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Sigma 200mm F2 DG OS | SPORT Review | Sigma's New Halo Lens?
Aug 18, 2025
Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a deep dive review of the Sigma 200mm F2 DG OS | SPORT - the first 200mm F2 for full frame mirrorless! | This episode is sponsored by Pergear Master CFExpress Cards. Purchase the Type A cards at Pergear https://bit.ly/BuyMasterA pr Amazon https://amzn.to/47GkHdE | Purchase the Type B cards at Pergear https://bit.ly/BuyMTypeB or https://amzn.to/45E6v2p | Read the Text Review: | Purchase the Sigma 200mm F2 OS SPORT @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany Check out the DA Merch here: https://bit.ly/TWIMerch | Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/dustinabbott | On the Web: http://dustinabbott.net/ | Sign up for my Newsletter: http://bit.ly/1RHvUNp | Instagram: http://bit.ly/DLAinsta | Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1nuUUeH | Flickr: http://bit.ly/1UcnC0B | 500px: http://bit.ly/1Sy2Ngu Follow Craig @ https://www.instagram.com/craigstoffersen/ Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo: http://bhpho.to/1TA0Xge Adorama: https://howl.link/nt4zdz1goa7ql Camera Canada: http://bit.ly/DLACameraCan Sony Canada: https://www.thesonyshop.ca/?ref=abbott Amazon: https://amzn.to/3HrY64d Amazon Canada: https://amzn.to/3qG1p18 Ebay: http://bit.ly/DustineBay Into the AM Clothing: https://bit.ly/intotheAMda and use code DUSTIN10 for 10% off Fioboc Clothing: https://tinyurl.com/FiobocDA20 and us code DUSTIN20 for 20% off Make a donation via Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/dustinTWI ============================= Table of Contents: ============================= 0:00 - Intro
View Video Transcript
0:10
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you my review of the new Sigma lens that a lot of people have been
0:16
waiting for for a long time. This is the new 200 mm f2 DGO sport lens now.
0:23
Frankly, I'm shocked that Sigma beats Sony to the punch on this one cuz this is a lens that a lot of people have been
0:29
clamoring for for a while. And I remember from back in the days when I reviewed Canon exclusively that the
0:36
Canon EF200mm f2is was really the halo lens for certain
0:42
portrait photographers that could just really make that lens sing. Now, of course, this also would be really,
0:48
really intriguing for sports. And it is intriguing for sports, though less so than what it might be on Lmount for the
0:54
simple reason that as always, there are some constraints that come from for third party lenses on Sony, namely burst
1:02
rate. That being said, I'm here on beautiful Conrad Beach in Nova Scotia,
1:08
Canada. I've been shooting some images here and a variety of other places, portrait images, wildlife, and then also
1:15
shooting just some scenics and nature with it. And so I'll have some great images to share with you throughout the
1:20
course of this review. Now, in full disclosure, this lens was sent to me by Sigma Canada as a loner. They have had
1:27
no input on this review and as always, this will be a fully independent re
1:32
review that you will see when they do. All right, let's jump in and let's take a look at this bad boy. episode is
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sponsoring this video. So, let's take a look at the build and handling here. Obviously, any kind of 200 mm lens f2 is
2:50
going to be fairly large, and this lens is though the weight at 1,800 g or 64.2
2:56
oz is considerably less than what we saw from the previous generation. The Canon 200 mm Lens was 25,520
3:05
g. So, 720 g heavier. That's very significant. So this lens is heavy, yes,
3:11
but doesn't feel particularly heavier than, for example, a lot of 70 to 200
3:16
millimeter type zooms. And so I didn't particularly find it ownorous to carry around. The lens is 118.9
3:23
or 4.7 in in diameter. Of course, there's a lot of glass in there. And it
3:30
has 105 mm front filter thread. The overall length is 7.9 in or 203 mm. And
3:38
so it's basically the length of a 70 to 200 um f/2.8 zoom, but the diameter is
3:45
larger to accommodate all that extra glass for the f2 aperture. Obviously, a lens like this does
3:51
necessitate having a tripod collar. And you've got a fairly standard implementation for Sigma, though that is
3:58
a very good one. There's a tension knob here that allows you to freely rotate that. It does have detents, which I like
4:04
at the cardinal positions. um every 90 90 degree position. And so that just
4:10
allows you to find those more accurately. It doesn't stop you if you want to continue to rotate, but it does give you that little bit of a hint to
4:17
know that's the perfect place to align. I like the fact that it's got attachments for straps on either side.
