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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you a review of what is the third
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autofocusing full-frame 50mm lens from Sigma in the last year alone. We have seen them release small, medium and large, if you want to call it that, options
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in an F2, F1.4 and now F1.2 version, though fortunately here large is relative in that
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frankly this lens isn't really any bigger than what the 50mm F1.4 was
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And that is a huge relief considering how huge Sigma's excellent but very large 35mm
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F1.2 lens was. The first F1.2 lens on Sony E-mount and I believe on Leica L-mount as well
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And of course this lens is released for both of those mounts as well
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This lens really does give a pretty nice advantage to those platforms in that all of the first
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party 50mm F1.2 lenses from Sony, Canon and Nikon are all both larger and much, much more
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expensive than what this lens is, giving us a nice advantage on Sony E-mount or L-mount
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You can get this lens for $1,399 right under $1,400. So here on Sony that is a good $600 cheaper than what the G Master F1.2 lens is
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So is this a lens outside of the excellent price? Is this a lens that you should consider if you're looking for a premium 50mm F1.2 lens
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Well we're going to dive in together and find out right after a word from our sponsor
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you're ready to check out. So as noted this lens fortunately in size is nothing like the 35mm F1.2
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That lens was actually one of Sigma's first dedicated mirrorless designs on Sony E-mount
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for example where I reviewed it years ago and myself like many others really love the
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performance of the lens but we found that the size just meant that there was more appealing
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options that were more compact. Sigma has avoided that particular pitfall here by making this lens really moderate in size
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So it is 81mm in diameter so that is less than 3mm wider than what the 50mm F1.4 is
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That's 3.2 inches. It also retains the same 72mm front filter thread as what we saw on the 50mm F1.4 lens
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from Sigma. The lens is right under 111mm in length or 4.4 inches which ironically is actually 1mm
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shorter than what the 50mm F1.4 is. Now because the glass elements inside are larger and heavier the lens is a little bit
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heavier than the F1.4 version but it weighs in at only 740g or 26oz
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So that is less than 80g heavier than what the F1.4 version is and more importantly when
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you compare to the Sony G Master that is 40g less and already the Sony G Master was easily
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the lightest of the competing lenses from Canon, the RF 50mm F1.2 or the Nikon 50mm
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F1.2 S lens. In the case of the Nikon that lens weighs almost 1100g and so much, much larger
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It's 150mm in length so 40mm longer and of course close to 400g heavier
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So obviously we have a pretty significant advantage when it comes to the size and the
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weight of this lens. Now despite being moderate in size this is getting Sigma's very best when it comes to
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build quality. We have a thorough weather sealing that starts at the lens mount, there are internal seals
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there is a special coating on the front element to help with fingerprints and moisture there
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We also get their full feature set so when it comes to the aperture ring you have the
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ability to have clicks in the aperture, you have the ability to declick the aperture and
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so you can do smooth video aperture racking as you see in this shot here
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You also have the ability to use their aperture lock which allows you to either lock this
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into only the manual focus ring and so you don't inadvertently go into the automatic
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mode or if you're not a manual focus ring or manual aperture ring I should say person
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at all you can lock it into the automatic mode where you control it from within the
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camera just like you would a lens without an aperture ring. So lots of controls there
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We do have the AF-MF switch on the side along with a custom button or focus hold type button
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I will note in that case that's the only place where this lens falls at all behind the G-Master
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lenses in that they have dual focus hold buttons or custom buttons and so you can have them
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in multiple positions. But I mean I think that most people can probably live without that additional button for $600
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And we actually have a really really high aperture blade count. There are 13 blades in this aperture iris so that does a couple of things
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First of all as you can see it retains a really circular shape even stopped down to about
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f5.6 here you can see how circular that aperture iris is. But then on top of that it does make for a unique if somewhat busy 26 bladed Sun-Star
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and so anyway it's obviously the goal here is more about retaining a circular shape so
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you have nice circular specular highlights, bokeh highlights with the lens itself
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Now the manual focus ring here is heavier damp than what the GM lenses are but I prefer
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that actually because there's more feel to it. It feels more like direct manual focus emulation than what I typically see on the G-Master
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lenses that are a little bit light. Both of the 50mm lenses are a little light for my taste thus have a little less feel
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to them. So I actually prefer the slightly heavier damping here of the Sigma
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It also comes as is typical with Sigma lenses it comes with the lens hood which is a cut
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above very sturdy very nicely made has some different texture variations on there and
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it feels very very substantial. It's plastic but it's very high quality plastics and it also comes with a padded nylon case
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for portability and so that is obviously very welcome as well. Also improved here is that you have a shorter minimum focus distance rather than 45 centimeters
