Sigma 40mm F1.4 ART Review Part 1 | 4K

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you part one of a two-part review of the Sigma 40mm f1.4 art
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Now, I know a lot of you have been asking me for a while to do this review and I actually had it scheduled a few months back
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and that was right before Sigma announced the 45mm, the 14-24mm, and the 35mm f1.2
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And so I had to cover all of those because they were just coming to market. So I've doubled back to the 40mm f1.4
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Now, the 40mm is built on really out of Sigma's research into cine or cinematic lenses
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And so as a byproduct of that, it is kind of their everything and the kitchen sink type design
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And as you can see, it's a very, very physically large, by far the largest 40 millimeter lens that I've ever used
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40 millimeter lenses I've used to this point have typically been either pancake lenses or very small lenses
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So this obviously is a behemoth. However, 40 millimeters is a fantastic focal length, as is 45 millimeters
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Right in that range is actually one of my favorite focal lengths. Very, very versatile
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you know, a little bit closer or a little bit tighter framing than a 35 millimeter lens
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So it makes it to me a little bit more attractive for using for portraits, but also wide enough to be a little more flexible in more situations than what a
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50 millimeter lens is. And so I really like it for that. This particular lens, I, by every indication
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I knew it was going to be a very good lens. I was really, it kind of struck me the wrong way
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in that it was so physically large. It's also not particularly cheap. It's about $1,399 US dollars
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And so, you know, I was a little bit cool to the idea of it. However, I did want to cover it
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because I knew it was a very good lens. And of course, that's what it's proven to be here in my
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review process. And so there are three different mounts you can get this in. You can get it in a
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Canon EF, which is what I elected to cover. And I'll detail why in just a second. There's a Nikon
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F. And then you can also get it in the Sony FE. Now, however, that's the Sony FE in the
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converted Ken version, not a specifically designed for Sony version. And so as a result
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it's going to be kind of larger still because what I've got here is a Sony body with the MC11
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in between. It basically remains about this length in the FE version because to house
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to make the difference for the flange for going from a design for a DSLR, which is this lens is
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designed for DSLR. And so the design shifting to a mirrorless body, and then also essentially
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incorporating an adapter into the lens design. And so that the focus system will then translate
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effectively into mirrorless, which by the way, it does quite well. And so anyway, I elected to look
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at the EF version for the simple reason that I've recently purchased a Canon EOS R after firmware
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updates there. For those of you who are interested, yes, I will do an episode at some point detailing
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how good the improvements are, but what I had heard was positive enough and there was enough
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requests from you to review RF mount lenses that I decided I would get an EOS R at this point, so
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I saved up. I've purchased one, so I wanted to try it both on the EOS R and on my A7 R Mark III
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So anyway, we're going to jump in first of all and we're going to take a hands-on look at this
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We're also going to look at image quality. And then in the following episode, we're going to look at focus
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We're going to look at video. I'm going to give you a summation, in my opinion, on the lens and who it's for
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And so we're going to jump in and we're going to go hands on with this bad boy. So what we've got is another fairly mammoth lens
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And to be frank, one of the reasons why I haven't been in a big rush to review the 40 millimeter art is because of its sheer size
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I think it's almost in protest at how large it is. However, just to give you a sense of how it compares, kind of visually there's the Canon 35mm f1.4L Mark II
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And so you can see it is significantly larger in basically every dimension here
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So what we have got is a lens that weighs in at 2.6 pounds or 1.2 kilograms or 1,200 grams
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which definitely obviously makes it a hefty prime lens that isn't all that far off from the typical weight of a 70-200mm f2.8
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Those are usually in the 1470-gram range, so this is at 1,200 grams
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It is under 300 grams lighter than one of those type lenses, so pretty massive for a 40-millimeter prime lens here
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Other specifications, 3.46 inches or 87.8 millimeters in diameter. 5.16 inches or 131 millimeters in length
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Up front, we have got a 82 millimeter front filter thread, nine rounded aperture blades
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pretty typical stuff for Sigma when it comes to that. You see that there is a nice gasket here
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that part of the weather sealing And looking at the diagram from Sigma I count seven different seal points switches different places in the barrel itself And then up front we have a water
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and oil repellent coating that further helps to complete the weather sealing process. So nice to