4:22
The foot itself is removable, though only with uh tools, Allen Allen key
4:27
tools. It is ARCA compatible as you can see here, which I like. This foot is a
4:33
little bit more functional than what we found on the 70 to 200 uh sport lens from Sigma. For one thing, the foot
4:39
itself is a little bit longer. I think around 7 uh millimeters longer. And so it just gives you a little bit more to
4:46
attach to. It also gives you nearly 10 millimeters of additional uh depth in
4:51
between the lens and the actual um foot itself. And so it is so much easier to
4:57
actually carry it by the uh the foot. Whereas on the sport lens, that was one
5:02
of the things I complained about. There just really wasn't room to hardly carry it like that. So to me, it made it a little bit of a less functional foot. So
5:08
we've got a good implementation here. We have a thorough bank of switches. It's a
5:14
very featurerich lens. AFMF, we've got a three-position focus limiter. We've got uh OS uh two different modes there,
5:21
standard mode, and then panning. Then there's also a custom switch down here. So it has an additional C1 and C2. Now
5:28
the road split there depending on whether you're on Leica or on Sony. Here on Sony, those are pre-programmed to two
5:35
additional uh modes for the uh optical stabilizer. On Leica, you have the op or
5:41
LMount you have the option of using a dock to program additional settings there. Tucked down kind of underneath
5:48
here is the click dclick for the aperture ring. And so you have the ability to either have clicks or without
5:54
clicks. You also have an iris lock on the right side that'll allow you to either lock in or out of the manual
6:01
aperture ring. Uh depending upon whether you don't want to get out of it or you don't want to get into it. I will note
6:07
on the OS uh this is Sigma's OS2 as they call it and their focus algorithms are
6:13
or should stabilization algorithms are pretty much as good as anything I see on Sony. I would say pretty close to the
6:19
best. This is rated at 6.5 stops. And so that is number one considerably better than a lot of recent Sony zooms have
6:26
been. Also, I found in real world use that I could get some stable results at
6:33
1/8 of a second and very easily get 1/15eenth of a second stable results. And so, uh, it works really, really
6:39
well. It's good at keeping the viewfinder stable. It's good at giving you good stabilized results. So, I like
6:45
that. It works extremely well. The manual focus ring has nice damping. It's
6:50
got a bevel in here, so it does fall to hand really nicely. And manual focus is a treat. We have also got three
6:57
redundant uh function or custom buttons there. And so a bottom, left side, and
7:03
then on the top. And so whatever position you're shooting in, you have one of those buttons nearby. As always,
7:08
you program the function of that through the camera body itself. And they all share the same function. It's not three
7:14
different functions, one function, but there there's just it's about proximity and so you have one nearby.
7:21
It does come with a nice lens hood. Now, you can see it is a big hood and and so these type of hoods, they don't uh
7:28
bayonet on. It uses a tension knob that you lock down here. Does have a really nice rubberized surface and that not
7:35
only helps with bumps, but it also gives you the most stable position to set a lens camera combo on. because here you
7:43
can see that's really not what you want. Anyway, your best position is going to be uh face down like that if you want to
7:50
store the camera and lens combination together. Aperture Iris has 11 blades. They are
7:57
nicely rounded. After a while, you will start to see the shape of those blades, but again, the overall impression is
8:04
going to always be circular. Sigma sport lenses get their most thorough degree of weather sealing. So,
8:11
this lens is thoroughly sealed um at the the rear mount all throughout at the
8:17
various switches and rings, which there's a lot of, you know, there's a a fingerprint and oil resistant coating on
8:24
the front element. It's got it all. This is designed for professional-grade use, and it definitely feels like that. Now,
8:30
one of the things I did note when I had the camera off and I was looking at the weather sealing and I saw that not only
8:38
I didn't expect it to be compatible with teleconverters here on Sony because that is a limitation that Sony has, but I did
8:45
anticipate it having it on LMount and I saw no reference to that. So, I did check with my Sony 1.4 times and I found
8:52
that in fact, yes, there isn't enough room there for that to mount. And so
8:57
teleconverters will not happen on either L-mount or Sony E-mount. So that's
9:02
really unfortunate. Uh that's a missed opportunity in my mind because there's plenty of photographers that could find
9:08
a use for 200 millimeter f2.8 and a 400 millimeter f4 lens through
9:13
teleconverters and this lens is easily sharp enough to handle that bit of you
9:19
know visual degradation that comes with using teleconverters. So I really missed that. That's kind of my biggest ding
