ART vs LAB vs GM | 35mm Showdown

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[Music]
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[Music] I am Dustin Abbott and I am here today to give you another one of my showdown
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videos. This was a tough one. We have here the three top 35mm prime lenses on
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the Sony E-mount platform, including the existing uh Sony 35mm F1.4 for G Master
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lens. The Viltrox Lab 35mm F1.2 that was released earlier this year and then the
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newest which is the Sigma 35mm F1.2 and this is the M2 Art series lens from
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them. All of them are excellent lenses in their own right. The Sony is the
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outlier in this particular comparison because it has the smaller maximum aperture of just f1.4. that does come
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with some built-in advantages because the Sony is incredibly compact and lightweight. The Viltrox is the cheapest
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and it's also the sharpest. The Sigma is maybe the most complete of all three.
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So, which one is worth your money? Well, that's what we're here to determine. And I have shot tons of sidebyside images.
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I've done tests for their autofocus and various things to try to determine which of these really is the best performing
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lens. and the answer is difficult. But I'm going to do my best to parse things out and to help you to make an informed
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buying decision. So before we jump in, just so you know, the Sony and the
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Viltrox are my own personal copies that I happen to have for this comparison,
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the Sigma was loan to me by Sigma Canada, which is Gentech, and so it will be going back to them just so you know
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kind of what the the providence was on each one of these uh lenses. So let's
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start by talking about what is similar and there are some surprising similarities between these three lenses.
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They all have mostly the same feature set and so that includes an aperture ring or control ring. Um it the ability
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to have an AFMF switch function button uh the ability to declick the aperture
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and so all of them are similar in that fact. You can do aperture racking with all of them. So, they have a similar
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control scheme in some ways, though the most disparate of those is going to be the Viltrox, which utilizes the LCD
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screen and has a little bit different approach to things. All three of these are thoroughly weather sealed. They're
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professional-grade lenses with gaskets at the lens mount, seals all throughout, and then coatings on the front element
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to prevent fingerprints and moisture. Surprisingly, all of them are roughly
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similar in autofocus speed. All of them have at least two focus motors and are near instant in transitions from close
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to distant subjects. All of them prove to have equally consistent autofocus accuracy when shooting portraits. And in
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a portrait situation, I didn't have one miss with any of them. They were all perfect in terms of locking on and
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giving accurately focus results um when doing eye detection and thus portrait work. Even at their maximum apertures,
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all of them have a tiniest bit of pin cushion distortion. each in each one of them I used about a minus one to correct
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the tiniest amount of pin cushion distortion and so they're about equal in their optical signatures on that and so
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there is a lot of things that are similar across these three lenses as far as the kind of neutral differences here
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the really only thing that I would point out is that obviously one of these has an f1.4 for maximum aperture that brings
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both strengths and weaknesses to the table. And I'm going to do something a little bit different in today's breakdown. There's there's unique
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strengths for all of them, but there's also unique weaknesses relative to the other lenses, and I'm going to try to
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highlight those as well. I'm going to start with the center lens here and talk about the Viltrox Lab lens and reasons
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to choose it. The first of those and most obvious is the price. It currently has an MSRP of $999.
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It can be had for cheaper than that by using discount codes, one of which is available in the description down below.