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see a thoroughly weather sealed lens. Now this is actually part of the reason why the optical
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standard is higher on the 40 millimeter f1.4 than a lot of competing lenses. This is actually
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an adoption of their Cine lens process. And those of you that are familiar with Cine lenses know
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that they tend to be really, really expensive and well-made, well optically designed. So that's
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essentially what we have got here. And so we have got an optical design with 16 elements and 12
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groups, very, very complex for a prime lens. Included in that, we have three F low dispersion
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elements, FLD elements, three special low dispersion or SLD elements, one spherical element
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is in there as well. And so a lot of special elements that make up part of the optical design
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There's also a super multi-layer coating that apply to lens elements to help to minimize the
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lens flare as a part of that. The lens can focus down to 40 centimeters or 1.31 feet
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And unfortunately, the reproduction ratio there or magnification is more like a 50mm lens than it is like a 35mm lens
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A lot of 35mm lenses are in the 0.20 times. And a lot of 50mm lenses tend to be in the 0.15 times magnification
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This is 0.154 times. So basically right on there in that level
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Now, obviously, here I've got it on EOS R body via the adapter, and it works fine
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I mean, the EOS R has a nice chunky grip. I've also used it on my A7R Mark III, and I have a grip extender there, and so again, it works okay
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Just note that this is going to be on the larger and heavier side of things
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So, 40 millimeters, depending on the crop factor of your camera, on Sony
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If you're shooting Sony APS-C, that's 60 millimeter equivalent on a Canon APS-C
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That's going to be 64 millimeter equivalent, just to give you an idea of comparative focal
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lengths there. Pretty straightforward Sigma art design here. You've got one switch, an AF-MF switch
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It has Sigma's hypersonic motor inside, and it's got a nice big wide focus ring, has full-time
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manual override focus as a part of it. and so far my experience has been very positive with focus
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However, I've used it basically exclusively at this point on mirrorless bodies
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either the EOS R for Canon or on the a7R Mark III for Sony
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And so, of course, it definitely helps with wide aperture lenses for nailing focus
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But what we have here is, as expected, nicely constructed, but also very physically large and heavy prime lens
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So as you can see, as kind of predicted going in, It's a big lens. It's a heavy lens. It's also a nicely made lens and has a lot of good things
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going on for it in the basic design. Now, of course, what you're really interested in is if
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you're going to purchase a big lens like this, it better perform in the image quality arena. And so
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we're going to jump in and take a look at that and see if it does. Okay. First of all, let's look at
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distortion and vignette here. And so what you have on the left is an uncorrected raw. On the right
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you have a corrected raw file. These are actually shot on Sony because I'm using these shots for
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resolution and so my a7RM R3 represents the highest resolution that I have available to me
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So looking at the images themselves you can see that the profile strongly corrects a lot of
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vignette. Now it is quite linear and so there's a different quality of vignette from lens to lens
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A lens like this that has a vignette that creeps towards the center can often work quite effectively as a portrait lens
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and I'll double back to that in just a second. First of all, let's look at distortion here
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There is a minimal amount of barrel distortion, a slight bulge in the center
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It's quite linear. It corrects well, as you can see. Not really a major concern
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Now, coming back to vignette, I had a conversation with a Zeiss president at one point
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And he was talking about the Otis lenses that really, in the way that he was describing it
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some of the vignette is a feature of the lens and not a bug
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That I think is true to a certain degree here as well because of the nature of that vignette
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So look at the shot on the left. This is out of camera. Now obviously, not in every situation is vignette going to be desirable
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In this shot, I would argue that it is a much more attractive shot
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with the vignette uncorrected here on the left than with it corrected on the right
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For the simple reason that the vignette draws the eye towards this, you know, it's an admittedly a
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simple shot, but it's add character to it here. Now, of course you can always correct for vignette
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but depending on the vignette pattern of a lens I certainly would I willing to you know to stipulate the argument that there is some quality that comes with a certain type of vignette on certain lenses And I would argue that the Sigma does exhibit that
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Here's another case in point. I've actually applied a kind of a tone curve profile to this
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just to give it a particular look. But as you can see, we've got a narrow depth of field