9:24
against the lens itself. Minimum focus distance here is only 1.7 meters, 170
9:30
cm, and 5.6 feet. So, you're only going to get a 0.13 times level of
9:36
magnification. That's roughly similar to what you get from a typical 85 mm lens. And so, on the plus side, it's a flat
9:44
plane of focus, very, very sharp and detailed even at that minimum focus distance. Just not a very high degree of
9:50
magnification. On a final note, the price $3,299
9:55
is really pretty amazing when you consider that all the way back, you know, the Canon equivalent lens back in
10:01
the day cost uh right under $6,000. And even still, the Fuji 200 millimeter F2,
10:08
which is an APS-C lens, cost about $5,500. So, $3,300 bucks for this lens,
10:13
that's a bargain. So, let's talk autofocus. I've returned to the scene of the crime, so to speak, of one of the
10:19
places where I did a portrait shoot. And here in this setting, I want you to be able to see just how things look for uh
10:27
for the video recording in a similar kind of setting. Autofocus here comes from Sigma's newer HLA, which stands for
10:34
high-speed linear actuator, which is their premium focus system. I really think that Sigma probably waited until
10:40
they had developed this autofocus system before they begin to really take on some of the serious sport lenses. And it is
10:48
it's probably a smart move because their older STM focus motor, it was fine for basic stuff, but when it came to sports
10:54
action, it really just didn't have the overall thrust to keep up with really quick or reactive actions. Whereas this
11:00
lens really does. So I, for example, I was shooting on a beach and people came with a dog on there. the dog was running
11:07
fast towards me. I, you know, went up for the shots. No problem immediately stopping action with a high-speed
11:13
subject like that. So, no problem there. Likewise, while this lens is a little bit short for birding, I was able to uh
11:20
there was a a heron that was flying across a beautiful setting in Nova Scotia right off Conrad Beach. And and
11:26
so I was able to in every shot I was able to get accurate focus although from a distance able to stop that action. And
11:33
so no problem there. You can see from my standard focus test that focus is pretty
11:39
near instantaneous. And that was on my A7R Mark II. I would say on my Alpha 1, which I'm filming on at the moment, that
11:46
autofocus was even snappier. And so focus speed is fine. I did notice a little bit of focus sound going back and
11:52
forth when I was just, you know, forcing pulls back and forth, back and forth. I did hear a little bit of a a whine in
11:58
the focus motor, but under normal circumstances, I never really noticed any kind of focus noise. Now, when it
12:04
came to the uh portrait set that I shot here, I had zero problems. Every shot is
12:10
perfectly focused. Whether I was shooting through layers, there was distracting things around, I had no
12:15
problems with that. And so, autofocus was really very good in that kind of setting. Let's jump into another portrait shoot. So, we are here at the
12:22
world famous Peggy's Cove and I thought this would be a great opportunity to pull out the big dog and just shoot some
12:30
seaoriented portraits. So, my wife Lana is going to help us out just to get a few shots here and see how it performs.
12:38
So, in this setting, I first shot at Peggy's Cove and then I also shot on a
12:43
few shots, candid shots on a beach as well. And in both of those settings, as you can see, results are really well
12:49
focused there as well. So, overall, this lens is amazing for shooting uh in
12:55
portrait kind of settings. Now, for sports, while I didn't shoot more formalized sports setting, I don't doubt
13:01
that there is the thrust here to achieve that. My experience says that you're going to get probably about a 90% or a
13:08
little bit higher keeper rate, whereas you might get more like a 98% keeper rate with a higherend Sony lens. And so,
13:15
overall, I think for most people in most situations, this is going to be enough with one caveat. here on Sony. Uh if
13:22
you're wanting fulltime autofocus, you're going to be limited to 15 frames per second. And that's whether you're
13:27
shooting on my Alpha 1 capable of 30 frames per second or an A9 Mark III, which is capable of 120 frames per
13:34
second. Now, for most people in most situations, 15 frames per second is probably enough. But for those of you
13:40
that shoot serious sports and you need even higher burst rate, you may have to look elsewhere. And that is kind of a
13:46
problem because there is nothing else like this on the Sony platform at this point. You've got Sony's own 50 to 150
13:53
millimeter f2 which gives you the maximum aperture but it's 50 millime short. And then you're jumping all the
13:58
way to the 300 millimeter f2.8 and it's very lofty price tag. So I think that
14:05
for most people that have any kind of reasonable budget, they're going to look at what the Sigma is capable of producing and saying good enough for me.
