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Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM ART Review - One of a Kind Zoom
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Jul 19, 2023
Review Dustin Abbott takes a look at the unique, high end (APS-C) crop sensor zoom lens from Sigma - the 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art series lens. The review is done on a Canon EOS 70D and EOS M3 body. Many sample photos included. Buy the lens here: http://bhpho.to/1LwXg6P. You can read my thorough written review with a lot of image samples here: http://bit.ly/1NdM8fE Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo: http://bhpho.to/1TA0Xge Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/dustinabbott Ebay: http://bit.ly/DustineBay Make a donation via Paypal: paypal.me/dustinTWI Get a discount off all Skylum Editing Software (Luminar, Aurora HDR, AirMagic) by using code DUSTINHDR at checkout: http://bit.ly/LuminarDLA Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/dustinabbott | Check me out on: Personal Website: http://dustinabbott.net/ | Sign up for my Newsletter: http://bit.ly/1RHvUNp | Instagram: http://bit.ly/DLAinsta | Google+: http://bit.ly/24PjMzv | Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1nuUUeH | Twitter: http://bit.ly/1RyYxIH | Flickr: http://bit.ly/1UcnC0B | 500px: http://bit.ly/1Sy2Ngu My filming setup: Sony a7R III: B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2D6ibNO or Amazon: http://amzn.to/2CNxOvH | or | Sony a9 @ B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2HyWIyt or Amazon: https://amzn.to/2s1vYE0 Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 RXD @B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2FA00la or Amazon https://amzn.to/2G2kaEr Lights: Rotolight AEOS @B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2IK7mqV | Genaray Contender @B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/33HbGNM | and Aputure AL-MW: https://bhpho.to/2N3MtZV DISCLAIMER: This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to do a review of the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8
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This is a DC-HSM lens and it's from Sigma's Art Series. You know, a Sigma really is to be admired for taking chances in what is often
0:27
when it comes to lens designs and lens build, lens focal lengths, what tends to be a pretty
0:33
conservative field. There are a number of focal lengths that have proven themselves to work well
0:39
over time. And so in most lens manufacturers, you will find that pretty much the same focal
0:44
lengths, pretty much the same apertures. And it was kind of the unspoken rule, at least when it
0:48
came to modern lens design, that the maximum aperture that you could put into a zoom lens was
0:55
f2.8. Well, Sigma set out to disprove that about two years ago when they were developing and then
1:04
shortly after bringing to market this lens, an 18 to 35 millimeter f1.8. And it not only went beyond
1:12
just something wider than f2.8, it went all the way to f1.8. And so there's a couple of ways. As
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I went into my written review. I looked at this by saying there's a couple of ways to look at a
1:26
lens like this. If you're looking at it from the perspective of, wow, that's not a very big focal
1:32
length. And in all truth, it's not. I mean, it's less than a two times zoom ratio. And so it's
1:38
pretty conservative when it comes to that. It also is a quite a large lens. And if you're accustomed
1:45
to lenses that are relatively compact and light. This lens isn't it, and I have here a full frame
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24-70mm f2.8 lens, and so as you can tell, this lens is fully as large, at least in terms of its
2:02
length, as what the, this is a Tamron 24-70mm f2.8, and the Sigma is actually longer than this lens
2:10
although it has a more slender barrel design. And when it comes to the weight, it's actually within just a few ounces of weight and equivalence
2:18
And so it's not a small lens. It's not a light lens. And so if you compare even to a handful of prime lenses that cover the same focal length
2:28
it's not like you're saving a whole lot of weight and size
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And, of course, it also is a crop sensor-specific lens, which is designated in Sigma speak by the DC, which is designated for a crop sensor
2:43
Still, you can look at it from that kind of negative perspective, but you can also look
2:49
at it as having that handful of primes in one lens to where, and if this lens has the
2:55
optical chops to compete with those primes, you're really not disadvantaged at all because
3:00
you're able to bring along some very, very important focal lengths starting from wide
3:05
at the 18 millimeters and you're going through around 22-23 millimeters is the equivalent of a
3:12
35 millimeter focal length. And of course at the long end 35 millimeters you're perfectly into that
3:17
normal range around a full frame equivalent of 50 millimeters. And so those are some really
3:25
really important focal lengths there. And to have an f1.8 aperture at all of those
3:31
is pretty impressive. So I have to say that what Sigma has accomplished here
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no matter how you slice it, is was taking a chance, doing something unique
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and I think that it paid dividends for them As we speak right now coming to market is the new lens from Sigma that is doing something similar in the full frame And so it going to cover an
3:55
even smaller focal length. And the aperture is not quite as wide f2, but it's a full frame that
4:03
will give you the equivalent coverage of some very important focal lengths, including 24 millimeters
4:09
28 millimeters, and 35 millimeters, which are all important focal lengths in full frame
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And so I think that this lens has paid dividends. And Sigma, it swung for the fences with this lens
4:21
when it designed. It's designated as one of the art series. And at this stage, I don't have to