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on the 50mm f1.4 we can focus as closely as 40 centimeters here that bumps up the maximum
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magnification from 0.15 up to 0.16 and for comparison the 50mm f1.2 G-Master can get
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you as high as 0.17 times so definitely within the same ballpark
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Overall here we have a really nicely executed package very nice materials it feels like
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a premium lens it's got a premium feature set but fortunately it is not massive so that
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is a great formula Sigma keep hitting that one. Now they've also thrown out all the stops when it comes to the autofocus performance
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here so this is the first lens that I have seen where it doesn't they haven't really
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marketed it but when I dug into the specifications I found that there's actually dual HLA which
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is their high their high speed linear actuator a high response linear actuator so it's high
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speed linear focus motor so this is the first time that I've seen that they actually have
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two there's two different focusing groups here so there's one motor attached to each
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one of the focus groups so that is increasing obviously the overall power needed for autofocus
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meaning that even with these large you know elements that are glass elements that are
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part of an f1.2 lens autofocus is super fast it's near instant performance from you know
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close to infinity so normal focus changes are definitely instantaneous it's very smooth
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and quiet and operation I have zero complaints on that front there all as well also I found
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that eye stickiness when it came to portrait work was fantastic I found that I was basically
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all of my focus results were perfect and I was shooting through different objects you
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know things in the foreground different focus distances now obviously at f1.2 your your
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plane of field is going to be very very narrow in many situations so it's not unusual for
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example to have your the eye that is focused on if the you know if the subject's face is
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not flat the eye that's focused on is going to be in focus while the other eye will be out of focus that's a depth of field issue though and what's what's more important is
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that always autofocus the focus results were accurate on the subject's eye also found in
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shooting for example shots of Nala that I was able to get the same kind of perfect focus
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on the actual iris not on the eyelash or brow but on the iris itself just the place where
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you want focus to be also found on the the video front that I was able to get smooth
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focus transitions and the focus pools they're quick they're confident there's no settling
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or pulsing hesitation just does exactly what you want there likewise good results with
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my hand test and and so that the transitions from the eye to the hand and vice versa were
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all nice and quick and you'll also notice in these series of tests that focus breathing
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is nicely controlled it's not extreme a little bit less in fact than what we saw on the 50mm
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f1.4 now the only thing I would say for Sony shooters that are looking for the absolute
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optimal autofocus performance is simply this the 50mm f1.2 G Master it actually has quad
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XD linear focus motors and more importantly if you're using one of the sport bodies it
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also has the ability to you know focus up to 30 frames per second if you're shooting
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on an alpha 1 or even higher on the new a9 mark 3 whereas we're going to be capped at
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15 frames per second for the Sigma lens for most people that's really a non-issue and
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frankly I don't know how many people are using a 50mm lens for sports use anyway but if you
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happen to fall into that small niche where you need absolute performance you want to
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shoot 50mm focal length you want to shoot sports you want to shoot really high speed
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bursts the GM lens is going to still going to be a little bit better because it has even
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more focus power available to it and more importantly it is not artificially constrained
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by Sony in the way that the Sigma is that's not Sigma's problem that's a Sony thing but
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it is important to put that out there outside of that autofocus is perfect though I don't
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think you're going to have any issues with it for either photo or video work now let's
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take a look at the image quality side of things and very interestingly Sigma's shared with
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me this this graph that shows if you look at the MTF charts from the 50mm f1.2 and then
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the 50mm f1.4 you'll see that the f1.2 lens is certainly capable of achieving improved
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sharpness in both the center and the mid-frame essentially the rule of thirds is going to
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be sharper on the f1.2 lens with the f1.4 lens doing a little bit better in the corners
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though it's by a very very small margin and so as I actually begin to examine that and
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by the way if you would prefer the detailed breakdown stay tuned till the end and we'll
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do our detailed image quality breakdown at that point but what I found is that there's
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actually better distortion and vignette control on the f1.2 lens versus the f1.4 the vignette
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thing actually surprised me when you consider that the diameter is not hardly any different
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and the front filter thread size is the same with the f1.4 and f1.2 you would think that
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the math would actually favor the f1.4 lens but in fact I found that the f1.2 lens actually
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did a better job of controlling vignette in the corners and also there is a there's about
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half of the amount of distortion there so definitely improved in those two metrics I
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also found that in real world use now in chart testing both the f1.4 and the f1.2 lenses