14:11
That's kind of the way that I feel. autofocus is pretty great. So, how about for video work? I found that while
14:18
shooting with longer focal lengths is always a little bit more challenging when trying to do things like forcing
14:24
focus pools, I found that in general, focus pools look okay. Other than there being a little bit of pulsing right when
14:30
you go to settle, it's as if the focus motor moves so fast that it gets to the target and then almost like bounces back
14:36
before settling on the target itself. Other than that, however, focus pulls look pretty good. There is a bit of
14:42
focus breathing when you're doing longer pulls like this. However, as we're going to see here with my hand test that there
14:48
is less noticeable focus breathing in that smaller transition from my hand to my eye. And as you can see, it makes
14:55
that transition just fine. Though again, focus doesn't always seem 100% confident at the first jump. It's as if it needs
15:02
to lock a little bit. So, I wouldn't mind if a firmware update down the road smooth that out a little bit. I found
15:08
though, however, that focus was really great. Obviously, for settings like this where I'm filming on the lens, uh I shot
15:15
this clip while u doing the portrait shoot with Jasine and you can see that
15:21
it does a perfect job as she moves throughout poses of keeping focused on her. So, focus I think is really solid
15:28
for the kind of settings I use and I can see this being a valuable lens for those of you maybe that are shooting uh movies
15:34
or documentaries where you want tight framing of people's faces but with a little bit of working distance. It could
15:39
be handy for that as maybe a a second angle that goes in tighter on faces. I also can see it being valuable for, you
15:47
know, things like I'm doing right now where I'm shooting in kind of a fulllength scene, but able to get that beautiful separation of subject to the
15:54
background shooting at things like f2. And obviously, the ability to do aperture racking is going to be useful.
16:00
I think this lens does have use for video work, but obviously in when you're talking about this kind of focal length,
16:06
it's going to be in more limited type applications than shorter focal lengths. The end of the day, however, though,
16:12
focus really does pretty good for the most part, particularly if they can use a firmware update and just smooth out
16:17
that last little bit of settling. So, let's give you the optical breakdown
16:24
here. And this is kind of an overview if you want the deep dive. That's going to come at the end of the review. This is
16:29
an optical design of 19 elements in 14 groups and that includes two FLD and two
16:36
SLD elements making that up. The MTF is pretty close to a straight line. This is
16:41
one of the better MTF charts that you're going to see. It is very high performing
16:46
all across the frame. Here's a a graph that Sigma actually put together that
16:51
shows the relative MTFs for their 105mm f1.4, four, a very high regarded lens
16:58
from the previous generation, their 70 to 200 sport from this current generation of mirrorless and then the
17:04
Canon 200 millm f2 lis and so you can see that this lens easily best the 105mm
17:10
f1.4 it is sharpness-wise the 70 to 200 sport is similar at 200 millime f2.8 8.
