50MM or 60MM?

I'm thinking of get either the 50MM or 60MM for my Canon 20D, has anyone tried either and which is considered the best, sharpest. Thx.

I have used both and I dont think there is much difference in sharpness. The 60mm has of course got the advantage of 1:1 macro and it seems to have the edge with speed of autofocus.

Get either the 60mm Canon or the 50mm Sigma. There's no reason to even consider the 50mm Canon, since both of the others have 1:1 and it doesn't.

If you're also going to get the Canon 100mm macro (which you definitely should!), you might find the Sigma 50mm a better complement to it, since - with the 20D's 1.6x crop factor, it'll act like an 80mm (rather than 96mm), making it more useful for dives when you might want to take a fish photo, but still want to have 1:1 macro in case you come across the rare elephant-eared flatworm!

I recently bought the Sigma 50mm lens. It is very very sharp and has a fast autofocus - I was pleasantly surprised! At $250, you can't afford to NOT have one...lol

Cheers

James

While the Canon 60 and the Sigma 50 have pretty equivalent sharpness (at least at f8 or smaller) the big advantage of the Canon is USM. The little fish can hear the Sigma focusing and often move, while the Canon doesn't seem to affect them.

BVA

The Canon 60/2.8 Macro is also an IF (Internal Focussing) lens and focusses much faster than the Sigma Lens. It can also be used in a much shorter port (if available for your housing) as there is no extension to the lens as it focusses down to 1:1.

The Sigma lens will degrade in focus speed over it's lifetime, especially with heavy usage. It will also develop a raspy noise to the focus mechanism. Both of these symptoms are due to lack of lubrication in the AF drive mechanism.

Another important point is that the 60mm is only compatible with 3 cameras. I can't use it on my 1D body.

Cheers

James