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from Sigma they chart really well when it comes to the control of like longitudinal
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chromatic aberrations fringing before and after the plane of focus but what I found
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is that in real world situations I saw a little bit more fringing on the f1.4 than I expected
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whereas the f1.2 lens behaved more similar to what I would expect and that those aberrations
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are better controlled so I'd say real world aberration control better on the f1.2 lens
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I also found when I begin to actually break down image quality shooting on a 61 megapixel
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a7R Mark V and looking even at 200% magnification I found that there is a really even sharpness
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profile all across the frame obviously the center is sharper than what the corner is
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but the corner is still already at a very high level from early on and so as I did kind
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of direct comparisons back across the major 50 millimeter players on Sony I found that
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when it comes to the f1.2 G Master I found that the Sigma is very slightly sharper in
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the center of the frame and the G Master is a little bit sharper in the corner of
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the frame that is the same kind of scenario when it comes to the f1.4 Sigma lens in that
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this lens is definitely sharper in the center of the frame whereas I did find that and of
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course mid-frame also favors this as we saw from the MTF chart with the corners very slightly
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favoring the Sigma f1.4 now actually the sharpest lens in the center of the frame is Sony's
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50 millimeter f1.4 G Master which definitely hits the highest levels that I think I've
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probably ever seen on a 50 millimeter lens in the center of the frame likewise in the
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mid-frame the G Master is a little bit sharper but in the corners definitely the Sigma is
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a little bit better the point is is that this lens competes with the very best lenses that
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I could compare it to and it comes out looking really really great it's at a similar or better
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level than most of those lenses with some give and take here and there I found that
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it sharpened up more particularly by f1.8 then by f2.8 you're basically flawless all
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across the frame extremely sharp corners and that remains true through f5.6 f by f8 there
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is a tiny regression due to diffraction that diffraction becomes more obvious on a high
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resolution body at f11 and of course even more obvious at f16 which is the minimum aperture
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when it comes to the bokeh side of things here's where I was more intrigued to see how
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Sigma did because my experience with Sigma lenses is that they tend to be really really
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well corrected so that means that they do really great in chart test and sharpness test
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sometimes the overall rendering from the lens isn't quite as magical I would say that's
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true here though I think that Sigma has done a pretty good job overall I found that specular
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highlights were nice and clean there isn't any kind of concentric circles in them so
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that part is fine I found that there is a little bit more edging than what I would like
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right now it's you know it's late March it's not a pretty season outside there's a lot
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of bare things and so those bare branches that are harder edges they're not quite as
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smoothly damped as what I would like not quite as good I think as the 50mm f1.2 G Master
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lens but overall I found that the bokeh you know it's it's nice it's just not it's not
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I wouldn't call it magical the way that I felt a the 50mm f1.2 G Master or even the
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Canon RF 50mm f1.2 I say I would prefer the bokeh quality from both of those lenses at
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the same time I found that Sigma's colors look good images have a nice crisp look to
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them nice delineation that stands out flare resistance is also an area of relative strength
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I would say that this lens does quite well even pointed into the Sun and so that's not
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something that all large aperture lenses do well so in conclusion there is really very
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very very few flaws other than what I would call a subjective observation that you know
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the bokeh quality is probably a little bit better on some of the top competing first
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party lenses so in conclusion all of the first party 50mm lenses they are bigger they are
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heavier in some cases much heavier and they are all much more expensive the G Master is
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actually the cheapest of those f1.2 competitors at about $2,000 you'll find that the Nikon
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is about $2,200 and the Canon $2,300 so when you're getting into that range you're talking
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about $600 $800 and $900 respectively more that you would have to pay relative to the
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Sigma lens which obviously is a pretty compelling argument for the Sigma lens it is hard to
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argue against the value here when really the lens does everything well and something that's
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not always the case for Sigma they've really done a great job of keeping the size and the
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weight down while still achieving all of the optical high marks and so I think that this
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is a really really strong offering from Sigma you'll have to make a determination whether
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or not you know you are willing to move to a third party lens but what this lens does
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do is it gives you I think a really nice alternative if you're interested in the idea of an f1.2
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aperture versus a lens say like the Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master which is only a hundred
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dollars cheaper but obviously you're getting an f1.2 versus an f1.4 lens that creates a
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whole other interesting set of buying considerations but we are so fortunate to live in a market