17:18
However, the sport lens or the the zoom lens has a lot more stigmatism. So, this
17:23
lens is going to produce better images and it is definitely better all across the frame than Canon's um 200 millimeter
17:30
f2is. And so, it's great optically as we're going to see. It has a tiny bit of
17:36
pin cushion distortion, a minus4 to correct. In many cases, you don't even want to correct that because
17:41
particularly if you're a portrait photographer, a tiny bit of pin cushion distortion is flattering for your models. make them look a little bit
17:48
slimmer and most of them don't mind that. There is a tiny amount of vignette, a plus 27 to correct about a
17:54
stop and of course Sigma gets good profile support on LMount where it's
18:00
native and here on Sony as well and so you won't have any issue with those factors. Uh fringing either of the
18:08
longitudinal or lateral style is not a problem. There's a tiny bit of fringing before the plane of focus and not really
18:15
any kind of lateral CA to see near the edge of the frame. And so it is very well corrected in that regard and it's
18:21
optically corrected. It's not relying on software to do all the heavy lifting. As the MTF suggests, this is a lens that is
18:28
completely sharp all across the frame. I tested on a 61 megapixel A7R Mark I and
18:33
even at 200% magnification, the results are just perfectly crisp across the frame. What's more, I saw excellent
18:40
centering. And so here we have the upper left and the upper right corner. And even though these are corners, you can see that both of them look very
18:46
consistently excellent. So centering is fantastic. Stopping down to f2.8, 8, you
18:51
will see a bit of a contrast boost in the center of the frame and maybe a hair more noticeable in the corners, but
18:58
anything after that, you're basically just stopping down to get additional depth of field because you're might get
19:04
a little bit more sharpness in the corners, but probably be a little bit less sharp in the center as you stop the
19:09
lens down. What I found is that in shooting landscape type results, I got beautiful results. Even at 61
19:16
megapixels, there's great detail and contrast and delineation of fine details
19:21
all across the frame. It is fantastically sharp. It has fantastic contrast. And what's more, it really has
19:27
quite beautiful bokeh as well. Doesn't mean that the geometry is perfect all across the frame. There is a little bit
19:33
of that kind of cat eye shape near the edges of the frame, but the rendering is really nice and soft. And what sets 200
19:41
millm f2 lenses apart from pretty much everything particularly for portrait work is that amazing amount of subject
19:47
isolation. You go with a longer focal length and it starts to do kind of odd things with people as far as compression
19:53
for portrait work. 200 millimeters you still have a pretty natural uh framing of people, but you have this just almost
20:00
cut out effect from backgrounds that allows you to shoot full body portraits that just look brilliant. And so I
20:07
really love it for portrait work. And I found in other situations where the bokeh could have looked busy like in
20:12
this shot with a lot of ocean rocks behind it. No problem there. It all
20:17
looked really fantastic. Now obviously even the mightiest of lenses is going to be affected by defraction. So as you get
20:24
to f11 see a little bit softer and by the time you get to f22 which is the minimum aperture here you
20:30
will definitely see some softening from defraction there along the way. I even found that flare resistance was good
20:36
that the lens when I was shooting into the sun that um I didn't see any ghosting artifacts and contrast held up.
20:44
There was if anything just a little bit of a glow that entered in that I found to be flattering in shooting shots like
20:50
this. The colors look beautiful. It's just a gorgeous lens. Um optically it is
20:56
fantastic. There's not much to critique here. So, in conclusion, this is a lens that, frankly, I'm a little surprised
21:02
that comes first from Sigma and not from Sony themselves. This is the kind of lens that I think a lot of people for
21:09
different reasons might be interested in. the fact that Sigma has not only scooped Sony at this point, but really
21:16
pretty much everyone that I'm aware of on full-frame mirrorless at this point with the only 200 millimeter f2 lens I'm
21:23
a aware of right now with autofocus would be the Fuji, which of course is just for APS-C. So, this is a lens that
21:31
does something that nothing else is really doing. And the fact that Sigma has managed to do it at this price point
21:38
is really pretty amazing. I look back to 2008 when the Canon EF 200 millimeter
21:43
F2LIS was released and at that point that lens was nearly $6,000 and its MSRP
21:51
at that point. You fast forward 17 years, add on top of that the increased
21:56
prices due to tariffs this year and the fact that Sigma is still bringing this in at about 3,300 US is pretty amazing
22:03
at about half the price as what that Canon lens was. So, I mean, here's the
22:08
deal. If someone else first party had brought it brought a lens like this first, you can guarantee it wouldn't
22:13
have been priced anywhere anything like this and so I think that it remains as an exceptional value. Is it a perfect
22:20
lens? Well, pretty close. I would of course love to see teleconverter support and I think that that is a missed
22:26
opportunity particularly on Lmount with all of the Sony limitations aside.
22:31
I would have also like to have seen just a little bit more confidence when it comes to video autofocus in certain
22:37
settings, but my list of complaints is incredibly small and my list of praises is incredibly long. This lens is
22:44
beautifully built and designed. It is reasonably light comparative to what
22:49
equivalent lenses have been in the past. It has tons of features on it. It has
22:55
great autofocus. It has beautiful optical performance. It's got a lot going for it. So, who's this lens for?
