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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today to give you my review of the four Sigma lenses that are in the D-N series
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And if you missed already, I took a first look at the build and the design of these lenses and some initial observations
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And you can find that in this video segment here. Today what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about these lenses
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because for whatever reason they have been a little bit obscured in that perhaps the mirrorless
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market has been not as large and they were released maybe before the craze really began
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on these lenses but one of the great challenges when you go to a new mirrorless system and
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Sony's is no different is the kind of dearth of decent, you know, wide
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aperture prime lenses. The kit lenses often tend to be quite slow in terms of their aperture
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variable aperture zoom lenses. And that was true when I was shooting Canon lenses. And so as a result
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you tend to look to third parties. And for whatever reason, third parties are those that provide
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a little bit more support for that. Now, there's one key area where I've become a fan of Sony's as
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compared to Canon. And as you know, I'm primarily a Canon shoot
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But one thing that Canon does is it is very restrictive when it comes to third-party lenses
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and built-in profiles into the camera bodies themselves. And so if you are shooting with a non-canon lens, you can forget there being a profile
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for it to correct for chromatic aberrations or distortion or, you know, what they call peripheral
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illumination, what we typically refer to as vignette. But Sony, thankfully, is much more kind of open source when it comes to that
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And so that means that there are stored profiles. It makes processing images easier
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If you're shooting JPEGs, it means you can get in-camera correction. But it also tends to the way that the Sony system works is that it stores profiles even into the raw files
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And so I just find in the workflow and Lightroom, it makes it very easy to use
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It also makes things, Lend is a little bit harder to evaluate because there tends to be a lot of correction that is baked into the
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system and so you see kind of more the end result with the electronic trickery that has
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already been incorporated, less so than the raw results of the lenses themselves
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That being said, you know, that's going to be true for basically all the lenses that I'm
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going to be reviewing on Sony e systems And so as a result at least the playing field is level because Sony does allow third party profiles as well So it not just Sony lenses that are getting corrected There are some excellent Zeiss Sony lenses when it comes to some of their primes
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But those also tend to be on the pricier end of the spectrum
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So for those of you that are not looking to break the bank and you don't necessarily need a huge maximum aperture
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you have some great options in these very compact little Sigma Dn primes
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Now the DN primes from Sigma, three of them right now are designated in the Art Series
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and they are a 19mm F2.8, a 30 millimeter F2.8, that's what I've got here
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And then there is a 60 millimeter F2.8 as well. And all of the 2.8 lenses are really nice and compact
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and obviously some very useful focal links. And so the 60 millimeter, for example
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you know, as you apply Sony's 1.5 times crop factor, that's a 90 millimeter F2.8
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Well, that makes it a very useful, you know, portrait general purpose shooting lens
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30 millimeters is a 45 millimeter equivalent, which I shoot the Tamron 45 millimeter on full frame
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because it is a great focal length. It's perfectly around the normal range
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It's a very useful focal length. The 19 millimeters roughly corresponds to 28 millimeters
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Maybe not quite as wide as what I would like, but a useful focal length nonetheless
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There is a fourth current option, and it's the one I've got here
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I'm actually filming on one also, and that is the 30-millimeter F-1.4
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Now, of course, that F-1.4 aperture is very attractive, and although this one is priced a little bit more than the other lenses
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the other lenses in the series are, they are bargains. right around 200 bucks a piece, brand new retail
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It's very hard to find lenses that are nice primes like this
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They've got a lot of metal in their construction. They've got autofocus
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And of course, I understand that a lot of people were looking for OS built into the actual primes themselves or the lenses themselves
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And no, these do not have OS built in. However, if you're shooting with one of Sony's most recent camera bodies
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it means that that's really not really as much of an issue as it used to be since Sony has added ibis embody image stabilization into the camera bodies themselves
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And so fortunately, that's a little less of an issue than what it might have been
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Truth be told, however, none of these focal lengths are so long that they're difficult to handhold
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The hardest would be the 60 millimeter but thankfully I reviewing on a Sony A6500 that has Sony steady shot built right into it And so as a result I have found these just that adds that extra bit of versatility And it is one of the primary reasons of considering an upgrade to one of Sony newer
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mirrorless bodies for that reason. But anyway, the 30 millimeter F1.4, for whatever reason, although it is the most art-like