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on Sony E-mount and then also on L-mount where there are just so many great lens options
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available at this point this is yet another one if you want more information you can either
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look in the description and check out my written review look out the image gallery
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there are some buying links there though of course this lens is brand new as of today
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and so it'll take a little bit for some of those to populate now if you want an even
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deeper dive into the performance of the lens stay tuned right now we'll do our optical
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So we'll start off by taking a look at the vignette and distortion and as I alluded to earlier you can see that there is really not extreme amounts of either you can see
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there's just a little bit of a pin cushion distortion that little bit of a kind of inward
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bulge that's taking place there and then obviously towards the corners a little bit more concentrated
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vignette now the easiest way to deal with that will be via the correction profile which
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will be available no problem but for me to give you a manual correction it allows me
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to show what's actually going on in this case I used a minus 4 to correct for that you can
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see it's not a flawless correction and that's where a correction profile will do a better
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job vignetting is plus 65 and so that's a little over two stops again not bad for an
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f 1.2 lens and for perspective you can see that there's much more pin cushion distortion
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on the f 1.4 lens and also even the vignette itself is heavier I do use a minus 8 compared
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to a minus 4 and then a plus 84 to correct for the vignette so significantly more telling
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me that Sigma's done a good job of managing both of those things on this f 1.2 lens now
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when I look side by side for my chart testing frankly both look pretty similar when it comes
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to the amount of longitudinal chromatic aberrations with just a little bit less showing for the
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f 1.2 lens shown here but in real world shots which is what matters most to me I found that
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the f 1.2 lens it performed better I just didn't see some of the surprise fringing I
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saw on the f 1.4 so we can see here in this transition it's quite neutral there's no
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outlining around these bokeh highlights so that's nice and clean likewise here where
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there's a lot of reflective things on a narrow plane of focus you can see that once again
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there's not any fringing and so that allows our real world kind of micro contrast to be
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very strong this shot in particular stands out because basically I have intentionally
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used the front of our stove which has these very shiny chrome knobs so it is a breeding
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ground for chromatic aberrations you can see it's really well controlled here and so just
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not an issue really at all likewise with the lateral type of chromatic aberrations you
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can see that there are very few of them and here in the edge of the frame there's just
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really nothing to see even before correction so all that has positive consequences when
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it comes to the overall sharpness and contrast so here 61 megapixels of resolution 200 magnification
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in the center of the frame things look really nice and crisp no problems there the mid frame
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is looking good and as we scroll down here you can see that it's holding on good even
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towards the outer part of the rule of thirds and down into the edges again there's lots
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of detail that's there now quick comparison to a few of the other lenses I will give the
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quick caveat that I tested the 50mm f1.2 G Master and then the Sigma 50mm f1.4 on
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the Sony Alpha 1 so it's 50 megapixels versus 61 megapixels nonetheless if we compare the
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two side by side we can see that in the center of the frame both of them really look excellent
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there's not really much give or take there but I would say that Sigma is possibly just
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a little bit stronger in the mid frame I would say that the G Master is has just a tiny
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edge but it is very minuscule as we scroll down here we can see that contrast is looking
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good across both of these I would say that the G Master is just a little bit better in
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terms of the contrast and the fine detail in this zone right here and as we get down
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to the very corner we can see that the G Master has just the tiniest of edges but you can
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see across the frame both lenses are really close comparing to the f1.4 Sigma we can see
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that center of the frame I would favor the f1.2 lens you can see there's better contrast
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and just more detail and some of the textures there on the bill in the mid frame the same
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is true though I would say that the f1.4 G Master recovers pretty well there and so it
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is probably every bit as good in that zone looking down in this area here I would favor
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the f1.4 lens and its strength kind of rises as you get towards the edge where I would
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say here at the edge it is very slightly better but for most of the rule of third
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zones I would say that I would take the f1.2 lens though it's not by much then finally
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versus the f1.4 G Master now both of these are going to be on the a7r V you can see in
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the middle of the frame the G Master is just off the charts good you can see this more
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pattern that's beginning because there's just so much detail and contrast that is there
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looking at the mid frame you can see that the f1.4 G Master is it's flawless basically
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in the mid frame the rule of third zones it is very very strong so in this zone I'm actually
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surprised the difference is not all that significant I would say that the GM is ever so slightly
