Sigma 35mm F1.2 DN ART: IQ Breakdown | 4K

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you an image quality breakdown from the new Sigma 35mm f1.2
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This is a DN lens, meaning for mirrorless, and it's also from their art series
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In this case, I'm reviewing a copy designed for Sony FE. There's also a Leica L version
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Now if you missed my first look episode, we took a look at the design philosophy of this Brute, the feature set, handling of it all
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I recommend that you take a look at that because this is definitely a premium lens and it comes at a fairly premium price
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Today however, we're going to look a little bit closer at the image quality and compare it to a couple of other maybe alternative lenses
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or lenses that I happen to have on hand that are, you know, benchmarks to compare it to
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This is currently the largest 35mm option on the platform, and so it really needs to deliver in the image quality department to justify that extra bulk, size, and weight
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Fortunately, with only one minor misstep, it definitely does. So we're going to take a deep dive now and take a look at the image quality and the performance from this lens
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Let's take a look. Okay, first of all, we'll take a quick look at distortion and vignette. So at F1.2, now, by the
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way, this is what you're going to see even on a raw file when it's imported, because there is going
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to be an embedded profile that picks up. However, in this case, I've disabled it. And so you can
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actually see vignette and distortion. What we can see is there's definitely some barrel distortion
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that is there. We can also see that it corrects out fine and no kind of linear, no mustache or
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wave pattern that's left behind. Vignette is fairly strongly pronounced, particularly in the corners, but it also moves a fair portion into the frame. And I actually think that the
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standard profile maybe overcorrects in the extreme corners. And I haven't liked the look of its
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correction in some cases when I have actually on kind of real world images. Here on the left side
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is where I have done a manual correction of distortion in vignette. And I'm actually, I like
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that personally better because I don't find it as extreme in the corners. It's kind of more of an
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even illumination across the frame. So if we take a look at our resolution, I've got you something
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different to look at here for a change of pace. And so our focus point is right here on this
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maple log here. So we're comparing F1.2 on the Sigma to F1.4 on the Samyang 35mm F1.4. So first
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a few caveats. The Samyang obviously doesn't have as wide a maximum aperture. It doesn't have as nice
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a build. It has fewer features and its autofocus is not as smooth as that of the Sigma. At the same
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time, it also can be purchased for half of the price. And so it is certainly a consideration
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So what we can see is center of the frame. The Samyang basically is every bit of sharp
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excuse me, the Sigma is every bit as sharp as the Samyang at F1.2. And so a very strong
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performance there in the center of the frame. However, if we look off to the edge of the frame
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there's no question that the Sigma looks better and a better contrast and better resolution in
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the corner. We look down at this corner and the same remains true. And so, um, you know
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the Samyang hangs with it in the center. The Sigma delivers an incredibly even sharpness profile
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If we take that out into the real world, even at F1.2, now your biggest challenge in shooting at
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f1.2 in these kind of conditions is the fact that I've already had to bring down the exposure more
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than a stop to try to balance it here because it lets in so much light. But what we can see is that
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even at f1.2, and this is on the Sony a7R Mark IV, so 61 megapixels, we can see that it is completely
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credible at f1 You know good contrast These things have not bled and fallen apart and so Very very impressive The only flaw I seen here is that there is some purple fringing here in these high contrast white areas that have shown up but outside of
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that, it's pretty much a flawless image for shooting at f1.2. Now here, I actually use the
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A9 because it eliminates some of the headroom issues with shutter speed, and so I actually
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shot this instead of, you know, the maximum of 1 8,000th of a second. This is actually shot at
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1 16,000th of a second. So we've got a clean exposure. Now lower resolution, but what we can
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see as we look at this image, looking towards the distance is that at F1.2, the Sigma has
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no problem resolving the whole sensor of the A9 here. And so, I mean, and if I didn't tell you
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that this was F1.2, I doubt that anyone would guess that this is a landscape shot at F1.2
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In some ways, this is my favorite example here though, because shot only at f1.2, so we have a
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nicely blurred out background. But as we look into our area of focus, we can see that there is
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beautiful sharpness and contrast. I mean, the image, there's nothing that I can really criticize
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there, and that is that f1.2. Very, very impressive. Now, if we can compare f1.2 to f1.4
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What we can see is that the F1.4 image has a little bit better contrast here
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Resolution is not hugely improved, but what you can see is there's a, by comparison, you
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can see the slightest bit of haze on the textures, which are much more crisply delineated at F1.4
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If we look off at this area in the corner, what we can see is the same is true here, although