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So, that makes it anywhere from between $400 to $600 cheaper than any of the other lenses. That price difference is
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obviously going to be a really compelling factor if you're on a limited budget where you can get this for, you know, as as little as 50% um or 50% less
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than, you know, the Sigma lens, for example. It also is more customizable and so it does have a little bit
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different feature set than the other two. It's a little less traditional for good and bad as a part of that. So it
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does have this front OLED screen and on that O LED screen you have you have a
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distance scale. You see your your aperture there, but also allows you through a secondary function button
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which it's the only one to have two function buttons. One of those you can actually preset to different things. You can preset it to uh instantly focusing
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towards infinity uh if you're shooting astro with the lens or you can set something like AB focus and so that you
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can preset positions and move instantly from one focus point to the other back and forth. And so there's a little bit
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of additional customization that you can do and they have through the Viltrox app you can actually set up different
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functions to that something that you cannot do with either of the other lenses. It is also the only of these
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lenses to have not just two focus motors, but actually quad hyperVCM focus motors. And I did find while in real
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world practicality, there's not really a difference. But if I'm doing a formal test and you know shooting the same
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thing over and over, I did find that it was ever slow so slightly faster and going from point A to point B. It is a
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very fast focusing lens and thus it had a little bit of just a tiny bit of edge in that. It is also very slightly the
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sharpest lens and that's true in chart testing and then also it is more
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obviously so sometimes when shooting three-dimensional subjects and that leads me to its final strength that I'll
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point out and it has the best micro contrast and that's really where you see that extra degree of performance is that
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in just rendering those really fine details there's just a little bit more pop to the textures from the lab lens
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than either of the two others and that became obvious as I looked at various comparisons, which by the way we'll do
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at the end of the video for those of you that want to dive into all that. When I did a blind test of I did portraits with
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all of those and when I just you put no information on the screen, put them side by side and went through a series of
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different ones. I asked my wife which she preferred. She actually instinctively chose the Viltrox every
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time. And uh and I think that there is something to that that there's just particularly when you look in at images,
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you zoom in to 100% it's like, you know, it's it's very very close, but there's something about this one that just feels
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very slightly better. So what about some of its deficiencies compared to the other two lenses? Number one, as you can
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probably see, it is the biggest and the heaviest and and so it's you're going to pay for some of that extra optical
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engineering in there with extra bulk and weight as a part of it. It also has the lowest level of magnification of the
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three. It has a 0.17 times magnification. The Sigma has a 0.19
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times magnification. The Sony, however, has a 0.26 times magnification, which
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gives it obviously a win in that department. The Viltrox of these three lenses is also what I would call the
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glitchiest. And it just has, you know, little things because Viltrox is trying new things and they are a newer at this
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point. They're not new anymore, but newer lens maker. I just find that of these three, I would say that these two
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are going to arrive to you very, very stable. You're not going to be worrying about firmware very much. The Viltrox,
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there's been a few iterations of firmware already cuz there's just little things that that Viltrox is working to
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clean up. They are good to do that. However, I would say it's the glitchiest lens of the three. So, how about reasons
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to choose the Sony G Master lens? Now, it does have the disadvantage of having the smallest maximum aperture, but that
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does pay off in it being a really light, compact package. And by the way,
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relative to other 35mm f1.4 lenses, this still stands out as being exceptionally
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small and light, particularly relative to its performance. So, just to give you an idea of that difference, it is 5 mm
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narrower in diameter than the Sigma lens and a whopping 13 mm narrower than the
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lab lens. It is also 15 mm shorter than the Sigma and 25 mm shorter than the
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Viltrox lens. So, a pretty significant difference there. Having less size also means less weight in this instance. And
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so, it weighs in at 524 g, which is 231 g lighter than the Sigma and 386 g
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lighter than the Viltrox lens. And so, that's a huge difference. You're definitely going to feel the difference
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in weight comparing these two lenses. and and so that could make a major difference for you. It also has the most
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common 67 mm front filter threads and so those are going to be shared with a huge
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variety of lenses. 72 mm on the Sigma which is definitely less common than 67
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mm. And of course the big Vtrox is a 77mm filter thread. Also quite common.
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However, you know, bigger bigger size, bigger filters, bigger cost when you go
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to purchase them. It also has just some bakedin firstparty advantages. It's a
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Sony lens designed for Sony cameras. And so, as a by byproduct, it comes with breathing compensation built in if your
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camera supports that. You can get full burst speeds. And so, on my Alpha 1, I can shoot 30 frames per second. With the
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other two, I can only shoot 15 frames per second. So, it's a bakedin advantage there. and and of course it's the most
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stable lens because it has access to obvious access to to first-party uh
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algorithms for focusing. And so that just means also when you move to an application like sports, I would say
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that the Sony lens is going to give you the most reliable focus results for sports and give you the highest keeper
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rates because it's designed to keep up with even the fastest of cameras from uh from Sony and thus you're going to be
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able to just get that a little bit more keeper rates that you're going to take away from that. It also, as mentioned
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already, it has the highest level of magnification and so it's really useful in getting up close to subjects and
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getting unique shots that the others can't do to the same degree. You can see at this shot of my dad's SLR from the
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Viltrox and then from the Sigma and then from the Sony that there is a
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significant difference between all three with the Sony being the most useful there. So, how about some negatives?