23:03
Well, I mean, it is for people who shoot sports, though you have to be willing to accept the compromises. And again, for
23:08
the money, I think that the list of compromises is relatively small. In many ways, I think this lens could be even
23:14
more intriguing for those of you who shoot portraiture, in particular, environmental portraiture, because a 200
23:20
millimeter f2 can produce images that really no other type of lens can. And so
23:25
if you've got the room to work out in the environment, it produces those kind of next level images that your co
23:32
competition may not be able to produce and that could be pretty special. So at the end of the day, I think that this
23:37
lens is an incredible value. And it's not often that I call a $3,300 lens a
23:43
great value. Now, if you want more information, you have two options here. You can check out my full text review
23:48
that is on the newly updated and refreshed dustinbott.net. So check that out. And beyond that,
23:55
there is also upcoming right after this a deep dive into the optical performance for those of you that just want to see a
24:02
little bit more behind the results that I have found to this point. So let's dive in. Let's take a look. Okay, let's
24:09
start by a look at vignette and distortion. Here you can see on the left, this is the uncorrected image.
24:14
There is a little bit of a pin cushion distortion and this took a minus4 to correct it. Here on the right in the
24:19
corners, there is a little bit of vignette. I used a plus 27 for the correction on the right. So again, no
24:26
issue really there at all. You could leave both of these things uncorrected and probably not notice them in 98% of
24:33
your images. Likewise, there's no issue here with longitudinal style chromatic aberrations. I can see the tiniest bit
24:39
of fringing before the plane of focus here. Not really much of anything afterward, but you can see that the
24:45
black to white transitions are really, really clean there. No issue with that. Likewise, if we look at a
24:51
three-dimensional object, you can see that on all of the shiny bits, there is no fringing to be seen here. Likewise,
24:57
if we look at the specular highlights, there is no fringing around those. So, just not an issue at all. You will note
25:03
here, and we can see that at the edge of the frame, there's a little bit of the pretty typical cat eye lemon type shape
25:08
that's there. Uh, not really a big deal. And if you stop down a bit around f2.8,
25:13
you'll get rounder circular highlights throughout. Lateral chromatic aberrations are also a non-issue. You
25:19
can see here that black to white transitions near the edge of the frame are nice and clean. So, we'll take a
25:24
look at resolution here. This is on a 61 megapixel Sony A7R Mark I. And these are
25:30
200% magnification results. You can see in the center of the frame here that it is flawless. We've already got that moir
25:37
pattern there uh because of just how high the contrast and the detail rendering is. If we pan over here
25:44
towards the mid-frame, we can see that it is flawless. It looks amazing there.
25:49
Contrast and detail all throughout. As we look everywhere, a very good consistency from here to here as we move
25:55
towards the edge of the frame. And right off to the very very edge, you can see very high detail. Nothing's turning to
26:02
mush here. Even at the very edge of the frame. Likewise, we can see that if we look in the upper left corner, it looks
26:09
flawless. Upper right corner, it looks flawless. Looking down here to the lower
26:14
left, it looks flawless. Great centering, great detail and performance all across the frame. Something that
26:19
stood out to me uh regarding the resolution and contrast and then of course that huge maximum aperture. It really pays dividends here. You can see,
26:26
for example, these figures are at a distance. And so I mean I don't have a favorable ratio at all here between the
26:32
foreground and the background. If anything, the foreground is more defocused than what the background is. And yet, if I go into a 100%
26:39
magnification level, you can see that the figures look like they're basically just cut right out. They just stand out
26:45
so perfectly well. That's really, really impressive to me. Likewise, here again, another real world shot on the move
26:52
catching this dog that was running fast. But we can see if we punch into a pixel level that the detail here is just
26:58
amazing. It's frozen that detail and focused perfectly and also given us extremely high resolution and contrast.
27:05
And again, even though we have an unfavorable ratio, I was much further from the dog than what the dog is from
27:11
the background. And this is a very complex, very busy background. You can see though it still looks quite good.
27:17
There's a little bit of jitteriness there, but by and large, it's just defocused. And and so that is fantastic.