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it's not as markedly improved. there's more of a contrast kick up in the center of the frame than what there is along the edge of
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the frame. It's there on a mild level, a little bit more noticeable in the center of the frame
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So now for the fun of it at F2, we'll bring in another competitor. This is the Canon EF
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F1.4 L Mark II adapted with the Sigma MC-11. So both of them shot at F2. Center of the frame
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we can see that both of them look really, really great, but I can't say that one looks better than
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the other. In the corner of the frame though there's no question that again the Sigma is more
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consistent across the frame and it definitely looks better than what the Canon does. If we look over on
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this side the difference is a little bit less pronounced on this side but the Sigma doesn't
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really look worse and so its strength is a really even sharpness profile. If you want to know how the
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Sigma or excuse me the Samyang shows up at f2 center of the frame I think there is a slight
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edge for the Sigma, but it's not all that notable. Off at the edge of the frame though, it is very
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noticeable. The Sigma is unquestionably better left side and on the right side as well. Now
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if your intention is to shoot a 35 millimeter lens at more like landscape apertures, you probably
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don't need to spend the extra money for the Sigma. I mean, both of them look great in the center of
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the frame. And now if we look off at the edge of the frame, the Samyang looks basically as good
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as what the Sigma does at f5.6. And so, I mean, its sharpness profile
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stretches on out there. Big advantage for the Sigma is that it is so incredibly sharp across the frame
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at f1.2 and, you know, f1.4, f2, et cetera. Now, another interesting comparison can be found
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as we look at the bokeh. So here's our plane of focus. Both of them look fairly similar
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though the Sigma, I think, has a little advantage when it comes to contrast
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As we're looking at the defocused area, Now, obviously the Sigma has the advantage of that extra one third stop of brightness
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but you can see this area is much busier on the Samyang than what it is on the Sigma
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Also, if we look off into this area, there's no question the Sigma has smoother, softer
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bokeh down in this area here. It's a little bit less busy
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Also, if we look up in this area, we can see that the Samyang has some green outlining
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that just kind of emphasizes the circular shapes of the bokeh, whereas the Sigma just delivers a little bit softer result and also bigger softer bokeh highlights Now if we stop things down both of them to F2 and equal settings we can find
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that in this area, for example, the Sigma does still look softer than what does the Samyang
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Also in this area, it's just a little softer, a little less defined in those areas. And now the
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biggest difference is when it comes to the geometry. Here at F2, we can see it's got nicely
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consistent circular shapes, whereas there's definitely deformation as you move off towards
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the edges of the frame on the Samyang, whereas the Sigma stays nice and soft here. And so
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you know, definitely a strength in those areas. Here's a great example of wide open bokeh. And
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then just how good this lens is, you know, wide open, lots of detail here. I mean, it looks
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fantastic, but then the nice bleed to the defocused area and a, you know, a beautiful background mix
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for a very unique image. Now the Sigma isn't perfect. It does have one significant flaw and
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that is that massive amount of glass is flare prone. And it's not just in extreme situations
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like this where I'm testing for it. I have noted an issue with flare in a variety of images. So in
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this case, you can see there's veiling here. There's kind of a wide kind of a prism effect
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And then there's also a ghosting pattern coming down, stop down. That ghosting pattern becomes
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much more pronounced and it becomes a, what I would call a serious problem here. That's ugly
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and that's not easy to get rid of. In this case, you know, shooting under identical conditions
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what I found is that, you know, the sun is right here. Both of them have a little bit of a
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prismatic effect. The Samyang, a bit more up here, kind of artistic, however. Our bigger problem is
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right here where both of them actually have a ghosting artifact, as you can see, but the Sigmas
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is much more kind of precise and pronounced and thus much more apparent when looking at a global
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level and also harder to kind of deal with or clean up. If we recompose the scene, it becomes
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even more obvious in that there's a pronounced ghosting pattern here that just doesn't exist the
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same way on the Samyang. And, you know, now the Samyang does again have more of that green outlining
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And so the Bokeh region right here looks a little bit better on the Sigma, but it does have the
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this unfortunate ghosting artifact that is kind of hard to get rid of. Now in this scene
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the other thing to notice is that again, you know, there's the ghosting artifact that the
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you know, the Samyang does not have. The other thing, however, is if we look over in this zone
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the Samyang is actually held on to contrast better than what the Sigma does. There's some
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you know, purple fringing. Actually, there's purple fringing on both of them, as you can see