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Well, it is only f1.4 four. And number two, while it has the ability to have
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focus breathing compensation, it also has the most native focus breathing of these three lenses. And so it's the
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worst. It needs the correction the most. And when you correct it, that does come at a crop. And then of these three, it
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is the Sigma that's the best, Viltrox second best, and then the Sony the third. But the Sony actually plays out
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better than the Viltrox because it gets those corrections. It also has the worst low light potential and thus the least
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bokeap potential. And I did see when you're comparing the f1.2 lenses to the f1.4 lens, you can see a difference.
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It's not like, you know, make or break into the world kind of difference, but you can definitely see a difference.
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Backgrounds a little bit less focused, DRD focused. They're a little bit busier relative to the f1.2 lenses. So, there
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is some some real advantage for the f1.2 two lenses that is not shared by the Sony in this case.
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How about reasons to choose the Sigma last of all? Well, in some situations, I felt like the Sigma had the smoothest
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bokeh of them. And that was particularly true I found in foreground where there's just a little bit less jitter, a little
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bit better transition. I also found that there's a little bit less real world fringing from the Sigma relative to the
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other two lenses. And not that the other two are terribly bad, but definitely with the Viltrox and some with the Sony,
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you are going to see a bit of fringing in some situations. Whereas the Sigma remains very, very close to neutral in
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those situations. One feature that the Sigma has that the other two does not have is an iris lock. That is a useful
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feature if you're a person that doesn't like aperture rings. You can lock out of it. Or if you're doing aperture racking,
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for example, and you want to make sure that you don't end up in the automatic mode, it allows you to lock in in or out
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of the uh the actual manual aperture ring. And that can be a really useful feature. As already discussed in the
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from the negative side of the the Sony lens, this does have the lowest native focus breathing. And so if you're not,
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maybe you have a camera that doesn't support focus breathing compensation and you're looking for a lens that's just
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really going to do the best job in those situations, the Sigma is the winner there.
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It also, I would say, of these three lenses, it is the most balanced option of the three. And what I mean by that is
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that it does everything well enough that at the least it is in second place in
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any of these categories. And in no way is it third place. So, it doesn't really have any huge weakness that stands out
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as we're going to see in just a moment. And so, in many ways, it has the best kind of balance in its approach. It's,
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you know, it's not as small as the Sony, but it's much smaller than the Vtrox. And it's just things like that to where
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it's a really well executed package that shows the polish of being a second generation lens. And that leads me to my
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one negative that I will say, and that is that it is the most expensive of these three lenses. And so at $1,549,
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you know, that is significantly more than what the Sony is, which the Sony is
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MSRP is $14.99, but because it's been out for a while, it's going to be very
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often on sale. At the moment, its price is $13.99. And so obviously that's, you
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know, you're talking about $150 difference at that point. In some markets around the world, I know that when a Sony lens has been out for a
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while, it will be significantly cheaper than what the Sigma lens is coming out new to market. So, that could be a major
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factor for you. And then obviously the Viltrox at under $1,000, it is the bargain lens here. And the Sigma is the
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question is is that can I deal with a little bit of extra weight and maybe a quirk or two for $550 off? Well, for
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many people, the answer to that will probably be yes. So my conclusion is is that this really was a tough comparison.
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I looked at dozens of side to side photos and I had to really dive deep to find optical differences and sometimes
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even having them side by side and you know analyzing them at 100% is still hard to find differences in some
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situations. So I will do my best to summarize these three lenses as follows.