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obviously very, very crisp resolution. This is a very sharp lens. But you know, what makes the
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shot work is that the vignette draws the eye in. And so you don't focus on this or the edges
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you're drawn into the seam. You know, you get this here and then you can look onto the defocused
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area. And in my opinion, it's a shot that works. And in part, it's the vignette that helps make it
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work. So let's take a quick look at that resolution. Now, this is the corrected image here. What we
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can see is in the center of the frame, as you might expect, very, very good resolution, very good
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contrast. And that's true. You can see quite a consistent profile right off to the edge of the
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frame. It's basically as sharp towards the edge of the frame as it is towards the center of the
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frame. It's a massive lens, but your trade-off is you get a massive amount of resolution out of it
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Further helping that is the fact that you have a very good contrast. And so as you can see in this
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shot here. As we zoom in, this actually is shot on the Canon EOS R here. But what we can see is
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that there's no longitudinal chromatic aberrations that are marring that. And so as a result
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you've got really, really great contrast in the scene, even at f1.4. And so it really allows you
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to be creative with the way that you, the kinds of shots that you shoot with it. And we've already
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seen a few of those that really have a unique look to them. Now we'll switch over to Sony for a
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moment because this lens works really really well with eye AF and so as you can see just even at f1.4
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that contrast and resolution is fantastic there on the eye and that's really one of the
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better jobs that I have seen. It really is fantastic. Now here's another wide open shot
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just to give us a look at a different focus distance. And yes, the dog is running through the scene
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What we're really looking at is what I was focusing on before she came charging over the hill
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and that was these repeating pine tree trunks. And even up here into the needles
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you can see that they are really, really nicely individually defined. And that's due to high resolution and contrast
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in the real world shot. Now here is actually a more challenging scene
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in that it was an overcast kind of day, but the sun was breaking through the clouds, as you can see
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And so as we shoot towards infinity here, you can see that in the distance
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you've got, even though it's a challenging lighting scene in F1.4, you've got really nicely defined resolution
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in all of these little areas in the trees up here. And you can see, you know
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while we've got some defocused area here on the side, you can see that even here close to the edges
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you can see that that resolution is really consistent across the frame. Now what we can see
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if we move from f1.4 to f2 is you can see that there is a fair bit of vignette lift that is
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taking place and so you know it's a kind of a simple solution that if you're shooting jpegs
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or I mean you can choose to have them corrected or uncorrected but if you want to just kind of
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naturally eliminate vignette stopping down really does take care of a lot of that. We can see there
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is a little bit of uptick in our contrast. You can see that the darker areas are just a little
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bit darker, a little less of that haze that's there that really you can only see when you look at
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kind of the superior version stop down at F2. And so contrast going right out to the edge is even
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better. You know, maybe a mild amount more resolution along the edges of the frame. This
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is mostly a contrast increase and a vignette lift that you're seeing. From F2 to F2.8, again, just a
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minor, minor, you know, contrast increase. Not really a significant difference as you can see
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It looks more similar than different. A little less vignette once again and a little sharper and
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more contrasty out to the edge of the frame. So from f2.8 to f4, now we don't really see much of
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an increase. We've kind of hit maximal, although, you know, going off towards edge of the frame
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in the center, it looks pretty much as good as what it's going to be. Along the edge, you do see
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a mild uptick, and so we're kind of hitting towards optimal resolution here. From f4 to f5.6
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center looks mostly the same. Moving off towards the edge, there is, I think, ever so slightly
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increased resolution at f5.6, but not enough for you to really be able to perceive, I think
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in any kind of normal shooting situation. To give you a break from looking at the brick wall for a
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moment, here's F5.6 in a real world kind of shot. And so you can see lots and lots of resolution
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here I show you some different bricks instead But you can see as you look here along the very aspects of the bridge and also look at all the areas where the white snow is You can see that it handled those areas of high contrast really well Lots of resolution across the frame
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There's no question this is a very sharp lens. So just comparing a few smaller apertures, F8 and F16
