 2008, is still in production; and it remains an exceptional fast fifty designed for both the performance and build expectations of professional photographers at a price that puts it well within reach of enthusiasts looking for both fantastic optics, and a pro build quality. Choosing either one of these full-frame Sigma 50mm F1.4 stablemates over an OEM lens is a wise choice. Choosing which one is exactly right for your bag really is basically a matter of budget, plus weight and size considerations. But either way, adding one of these Sigma 50mm F1.4s to your kit is a great idea.

To repeat, the Sigma 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM is still in production, and ships for a pretty fantastic street price,  especially right now with $100 Instant Savings through February 28th.  

The original high-performance 50mm F1.4 

At 3.3” x 2.7” and weighing in at 17.8 ounces, this lens is heavy and stocky. Packing eight elements in six groups, it close focuses to 17.7 inches at 1:7.4 magnification. Nine rounded aperture blades and an aspherical element make for pleasing defocused and focused image elements, while a full-time manual-focus ring allows for on-the-fly adjustments.



The Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM | A was announced last year and has been the talk of the photography world ever since. 

The Sigma 50mm F1.4 SG HSM Art Lens

Pairing world-beating optics and imaging performance with a hypersonic motor for fast, quiet AF, along with four zone microtuning, wrist-flick Manual focus override and firmware updates via the USB Dock, this lens has already gained a number of prestigious awards, and earned tons of positive reviews from the most demanding photographers around the world. Physically, it is a very large standard lens, at 3.4” x 3.9 inches and weighing in at 28.7 ounces. Much of that weight comes form the 13 elements in 8 groups, so it is a more complex optical design. Super low dispersion glass and super multi-layer lens coatings, along with nine round aperture blades renders photographs with extraordinary image quality. Field distortion is virtually non-existent. Demand is still incredibly high, and supplies are still very limited thanks to its very fair street price but both the Nikon and Canon mounts are in stock at SuperDigitalCity and ready to ship!


So, really, what it comes down to is total performance, budget, physical size considerations, and availability to determine which Sigma 50mm F1.4 is right for you. Especially when offered with Instant Savings, like it is right now*, the 50mm EX DG HSM is an incredible bargain for a lens of this caliber. And it is ten ounces lighter, and overall noticeably smaller, both in the hand and when hauling a camera bag. The 50mm F1.4 DG HSM | A lens is larger and heavier, as it is designed with an eye first and foremost at performance above all else. It is heavy, but it is balanced, and even though it is priced significantly more than the 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM, it is still more economical than the OEM lenses it leaves in the dust in terms of overall performance and value. 

This is a world-class lens. Worldwide demand remains incredibly high, because photographers and videographers have truly fallen for all this lens offers. Whether you choose the original high-performance 50mm EX or the incredible new Art 50mm, you’ll be adding a fantastic fast F1.4 standard prime to your kit, and both ship with a four-year Sigma USA warranty when you buy from SuperDigitalCity! 

At F4 here both lenses show great focal plane sharpness on the flowers in the foreground and lovely background rendering. But when going wide open to F1.4, the Art lens definitely outperforms the EX version. 

The Art 50 has the edge in close-focusing
over the original EX 50mm.

The same scene captured
with the EX 50mm.

Jack's book, Practical HDRI, 2nd Edition, High Dynamic Range Imaging Using Photoshop CS5 and Other Tools is now available through many bookstores and online book sites.

Prime lens Primer

In honor of Back to School week, we've got a primer on prime lenses!   

First of all, prime lenses shoot at ONE focal length. If you have a 50mm lens, you’re shooting at 50mm, there’s no adjusting the zoom. This means you will have to actually physically move, taking a step or two back or forward to get the frame you want. “Why would I want to limit myself to one focal length when when I can move between focal lengths without changing lenses (or moving my body)?” It's a challenge to be sure and that is why you may want to try it! 

Just as you can learn a lot about writing by limiting yourself to a certain number of words or even characters (Twitter anyone?), the same is true for photography. If you have to move around and change angles you’ll get different perspectives on your subject and how is that ever a bad thing? Try leaving your prime on your camera for a set length of time, and challenge yourself to NOT change lenses. Once you get the hang of the focal length, you’ll find that you’re more actively seeking out the best angle, instead of just planting yourself in one spot and ripping off frames at different focal lengths with your zoom. My 50mm 1.8 prime is my default lens, ALWAYS on my camera for personal use.  

Taken with a 50mm 1.8, this image has delicious bokeh, or out of focus background.

You can also get much wider apertures in many cases with a prime. A larger aperture (smaller f-stop number) will let in more light, which is good for lower light scenarios and will allow you to “freeze” action in those low light situations. The 85mm 1.4 is often the "go-to" lens for portrait photographers as it's especially suited for portraits and low light. 

Primes are also nice and sharp, which is another reason they’re perfect for portraits, and they’re fast, so they give a beautiful background bokeh that really highlights your subject. Plus they’re lighter and smaller than zooms, which comes in handy when you’re moving around getting the best composition.

What are primes NOT good for? A 50mm would not work so great for wildlife (unless a bear is 10 feet in front of you, in which case you’d better be running and not taking pictures!), as you wouldn’t really be able to capture a bird  in flight at a distance or something very skittish as you’d have to move your body closer, potentially frightening it. There are primes that are especially good for wildlife but they tend to be upwards of $1k. There's the 300mm prime macro lens which is great for wildlife as well as sports photography, but at over $3k, it's not the best choice to start your prime experience. There's also fisheye primes but they produce a much more specific and eye-catching kind of image.

The Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lens is redesigned to provide the maximum in artistic expression with high resolution and beautiful bokeh while reducing the blur on the light points near the edges. 

Will you take the challenge? If you’re new to primes, start out with a 50mm 1.8. With a price just under $143.00 you can experiment and see if you like prime shooting without risking a large investment.