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buy the Viltrox if your top priority is a either pure image quality and you want
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the very best optically. I would say that the Viltrox is still probably represents that buy it. Also, if you're
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on a tighter budget and you would like the idea of having a high-end 35mm lens,
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but you don't want to spend the big bucks, the Viltrox is the best bang for
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your buck optically by the Sony. if you want high performance and it is a really high
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performing lens. This has been one of my absolute favorite 35mm lenses. I think for the the size that it comes in and
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the performance it gives, it is an amazing lens and Sony it it still impresses me after several years of it
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being out. So, buy it if you want high performance in the smallest and lightest package and you don't feel like you
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really need f1.2 and not everybody does and so I think it still has a very valid
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place in the market. buy the Sigma if you want what I would consider to be the best overall package and f1.2 if you
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really want f1.2 and you want a stable balanced lens that is just good at
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everything trustworthy I would say pick up the Sigma going to spend the most money for it but in many ways it feels
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like it is very worth it. If this was on the Nikon platform and I was comparing it to the 25 or excuse me the 35mm f1.2s
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2S, I would probably be saying, yeah, there's a few tiny tiny areas where the Nicor lens is better. But the Sigma at
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basically half the money feels like a very compelling alternative. And it really is that lens. It's just in this
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case on Sony. We don't have a first-party 35mm f1.2. If we did, I'm sure it would cost $2,200 or even more.
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And so the Sigma is expensive, but for what you're getting, you're getting a lens that is competitive with the very
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best and uh for less money. And so that certainly is a compelling reason to consider it. Now, if you would like more
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information, I have both text and video reviews on each one of these, which I'll link in the description down below. And
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if you would like to see how I came to my conclusions and look at a lot of those optical comparisons, well, knock
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yourself out. We're going to dive into it together right now. Okay. There's a lot of different comparisons that I have
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done. I've selected just a few of them to highlight some of the things that we're talking about. We'll start by to
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taking a look at resolution and contrast across the three lenses. Now, as much as possible, I'm going to try to put the
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Sigma on the left and the Viltrox or the Sony on the right. I will let you know if I do something otherwise as we move
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ahead. So, here this is on all of these are on a 61 megapixel camera and this
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will be 200% magnification. You can see if you compare the two that the Viltrox is definitely higher contrast in the
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center of the frame and so that additional moir false color that you're getting just because the contrast is so
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high even at f1.2. So the center is definitely a win for Viltrox as is the
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midframe which you can see looks really really crisp on the Viltrox at f1.2. Now, if we move out to the corners, it's
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a bit of give and take here. And I would say that, you know, it's hard for me to
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really choose a winner on that side. If I look over at this side, I do think that the Viltrox is showing a little bit
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better contrast. If we look up into this corner, I would say Viltrox is taking the win there. So, since the Viltrox is
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the winner, we're going to put it here on the left and put the GM here on the
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right. And so, both of these are wide open. And so, that means F1.2 2 for the Viltrox, F1.4 for the GM. Now, in the
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center of the frame, the GM is right there matching the Viltrox, maybe even exceeding it in the depth of the
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contrast. Looks really exceptional. In the mid-frame, it is closer to a draw
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here. And I would say the Viltrox may very slightly be a winner, but contrast
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level is fantastic on the Sony lens. Looks really, really great. Now, if we move out to the corners in this zone,
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there's a little bit more detail as you can see on the Viltrox. And as we pan out towards the the extreme edge, I
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would say the Sony maybe gets a little bit back there. So towards the corners, there's a bit of give and take. Popping
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over to the left side and there's a little bit more detail on this left side for the Viltrox lens. The upper left
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corner, it's close, but there's more clarity for the Viltrox lens. It is the
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clear winner in terms of wide open performance. But we'll give a rematch to the Sigma and the Viltrox and then the
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Sony afterward. But starting with the two third party lenses at f2. So stop
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down a bit. How are things shaking out? Well, we can see that the Sigma looks amazing, but the Viltrox, I mean, the
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contrast level is just kind of popping right off the page. And so it still is the winner in the center of the frame.
