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Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN II | ART Review: A Worthy Upgrade?
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May 16, 2024
Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a deep dive review into Sigma's second generation 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN II | ART lens for Sony E and Leica L mounts. Is it worth upgrading to? | This video is sponsored by Fantom Wallet. Visit https://store.fantomwallet.com and use code DUSTIN20 to get 20% off | Read the Text Review: https://tinyurl.com/24-70DNIIreview | Visit the Image Gallery: https://tinyurl.com/24-70DNpics | Purchase the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 DN II @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3UAV7i4 | Nuzira https://tinyurl.com/24-70DNIInz | Adorama https://howl.me/cmf5vxFJFNr | Amazon https://amzn.to/3UHIz8W | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/4j8ha | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3QOhKid | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/44GlUhP | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/3K4AzK2 Check out the DA Merch here: https://bit.ly/TWIMerch | Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/dustinabbott | On the Web: http://dustinabbott.net/ | Sign up for my Newsletter: http://bit.ly/1RHvUNp | Instagram: http://bit.ly/DLAinsta | Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1nuUUeH | Flickr: http://bit.ly/1UcnC0B | 500px: http://bit.ly/1Sy2Ngu Follow Craig @ https://www.instagram.com/craigstoffersen/ Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo: http://bhpho.to/1TA0Xge Adorama: https://howl.me/cjU0LKdp3LN Camera Canada: http://bit.ly/DLACameraCan Sony Canada: https://www.thesonyshop.ca/?ref=abbott Amazon: https://amzn.to/3HrY64d Amazon Canada: https://amzn.to/3qG1p18 Ebay: http://bit.ly/DustineBay Into the AM Clothing: https://bit.ly/intotheAMda and use code DUSTIN10 for 10% off Make a donation via Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/dustinTWI ============================= Table of Contents: ============================= 0:00 - Intro 1:06 - Fantom Wallets
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott. Sigma released their 24-70mm f2.8 DN Art Lens at the beginning
0:17
of 2020 and it has certainly been a success. But both Tamron with their 28-75mm f2.8 G2
0:25
and Sony with their 24-70mm f2.8 GM Mark II have since released second generation lenses
0:33
that brought new optical, feature and autofocus upgrades to their respective lenses. Sigma
0:39
has worked to keep their 24-70mm competitive by bringing out a new Mark II version of the
0:45
zoom with new features, less weight, faster autofocus and a few optical improvements
0:52
It remains in that sweet spot of price vs performance, but is the new Sigma 24-70mm
1:00
f2.8 GM Mark II the standard zoom to buy? Find out today in my review
1:06
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Out of curiosity I asked Sigma if I could have one of the first generation lenses to
1:58
borrow to compare to this new Mark II version and so I could really get a sense of what
2:04
has changed with them side by side. It's allowed me to do some more direct comparisons which
2:08
I appreciate. So there are a number of actual new features that are included on this new
2:13
design. There is now an aperture ring which didn't exist in the Mark I lens. There's an
2:19
additional custom or function button that is on the top of the lens to allow you to
2:23
have access to one even when shooting in a vertical position. There is the ability to
2:27
de-click the aperture now which is very handy obviously for video work. There's an aperture
2:32
iris lock that gives you again a little bit more control over how that aperture ring is
2:37
going to function. You can either lock into it if you prefer to do manual adjustments
2:42
or you can lock out of it if you don't really like having an aperture ring. There is a redesign
2:47
to the way that the switches are handled. Whereas before there was a raised bank of
2:51
switches that adds maybe unnecessary bulk to the lens, they've streamlined that by now
2:56
having flush mounted actual in the lens barrel itself the switches and buttons as opposed
3:02
to being in a raised bank. Now the visual differences are a little bit subtle at first
3:08
and you can see from different perspectives that the lens overall if you first look at
3:13
it they look very very similar in size. And part of that is because they still taper to
3:18
the same large diameter up at front. It's 87.8 millimeters in diameter with a quite
3:24
large 82 millimeter front filter thread. So that aspect hasn't changed but what has changed
3:30
is the actual width of the barrel itself. And as mentioned there is the removal of the
3:35
bulk of the raised bank but also they've just made the actual diameter of the majority
3:40
of the lens a little bit slimmer. And it's also just a little bit shorter. Though in
3:46
my tests comparing them side by side we're talking about a millimeter so it's not a significant
3:52
difference in overall length but it all adds up to some definite weight savings. And that's
3:57
where the most noticeable improvement here is. The weight has dropped from 835 grams
4:03
down to 735 grams. So it's gone on a diet of 100 grams. That's about 26 ounces in total
4:10
weight here. Now unfortunately with the second generation of the Tamron which admittedly
4:15