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really elaborate on Sigma's art series because they are become renowned as some really premium
4:31
lenses with exceptional image quality. And this lens is no exception. Its optics are superb. The
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closest lens to it in kind of build and price when it comes to a crop sensor specific lens
4:44
is Canon's own EF-S 17 to 55 millimeter f2.8. Now obviously it has a fairly significantly wider
4:53
focal range but it's a similarly constant aperture although when compared to this lens f2.8 is quite
5:00
slow but when you compare the optical performance this Sigma blows it away. In fact it's sharper at
5:07
f1.8 than the Canon is at f2.8 at similar focal lengths and if you stop the Sigma down to f2.8
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of course the difference becomes even more noticeable and so this lens is no slouch at all
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in fact it is one of the best performing crop sensor specific lenses that exist and so that
5:29
was certainly an impressive performance and it really has very few deficiencies when it comes to
5:34
its optics. It has relatively low vignetting for a wide aperture lens. It does have a little bit of
5:43
ghosting when you put sun directly into the frame. You can see here a little video sequence of just
5:48
walking along and so you can see how the lens responds to flare. This is stopped down to f11
5:53
and just for allowing sunburst but I think you'll find that there is nothing there that is ugly
5:59
It's fairly artistic in what it does. I've seen better flare resistance than what this lens has, but by no means is it very poor
6:07
It has low chromatic aberrations, and of course it has excellent sharpness
6:12
and that sharpness is pretty much across the image frame, even out towards the edges
6:18
And so it's an amazingly performing lens when it comes to its optics. Now, it can be technically mounted on a full-frame body
6:28
although it's not really usable outside of its longest end, 35mm. And at 35mm, if you happen to not own a 35mm prime lens
6:40
and you had a full-frame camera as well as a crop sensor, it certainly is a bonus to be able to put it on there
6:47
and have a fairly large, of course, 35mm f1.8 prime. And it looks fine in there. It has some vignetting
6:54
And of course, it's not really designed for a full frame image sensor
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And so as a result, it will show up a few more defects, but it's still very useful at that point
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This lens has all of the goodness that goes into Sigma Art Series lenses
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And Sigma is designing and producing some of the best looking lenses, period
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I love the look and the build of Zeiss lenses. but outside of Zeiss, nothing is nicer than what these new Sigma art series are in terms
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of their build. They very very elegant design just very nicely crafted and a lot of nice touches One thing that I really love it a small thing but Sigma I notice and that is that there is a rubberized surface in that transition where the lens hood mounts and it just when you encounter
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some of these soft-feel surfaces in the lens, it just gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling about Sigma's design
7:48
that there is thought and care. It's got a 72mm front filter thread
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and of course, this is an internally zooming lens, and internally focusing, so no concerns about using a polarizer. It's very well, very mannerly
8:04
when it comes to use and all those things, and of course very useful as a stop-down. Here are
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some examples of some stop-down landscape type images that I've taken with the lens that I'm
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very proud of, and so it takes filters well and responds well to all of those things
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now whenever I review a Sigma lens I I'm always a little come with a little bit of trepidation
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when it comes to testing one other aspect of that and that is the when it comes to the actual
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autofocus I have no issue at all with Sigma's HSM when it comes to focus speed or when it comes to
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the sound that it makes. This lens, I'll put it right near the mic, it focuses very quietly
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In fact, unless you have the camera right up to you, you don't hardly hear the lens focusing at
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all. And so a great performance when it comes to that, particularly when you compare it to the old
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micromotors. But my issue tends to come down to trying to find an autofocus consistency. And I've
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had this problem with a number of lenses, Sigma lenses going back, and the exception to the rule
9:16
has been some of the recent telephoto lenses, both the contemporary and the sport edition
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particularly the sport edition of the 150 to 600 millimeter Sigma ultra telephoto lenses
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focused accurately for me. But I've had an issue with several of the Art Series prime lenses
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and that is just having inconsistent focus. It took me quite a while to get this lens dialed in
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on a body. I had to do multiple AFMAs and at one point my automated program that I use, Rykan Focal
9:48
it just gave up altogether and so I had to do kind of a semi-automatic. When I finally felt like I