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As we look here at contrast, I mean, that contrast looks fabulous on both lenses. And so I would say here in the
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mid-frame, I think clarity-wise, there's a very slight edge for the Viltrox. You can see here in this um bunk to Canada
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uh you can see here that it's a little bit crisper looking there. But uh down here in the corners uh corners are
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looking really awesome for both of them. You I wouldn't call really much of a winner on the lower right side. Here on
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the left side I think that the U Vtrox gives a little bit of a win there. If
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you look at the hair just the contrast is really fantastic for the Viltrox
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there. And up in the corner, there's no question. Definitely the Viltrox is stronger up here in the upper left
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corner. So once again, since the Viltrox took the overall win there, we'll put it up against the GM now also at f2. So in
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the center of the frame, both lenses look fantastic, but clearly the from the degree of moir we're seeing there, it
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lets you know that the contrast level for the Viltrox is just higher still. And so it's really doing a great job
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though. Both lenses, I mean, all three lenses look amazing. This is splitting hairs really. The mid-frame here, I
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think actually the Sony takes a bit of a win there. It's looking really really crisp uh in that mid-frame zone down
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into the corners. It's um again, it's it's it's a little more complicated in
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the corners. There is some give and take in the different things that I see. Contrast levels are really good for the
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Sony in the corner. However, the raw detail looks maybe a little bit crisper for the uh the Viltrox lens over here on
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the left side. Kind of a similar pattern. Uh I would say that the Viltrox shows a little bit more contrast and
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clarity like in the hair. And then just this overall pattern of the ink droplets stands out a little bit better there.
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And to the upper left corner, we can see that both of them look good, but the Viltrox looks better. So overall, in
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terms of raw sharpness, Viltrox is the winner. Now, if we go out into a and
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take a three-dimensional subject here, we can see that if we punch in, and this
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is still at 200% magnification, so it's an almost unfair amount of magnification. However, it allows you to
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really get in here and look tight. And you can see that while both of them are giving really amazing levels of detail,
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that micro contrast does favor the Viltrox. You can just see more definition in those textures. There's
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not even a hint of any kind of like spherical haze on the surface of the textures, whereas there is a tiny tiny
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bit on the Sigma. Now, if we look beyond that here at f1.2, looking at the
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overall rendering from the image, I find that with the the Sigma and the Viltrox,
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it there is some give and take kind of depending on what I'm shooting. In this particular instance, I feel like if I
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look at this zone, the Viltrox feels a little bit smoother in the out of focus rendering. it's just a little bit
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softer, a little bit creamier looking. However, you can look at other places and that's maybe less true. I do also
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notice that for whatever reason, probably just a slight variance between the two when it comes to maybe the focal
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length, it feels like the these out of focus um highlights here, bokeh
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highlights are just a little bit bigger and maybe just a tiny bit softer from the Viltrox lens. And so in this
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particular instance, I would say that the Viltrox manages to win both on micro contrast, but then also in the overall
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rendering from the image itself. So once again, if we go back now and we compare with the Sony, which the Sony does have
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the disadvantage in this particular comparison of being f1.4. Now, if we look towards that micro
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contrast here in the center of the frame, you can definitely tell a win for the Viltrox. And again, it's a really
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high level of magnification, but you can see that just that micro contrast on a threedimensional subject, there's no
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question that the Viltrox is the winner. And in this case, the GM is not as good as what the Sigma was. So then, of
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course, that bigger advantage comes with the overall rendering where the F1.2 lens, you can just see if we look at the
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Sony lens here on the right, everything is just a little bit more in focus, thus just a little bit more edges to catch
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your eye, whereas the F1.2 two image looks softer and creamier and just a
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little bit more visually pleasing. Let's take a look at another micro contrast example here. Again, f1.2 and at 200%
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magnification. You can see that while the Sigma is good, the Viltrox is clearly better. Now, there is an area
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where Sigma is going to wins in these comparisons, and that is that you can see around some of this that there's
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very little fringing, whereas you will see a bit of green fringing on the Viltrox lens that does show up later on.