27:24
I found if I stop down to f2.8 on the right compared to f2 on the left, there
27:29
is very slightly more contrast. You can see that the writing is just a little bit inkier looking. just a little bit
27:35
more deeper shadow information that is there. Uh likewise in the mid-frame, just a little bit more punch. And if we
27:42
grab a corner and we look there, we can see again there's just higher contrast, a little bit more detail that's being
27:48
rendered here. And then so that is your kind of primary improvement. After that, you stop down more for depth of field
27:55
than optical improvement. Here is an f5.6 real world image. And so this is
28:00
obviously a very big setting. This is the Cabbat Trail in Nova Scotia. But you can see if we start over down here in
28:07
the bottom corner, you can see there's just great detail right out to the edge of the frame. You can clearly delineate
28:13
all the people here in the parking lot here. As we begin to pan deeper into the image, you can see that everywhere that
28:19
we look, there's just fantastic information right out to the edge of the frame. You know, the little uh houses
28:26
and cottages that are there, the person on the beach here. And as we pan towards a diff distance, obviously now we're
28:32
starting to get a little bit of the haze that's starting to impact the image. But you can see that resolution wise, it is
28:39
flawless right off and to the very edge of the frame up here. All of the information that's there, it's all
28:44
there. This little, you know, whatever it is, a shed or house that is there, all perfectly rendered. You can see the
28:51
traffic sign. Again, if we we zoom back out, I mean, that's just a little dot here, but you can see that it's
28:56
capturing all of that information. That's a really, really impressive performance. Of course, even the
29:01
high-end lenses are going to be impacted by defraction, which is the result of physics. And so, you can see here at
29:07
f11, the image is starting to soften somewhat due to defraction. And at f-22, which is the minimum aperture, it is
29:13
obviously softer, though still really quite usable if you're just looking at 100% level of magnification. You just
29:20
won't have the same degree of contrast and delineation of fine details. So, here's what the minimum focus distance
29:26
and maximum magnification looks like. We'll scrutinize it for a moment. You can see that while the magnification
29:31
isn't particularly high, the performance is fantastic even at its closest focus distance with good detail and contrast.
29:38
We've got a fairly flat plane of focus and so it's usable in a lot of different situations. Here's a look at the bokeh.
29:46
And one thing that kind of stood out to me is not just, you know, the soft background, but you focus here on little
29:52
tiny fine things. You can see how that those are really perfectly rendered. They're not kind of falling apart
29:59
because of it being it's almost like really small line pairs, but not having any problem with that. You can see that
30:04
the bokeh isn't completely circular, but it is very soft and creamy in this setting. This is an image which I knew
30:11
could be very difficult because all of these rocks in the background, it would be very easy for these to be
30:16
distracting, but you can see that instead um it's still kept nice and soft. There's a little bit of outlining
30:21
there, but really not bad. And of course, the detail on the subject is amazingly good.
30:28
All of that combines to make this a really fantastic portrait lens. And so here the background is fairly close, but
30:33
you can see that it's nicely defocused. The detail and skin tones all look
30:38
really fabulous. Uh, this image is one of my favorites I think that I took with this lens and it shows that in this
30:45
really, you know, it's a complicated scene. A lot going on, but there's beautiful subject isolation and
30:52
beautiful detail and contrast on the subject. And then just the image as a whole is really pleasing. At more of a
30:57
medium distance, a little bit more than head and shoulders here. You can see detail is fantastic and the background
31:04
is beautifully creamy. A little bit tighter in and you can see that again
31:10
detail looks amazing everywhere that you look and the background of course is fully defocused at this point.
31:17
Colors I thought were also really nice. Here's an image of a a great blue heron that I took at nice golden hour light
31:24
and you can see that it looks really pleasing here in bright conditions. This is the famous lighthouse at Peggy's Cove
31:30
in Nova Scotia. And you can see that the reds look really beautifully saturated. The whites pop nicely. The blues are
31:37
very pleasant. It's all really good. Finally, when it comes to flare, you can see that the sun is right here out of
31:43
frame. And there was a lot of mist as uh it was a very warm day. So, kind of as the evening set, mist was rising. But
31:50
you can see that even though this is a highly backlit image that it's lots of light flooding it, the image hasn't fall
31:57
apart. There's no ghosting artifacts here with the sun right in the frame. You can see that there's not any
32:03
ghosting artifacts. And so overall, even when it comes to flare resistance, the coatings are doing great. This is an
32:09
optically amazing instrument. So, thanks for sticking around until the very end. I hope that the deep dive into the
32:15
optics has helped you to decide whether or not this bad boy is for you. As always, thanks for watching. Have a
32:21
great day and let the light in.
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