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you can see that definitely resolution looks better at F8 than it does at F16
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That's true in the corners as well. However, the lens doesn't go completely soft
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at smaller apertures even with dealing with the diffraction of a higher resolution body
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And so, I mean, it's not the end of the world. You lose some contrast, but if you really want
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a very small aperture for a shot, I think you can get away with it with this lens
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Good color, good bokeh here. I like the kind of global look of the image
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looks nice there. Unsurprisingly, it's handled the contrast area as well. Here's another shot here you can see
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very thin depth of field, but very nice resolution, nice crisp edges to everything. And going towards
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defocus, it's handled a fairly busy background, quite nicely delivering a nice looking image
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A little bit further away from the subject, and so thus a little bit more look at the geometry
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you can see at f1.4 we've got some cat eye shapes here, stopping the lens down to f2. In f2.8
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you get more circular shapes across the frame. You can see great, great resolution and contrast
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here in our subject, which is kind of near the sweet spot, near the center of the frame
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But if we move out here towards the edge, you can see it looks really just as fantastic over here
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Now, here's an impressive shot for the simple reason that these kinds of transitions are
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you know, they're begging for some longitudinal chromatic aberration. What you can see instead
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is that really, really great contrast there. Fantastic. And everything is finally resolved here
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even at F1.4. And there really isn't any longitudinal chromatic aberration to be seen
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Again, another, you know, just nature kind of shot. As I get towards winter
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you'll see a lot of these kind of shots because it's about the only thing left on the trees
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But these beach leaves look really fantastic. And our bokeh, I think, looks very, very nice in this shot
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and so it's definitely capable of taking pretty pictures. So let's look at a few portraits here at f1.4
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This is on actually the EOS R and so IAF captured this eye over here
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Skin tones look good. You already know that it's a sharp lens
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and so you're just going to see more evidence of that but skin tones to me look natural, not plasticky at all
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Beautiful eyes that look beautiful. going outdoors. This is still on the EOS R and what we can see is we've got nice resolution here
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Then looking at our background, our background is really quite nice. We've got nice dimensionality
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of our subjects cut out from the background. So a very nice portrait lens, just another angle here
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And with both the cameras that I used it on, IAF worked well either on Canon EOS R or on the A7R
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Mark III. I got really good results. And here we'll finally look at a portrait on the A7R Mark III
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And so here we've got, you know, increased resolution and that just kind of shows off
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how much is there, how much punch is there, how much resolution is there for portrait work. And so
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again, it's a really, really strong lens. So as you can see, no real surprise is there. It pretty
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much does everything well. No real weakness that I can point to. It seems to do everything well
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from resolution corner to corner to having pretty good bokeh as well. I like the, as I said
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in that even the vignette has enough of a characteristic to it that it is somewhat
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Otis-like in that. And so I think that in many cases, particularly if you're shooting portraits
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or in a lot of situations, you may prefer leaving the vignette uncorrected. You'll maybe want to
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experiment with that for yourself. The one situations where I would say vignette is often
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not welcome is if you're shooting at maybe a snowy scene. Darkened snow just kind of looks like
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muddy snow. And so that's one area where I prefer not having vignette. But in many situations
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the vignette will actually add an attractive quality to that. So a lot of really good things
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going on there. And so we'll talk more about autofocus in the next episode. We'll also take
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look at a lot of video as a part of that and talk to you in relation to that. And I'll sum everything
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up in that final episode. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, if you will look in the description
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down below, I do have linkage to an image gallery with lots of photos there in a variety of situations
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And this time of year, a variety of weather conditions. And also you'll find linkage in
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the description to purchase one if you're looking to shop for yourself. There's also linkage there
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to follow me on social media or to become a patron. And of course, if you haven't already
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please click that subscribe button right here on YouTube. Thanks for watching. Have a great day

Sigma 40mm F1.4 ART Review Part 1 | 4K

Dustin Abbott

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Sigma 40mm F1.4 ART Review Part 1 | 4K

Dustin Abbott