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But in terms of being able to deliver that micro contrast of giving great contrast on very small textures, it's
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able to resolve those a little bit better than what the Sigma does. Now, in this image here, I would say that
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looking at bokeh rendering, I do kind of just visually favor the Viltrox. Overall, both of them are exhibiting, as
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you can see, some fairly strong vignette that is uncorrected here at the moment. And so, that does detract from the image
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a bit. When you look over here at kind of just the basic geometry between the two, they really don't look a lot
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different other than the fact that I would say that these shapes are maybe just a little bit rounder on the Viltrox
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as opposed to the Sigma. So, if we sh throw the GM lens into the mix here on
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the right, one thing that you will notice is that there's a pretty obvious difference in the shutter speed versus
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so 125th of a second for the GM at f1.4 four and then 1/200th of a second for
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the Viltrox. And so there's also this underlying advantage when it comes to the, you know, just basic amount of
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light gathering potential of the F1.2 lens. And in this particular case, it's pretty clear that the Viltrox has the
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edge and micro contrast in a really obvious way over the GM. And we saw that
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on our previous comparison as well. It's just not able to give the same level of pop to textures as what the Viltrox is.
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And then of course here in this case, all of those specular highlights are going to be obviously bigger and softer
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on the Viltrox. And you can see looking at the even down in this zone here that it's just just softer and more kind of
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uniform. There's a little bit more disruption in the Sony, a little more variation because it's not as defocused.
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So so far the Viltrox seems to be cleaning up. However, we're going to get to some spaces where it doesn't able to
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succeed quite on the same level. So when it comes to minimum focus distance, you can see that its maximum magnification
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level is significantly lower than what the Sigma's in is. And so that means as
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you can see here in this case, the specular highlights for the Sigma are much bigger and softer than what they
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are from the Viltrox lens. What's more, if we take a look in at a like a a high
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magnification level, we can see that while the Viltrox is great at that micro contrast, as we've already seen, it's
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not as great at controlling fringing. And as we look towards these areas here, you can see that green fringing that is
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marring some of the textures, whereas the Sigma does a really great job of controlling that. And so in this area,
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there's two places where the Sigma takes a win over the Viltrox lens. So in this
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case, we'll eliminate the Viltrox lens and throw the GM in. Now, one area of advantage for the GM lens becomes
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obvious. It has the highest level of magnification, and that is by a pretty good margin. In this case, 0.26 versus
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0.19 versus 0.17 for the Viltrox. When we
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take a look at the fringing situation, it's a little bit closer a comparison
26:53
here. We can see that as we look towards these defocused areas, the GM has a very
27:01
very slight green tinge there. Whereas the uh Sigma lens is really really
27:06
neutral and so it's very very well corrected. And in this case, the largest specular highlights do come from the the
27:13
Sony lens because of the higher magnification, but you can see it is not by much of a margin. It's actually quite
27:19
close and the difference is made up from the Sigma lens because of having that faster maximum aperture and so um you
27:26
know some give and take here but a definite win for the Sony when it comes to magnification. Now this next
27:31
comparison it becomes a a little bit surprising considering the fact that the Viltrox does have worse fringing because
27:38
in many ways often it's fringing that reduces the amount of contrast that a a
27:44
lens is able to produce. And so here what we have is a different kind of situation where you have really bright
27:50
um shiny surfaces that are almost on the verge of blowing out. And you see if you look in these textures that the Viltrox
27:58
is got some purple fringing showing up in those really high contrast areas. You would think that that would actually
28:04
reduce the overall contrast, micro contrast, but as you can see, the opposite is actually true here where the
28:10
Viltrox continues to be the winner when it comes to the just the degree of contrast and thus the information you're
28:17
able to get off of like the the weave of that pillow cover there. Also, in this
28:22
case, we have got, you know, harsh light and harsh shadows. And you can just see the different ways that the two lenses
28:28
handle that. So, an interesting comparison there. Now, if we throw the Sony into this this situation, you can
28:34
see that it it is a little bit closer. It's not quite as good as the Viltrox in terms of contrast. It is a little bit
28:40
better, but you can see in this situation, it's got equal levels of that, if not more, of that purple
28:45
fringing and that really high contrast zone. And so, in this case, definitely the Sigma continues to win for
28:51
controlling all of that. You can also see just the overall general contrast. I would say in this case the variance
28:58
between the lights and the shadows are uh better on the Vtrox than what they
29:03
are on the Sony lens. So it's not just a matter of the micro contrast, but the general contrast does slightly favor the
29:10
Viltrox lens. Now I've pointed out a situation or two where I felt like the Viltrox had a win in terms of the
29:17
overall contrast. So at close focus distances and where backgrounds are more strongly defocused, I think the Viltrox
29:22
takes a win. However, here when you're a little bit further away, I don't know that that advantage continues. In many
29:29
ways, I think it's kind of hard to parse out a winner between these two. Look at
29:34
the foreground level of blur. It looks nice from both lenses. And if you look towards the background, you know, with
29:41
these various layers of defocus, they really are more similar than different.