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but contrast on the Samyang is held up a little bit better. So frankly, in this particular
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instance, I actually like the look of the image better from it. Now back to more positives. This
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is actually an interesting lens for shooting the night sky. I mean, for one thing, it's incredibly
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sharp at f1.2 as we've seen. So it's ridiculous. I shot at only ISO 400 and a shutter speed of only
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four seconds to get this shot. As you can see, lots of exposure for the stars. Star points are
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really crisp in the center of the frame. Everything looks good. If we move off to the corner, you can
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see a bit of coma effect. Now I shot this on the A9 and so these would look a little bit more
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obvious on an R3 or an R4 because they would occupy more space but if you're looking at it
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globally the end result is the same and so you know there is there is a little bit of wings
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growing on a few of those but it's not terrible and and so overall I think this is a really
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interesting astro option simply because you can suck in so much light with it. Now IAF worked
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really great with the lens, even at f1.2. I could always grab onto the eye. I shot a lot of portraits
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at f1.2. All of them are nailed. There's no problem with that. Very, very consistent focus
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Only, you know, tiny little flaw I can see is there is just a little bit, you can barely see it
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but just a little bit of purple fringing there from the you know the brightness of the flash that I use to illuminate the scene Another portrait shot here and kind of a similar thing You can see IAF is grabbed Skin textures
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are, there's lots of information to work with there. Color, skin color looks good. Background
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is nice and pleasing. This is actually a wonderful 35 millimeter portrait lens because that wide
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aperture gives you a few more options with how to handle depth of field that other lenses don't
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provide to the same degree. This is shot at a smaller maximum of aperture, I believe f4. And so
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what you can see though is once again, our focus is nailed on the eye and even here, you know
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stop down a bit. Our background is, you know, looks good, looks pleasing. And the end result
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colors look good. It's a nice looking image. This is one that my wife actually shot of me. So this
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is shot on the A9, not as high of resolution, but you can see at F1.2, IAF has nailed lots of
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crispness and resolution, nice cutout effect from the background on the shot. And what is perhaps
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most amazing to me is that finally we have camera and lens combinations where my wife actually has
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gotten me in focus. It's been a little bit of a bone of contention in our marriage over the years
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Now, when shooting at landscape apertures, this is back on the A7R Mark IV. There's obviously
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massive amounts of information and detail there. It's very, very good in this setting. I mean
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as you can see, lots of resolution across the frame, lots of detail there, high contrast
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It's a great looking shot. Finally, let's look at color. On the right side, this is a completely
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flat raw image, other than the fact that I've just changed the profile to the landscape
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profile, and that's the Adobe landscape. On the left, I've just applied a preset
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a standard preset I do for landscape images. But what you can see is a little bit more of a look of
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color. Color looks great here. The image on the left has a little bit more contrast that's been
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added into it. But I just wanted to give you an idea that colors are really nicely rendered here
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And this is shot at f5.6. So as you can see, there's a lot to smile about on the front of the
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Sigma's 35mm F1.2 DNR lenses performance. It does pretty much everything save flare resistance
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really, really well and delivers incredible results even on the most demanding sensor out
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there right now, that of the new A7R Mark IV. And so I'm really, really impressed with the
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performance there. It's a beautiful portrait lens and the very fact that it has such a wide maximum
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aperture and is so perfectly usable at f1.2 means that it gives you some extra creative options when
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it comes to shooting portraits and also the ability to have a surprisingly diffused background
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for what is, you know, a moderately wide focal length. And so I think for those of you that are
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seriously hardcore about portraiture, I think that it might be a strong consideration. I'll be back
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to you with my final verdict on the lens. I'll show you a lot more photos as a part of that. I'll
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I'll also show you more video. I'll give you a closer look at autofocus performance
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and give you a final verdict as to who I think this lens is for
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and maybe who it's not for. And so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, if you look in the description down below
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as always, there is linkage to that image gallery. I've got lots of photos in a variety of situations
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portraits, landscape, night sky, all of that kind of stuff. So take a look at that
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I've also shot with the lens in an event setting. and so I'll give you my findings on that in the final verdict
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So stay tuned for all of that. You can also find Linkage to follow me on social media
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Thanks for watching. Have a great day. you

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Sigma 35mm F1.2 DN ART: IQ Breakdown | 4K

Dustin Abbott

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Sigma 35mm F1.2 DN ART: IQ Breakdown | 4K

Dustin Abbott