9:54
had the proper values in the lens, I've still gotten inconsistent results. You know for example
10:01
in this portrait series. And this is a, you know, a lens that you will be using for portraits
10:07
with its nice wide aperture. I do find, however, that portrait work really is demanding for
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autofocus. You know, I typically am focusing for the eyes and I want those eyes to be nice and
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sharp. I want them to stand out in a portrait. And I found that I got about 60% well-focused in
10:26
an extended portrait session, I got about 20% that were adequately focused. Didn't make me happy
10:33
but I would be okay in delivering them to a client. But 20%, I felt were unacceptably focused
10:39
And that's what it boils down to. I find that you can set the, you can kind of calibrate the lens
10:47
for a certain focus distance. But if you're outside of that focus distance, the focus is
10:53
just inconsistent and that's unfortunately been my experience here. I've tried on a couple of
10:59
occasions to recalibrate the lens and see if that's correct. I feel like I do have the right
11:03
calibration. It's just that the lens does not consistently perform at that and after I had
11:09
such an experience I began to do a little research and I found that other reviewers and users have
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had unfortunately similar issues My experience says with Sigma that you may get lucky There some people that have absolutely no focus issues at all And I deal more with the Canon realm I
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been shooting the review on a Canon 70D body primarily, but the 70D has an excellent autofocus
11:35
system in it. And so I don't think that that's the issue. I don't have issue with other lenses
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And so anyway, take that for what it's worth. If you do purchase a lens, and I do think that it's worth
11:45
please understand I'm not writing this lens off. It's an amazing lens
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But you need to find a copy that you can rely on
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particularly if you're a working professional. You need to find a copy, even if you have to go through a couple of them
12:00
that is going to be properly calibrated to your body and give consistent results
12:04
One asset to help with that is the Sigma USB dock. and it does help you to further calibrate the lens to your specific body at some different
12:15
focal lengths and it goes beyond just what an AFMA adjustment will do within the body. So that is the
12:21
one shortcoming that I can point to with the lens other than the fact that it's you know it's fairly
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large for a crop sensor specific lens and it's also not cheap. It's around $800 at B&H and so
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that means that it's right along with the 17-55mm as the most expensive crop sensor specific lenses
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available at least for a Canon ecosystem. And so it's not a cheap lens, but at the same time
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as I said, it blows most of the other lenses designed for an EFS system. It blows them away
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optically and of course has a wider aperture than what any of them do. And so it's valuable in that
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regard. I also want to just continue to beat the drum of thanking Sigma for including nice padded
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cases with each one of their lenses. It's a great touch. I don't know how much it cost Sigma, but I
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doubt it costs them all that much, but it certainly generates a lot of goodwill, and I wish that other
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manufacturers would do something similar. But overall, I've enjoyed using this lens. I produced
13:26
some beautiful images with it. I did mount it on an EOS M3 body. That's a mirrorless body with an
13:33
adapter and it produced some beautiful images. However, the autofocus is leisurely. That adapter
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of course, it slows things down. But this lens in particular, I found focused quite slowly even
13:48
compared to some of my other lenses mounted through the adapter on there. But in the native
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form it focus speed is not an issue just there can be some focusing consistency if you are looking
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for a basically the rolls-royce of crop sensor specific lens you shoot on a crop sensor body
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and you want something different you know you still want some versatility in your your zoom
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range but you want basically prime lenses this is like having multiple prime lenses i think that
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It's a worthy investment and may well be perhaps the best lens you can buy for a crop sensor specific lens available right now
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And so kudos to Sigma for being bold and doing things that other companies are not doing and giving us some great products like this
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I also look forward to testing the 24 to 35 millimeter shortly
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I think it's next on my list of things that I would like to review. and I'm interested in seeing how it performs on my full frame bodies
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If you haven't already, please subscribe. I'm Dustin Abbott. Thanks for watching
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Have a great day
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