29:46
I do feel in this case the superior contrast of the Viltrox lens actually
29:51
produces a slightly less creamy background. And so in this kind of shot, if I were to just instinctively choose a
29:58
winner, I would actually choose the Sigma's defocus a little bit over that of the Viltrox. So in this case, I'll
30:04
put the GM up against the uh the Sigma lens. And if we look here, you can tell
30:09
if you look at this area of the background, the F1 one.2 lens is going to win every time over the F1.4 four
30:15
lens. I actually think that the bokeh quality from the the Sony lens is nice and I've always thought that, but I do
30:22
think that the Sigma is a very slight winner here. Thus, it is the overall winner in this particular kind of
30:28
scenario. So, finally, what about portraits? And so, if we try to recreate similar type settings again and again,
30:35
what I find is a couple of things. First of all, when it comes to the sheer amount of detail, both of these f1.2
30:43
lenses, even at f1.2, two are fabulous. The Viltrox um in in just a lot of
30:48
head-to-head comparisons, I've got dozens of these that I've looked at very often. That little bit of extra micro
30:54
contrast I do feel produces a little bit more pop around eyes than what the Sigma
31:00
does, but you probably wouldn't notice that unless you had them side by side. In this particular scenario, I felt like
31:07
the there was just a little bit more busyness for the Viltrox in this transition zone right here. I see I've
31:13
also got a cat that's going underneath my leg at that point. But you can see here that the Sigma comes across as just
31:19
a little bit softer there. And then as I looked at this, it's very very close, but I felt like the softness from the
31:26
Sigma was a little bit better than what the Viltrox lens uh looked like. Looking
31:31
at them as a whole. However, as I mentioned, when I did a lot of blind test, my wife basically every time chose
31:38
the Viltrox lens, and I think it has a lot to do with just the optical glass. I think the richness of the color is maybe
31:44
very slightly better from the Viltrox lens. So, if we throw the GM lens there
31:49
instead, again, this is f1 uh 2 versus f1.4, we can see that I would say in
31:56
this case, I actually feel like again around the eyes, I like the GM just a little bit better than what I do the
32:03
Sigma lens. And so, in terms of contrast on uh portrait subjects, I would say I favor the other two lenses over the
32:10
Sigma. However, very clearly here, you've got almost like a soap bubble effect from the GM lens, whereas you
32:17
have a much in my at least in my mind, a much more pleasing defocus background from the Sigma. So, I actually like all
32:23
three of these as portrait lenses, but there is some give and take in terms of their strengths. And as you can see,
32:29
that's pretty true of these lenses generally. They're exceptionally good. However, there are areas of strength and
32:34
weakness for each one. So, thanks for sticking around until the very end. And I hope that this deep dive into these
32:40
three lenses has helped you to determine which one is the most intriguing for you. As always, thanks for watching.
32:47
Have a great day and let the light in. [Music]

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