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of these series in terms of being most similar in design philosophy, look, maximum aperture
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to Sony's, you know, art series of lenses, it's actually. actually a contemporary lens for whatever reason. And so that's a little conundrum that I haven't
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yet quite solved yet. But all of these have their own sets of versatility. They all have some
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strengths and weaknesses. But one thing that is very consistent across the bunch is that the
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autofocus is about as silent as I have ever heard. And that makes these really attractive for those
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that are going to want to shoot video with them. Now, the one downside that I have found with video
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use is that they don't always do face tracking as well as some other lenses that I've used
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And so that can be a little bit inconsistent. And the other thing when it comes to autofocus
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is that while all autofocus modes are available, I find that if you are shooting with some of them
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particularly the wider angle ones, if you're shooting with them in AFC or continue focus mode
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they will tend to hunt a little bit, whereas surprisingly if you're shooting in more of a single shot
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AF-type mode, they lock on extremely quickly without any kind of hesitation. I don't quite know what
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the reason is for that quirk, but you're going to get your best behavior in modes other than
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AFC when you are actually using these lens in a lot of situations. But I've actually been
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very pleasantly surprised with a lot of the optical characteristics of these lens. Some of you have
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noted and commented on some of my recent videos on how sharp and crisp they look. And they certainly
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work very well with 4K modes on a body like the Sony A6500. I tend to shoot them wide open for
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these videos and so the smaller ones I'm shooting at F2.8 and they provide a nice separation, that's
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shallow depth of field that I'm looking for but really great color and contrast and a lot of times
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truth be told I'm taking the footage right out of the camera and I'm doing some editing but not
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color grading and I am just submitting that because they're producing just great looking results
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And so I'm really pleased with that. And of course, as I've said, there's some digital trickery
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at work. But bottom line is that I'm getting really nice optical results out of these lenses. They're
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nice and sharp. Distortion is good on most all of them. Actually, the most distortion that I have noted
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is from the 30 millimeter F1 which does have a little bit more distortion than the others do And of course most of that is corrected in camera but in certain situations there a little bit of curvature that actually escaped from the profile which tells me that it is actually fairly extreme Again because of corrections taking place I not noting
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Vignette as being an issue with any of these lenses, but I'm also not noting really issues with
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chromatic aberration. Flair resistance seems to be pretty decent on them. And so all in all
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these are surprisingly good optical lenses for the price that they come at
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And as I've noted, this one is a little bit more expensive, but it's still really not all that expensive at around $339 for an F1.4 Prime
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particularly one with as good optics as this, and take a look at some of the kind of Boca quality if you get close to things or reasonably close
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It really produces some nice looking images. And so I'm really quite pleased with its performance
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The 60 millimeter is a nice portrait lens if you're looking for something to do quick portraits with
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I also find that all of them work quite well. One of the things that I like about the A6500 is it does have the ability that when you hold the camera up to shoot
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you can use your thumb on the touchscreen to shift out of whatever focus mode you happen to be in
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and actually move a focus point around and you can tag that over an eye or a place that you want to pull focus on
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And these lenses all work quite well with that. no hesitation when it comes to that. And so all in all, I think that Sigma has done a great job
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in providing some affordable options for those that are looking for some prime lenses that
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provide better optics, maybe better light gathering potential than some of your slower, you know
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kit-type zoom lenses. And so I think that they are well worth consideration, particularly, as I've
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mentioned, if you have one of Sony's newer bodies that already has the steady shot optical stabilization
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built into the body itself. And that kind of renders the lack of OS in these lenses
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you know, a moot point at that. And so all in all, I think that you will find them well worth your consideration
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particularly at the price point that they're at. If you'll take a look in my description down below
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you can find an image gallery there and from each one of these lenses
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and so you can maybe get a sense of what they're capable of. I try to submit a lot of images there
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that really have little to know post-processing, and so you can really get a sense of how
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what kind of images these actually produce on an A6500 body. And of course, if you haven't already
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you can follow me on social media. You can become one of my patrons at my Patreon account
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And if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button. Thanks for watching. Have a great day