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better but it's not by much and then as we get towards the corner here's where the Sigma
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has a bit of an edge I would say both the contrast and then the detail you can see here
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in this writing it's just better than what it is in the G Master lens but to give you
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real world context on what that looks like here at f1.2 taking a look at Nala's face
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you can see that that precision and detail the contrast delineating all these little
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tiny textures it just does a fabulous job I mean that's a lot of line pairs right there
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that are beautifully rendered so stopping down to f1.4 really doesn't make much of a
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difference here you can see as we pop around that not much of a difference even in the
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corner but there is more of an improvement from f1.4 to f1.8 and by f1.8 I would say
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we're getting close to what we saw on the 50 millimeter f1.4 G Master in terms of that
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really brilliant center performance you can see in the mid frame too that now we're getting
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to excellent levels from f2 to f2.8 there's a little bit more of a bump you're gonna mostly
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see it here in the corners where now the detail is just fabulous from corner to corner
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f4 and f5.6 obviously continue to look fantastic and that's true anywhere that we look we can
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pop around and look at different spots in the frame and you'll just see just a consistently
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strong performance there's a tiny regression at f8 that you probably won't hardly notice
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due to diffraction but at f11 becomes a little bit more noticeable and then by f16 minimum
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aperture even though this is still good compared to what this lens is capable of diffraction
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has robbed us of some contrast and detail this lens also does well not just in terms
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of the amount of magnification which is very slightly better than average but it also does
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a pretty good job up close and you can see that depth of field it's not a completely
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flat plane of focus but you can see where we have depth of field very very nice detail
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even at f1.2 and yes that will drop a little bit towards the edge but you can see it still
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looks quite good so that means that close focus distance shots are going to have very
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nice detail and of course it allows with that f1.2 aperture allows backgrounds to be strongly
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blurred but you can see there's still good contrast on the narrow depth of field I thought
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this shot really stood out to me because I was shooting at a really really fine you know
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just kind of the edge of this rolled piece of bark you can see that detail and contrast
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is great fringing is well controlled and then the bokeh quality is nice and soft in
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this shot here's another shot that overall I really like the look of and so again it's
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narrow depth of field but good contrast and detail there the bokeh is nice although as
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noted earlier in my summation there's a little bit more outlining the what I would like but
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it's kind of picking at straws there it really looks quite good this shot is a little busier
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than what I would like but it's also a really busy background and so maybe I'm expecting
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too much for that to be beautifully resolved but I mean you can see that the detail is
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fabulous just a bit more of the hard edges on this admittedly very very complicated scene
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now this combines for portrait work here I put a lot of stuff in the foreground to produce
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a natural framing you can see the foreground looks good and then the amount of detail on
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the subject is beautiful now going towards this background here as we'll see in just
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a moment I think that the GM I think best this a bit but overall I mean it's a beautiful
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portrait result same kind of things here I mean as far as the detail on the subject really
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really great in this I would like this to be creamier than what it is and again maybe
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that's expecting too much the lighting this particular day was was fairly harsh and so
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that doesn't help here's another more full-length shot and the great thing about a 50 millimeter
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f1.2 is that you can shoot and even at f1.2 you know that all of the subject is in focus
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but that's about as deep as depth of field is so right after the subject things start
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to shift to out of focus which allows you to have that kind of cutout effect of your
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subject now while this is the exact same spot it's not the same season nor is it the same
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lighting and so I don't want to read too much into this but you can see this shot that
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was taken on the 50 millimeter f1.2 G Master that it does have just a little bit more pleasing
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a look in the out of focus areas they're just a little bit softer as you can see and I feel
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like they've just blurred away a little bit more now again you need true apples to apples
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comparison before you draw too many conclusions but I'm also basing this on my overall feel
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this shot for example the bokeh is just really really creamy from it and so I really love
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the 50 millimeter f1.2 G Master as a portrait lens and I just didn't see any images where
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I felt like the Sigma was quite that lovely finally as noted flare resistance is really
28:40
strong particularly at large apertures here at f1.2 that's pretty much flawless you stop
28:45
down to f11 way down you get this tiny bit of a ghosting pattern but nothing significant
28:51
and again as we pan back and forth you can see wide open basically flawless and then
28:56
as we stop it down again to f11 there's that little bit of ghosting pattern but it is so
29:01
well controlled for a massive aperture lens like this overall obviously this is a great
29:07
image quality performance from top to bottom so you are one of the diehards of the stuck
29:12
to the very end you're one of my favorites thanks for watching have a great day and let