has a different kind of zoom ratio 28 to 75 millimeters is not the same to design for
4:20
as 24 to 70 millimeters because that 4 millimeters on the wide end is the real challenge there
4:27
So it was always lighter and smaller than what the Sigma was but Sony has done a better
4:33
job with their G Master Mark II lens of really reducing the size and the weight. And so it
4:38
now actually is lighter than what the Sigma lens is even though the Sigma has been reduced
4:43
in its overall weight. I really appreciate how well they have integrated their new aperture
4:49
ring here. The way that they've added it it's not something that adds bulk or size to the
4:53
lens but really it just fits into a natural taper on the lens and it functions really
4:58
really well. There are the clearly defined clicks if you're in the click mode at the
5:02
one third stop points. You can again lock into the A or automatic position if you so
5:08
desire and then if you de-click that you can smoothly rack through all of the aperture
5:13
possibilities which does give you extra flexibility for video recording. And so again I really
5:18
appreciate that well integrated change there. I will also note that even though the ratio
5:25
of the rings has changed with the addition of a third ring I think that Sigma's done
5:30
a great job from different aspects of balancing the lens design. I think it's a little bit
5:35
more of a comprehensive design than the older lens. Again it's subtle but you can really
5:39
notice it with them side by side. And so what has happened is that both the zoom and the
5:45
manual focus rings have become necessarily slimmer to accommodate a third ring on the
5:50
lens design. But even though it's smaller in its diameter I do think that this manual
5:54
focus ring is better integrated. It has a better damping to it and so it has a lot more
5:59
feel. On the first lens it was really light not a lot of feel there whereas this new lens
6:04
has a better damped feeling and so it makes for a better true manual focus experience
6:09
So I also appreciate that. Now inside again not necessarily visible from the outside but
6:15
if you take a look inside there has been an increase of the aperture blades from 9 to
6:20
11. So that has a dual purpose. Number one allows for a more circular aperture iris when
6:26
the lens is stopped down. Always appreciated. But I also actually really like the look of
6:30
the 22 pointed sun stars that come off of that as opposed to the 18 pointed sun stars
6:35
that the earlier lens had. And so again well implemented there. They've made a few tweaks
6:40
that allow the lens to focus even closer than what it could before. Now as before we have
6:45
two different minimum focus distances one on the wide end one on the telephoto end
6:51
So on the wide end you can get now as close as 17 centimeters as opposed to 18 centimeters
6:56
before. Now because this is a fairly large lens it means that that actually falls inside
7:01
the lens hood and as you can see from this shot to get my my test shot I had to basically
7:05
be right on top of the chart. So with something that's flat like that it's very difficult
7:09
to get adequate light to the subject. So not a great application there. Maybe a little
7:13
bit easier in some kind of outdoor or three dimensional objects where you can get close
7:18
to a certain point. Though note that you really will emphasize things like you know field
7:23
curvature and overall distortion when you're really really close to a subject like that
7:28
However if you can get in the right conditions you can get as high as 0.37 times magnification
7:34
And I don't think that that's as useful as an actual macro lens that has a decent working
7:38
distance but it's nice to have that option and it means for video for shooting on the
7:42
wide end basically if you got the lens hood on you can focus right up until you're bumping
7:47
the lens hood onto something. So that in itself is going to be useful. On the telephoto end
7:52
the minimum focus distance has also been reduced from I believe 38 centimeters down to 34 centimeters
7:59
So that increases the magnification there from 0.22 times to 0.25 times. And so again
8:05
more useful and with this there's a little bit better working distance. And so I though
8:09
that magnification level is lower practically it's a little bit easier to get shots like
8:14
that out in the real world. And so again a nice improvement there. Now some of you complained
8:20
about this first generation lens when it came to pumping dust inside of it. And so I do
8:25
know that we have a thorough weather sealing here. Hopefully improved in that point. I'm
8:30
sure that Sigma has received that feedback. I don't shoot in a particularly dusty environment
8:34
so I don't always see what you may see in a more dusty environment. And so I mean the
8:39
proof is going to be in the pudding obviously as to whether or not the improvements to the
8:44
weather sealing have helped with this. But certainly it is something I know that Sigma
8:50
is continually working on to improve. In sum total here we have a lens that is a little
8:56
bit shorter. It is slimmer. It is lighter but it's added a number of new features to
9:01
it. So that obviously is a core improvement. This is a very professional grade zoom lens
9:06
that has all the features that Sony's top tier G Master lens does. Though price point
9:11
here is 1200 US dollars as opposed to 2300 US dollars for the Sony. So you're getting
9:17
a lot of bang for your buck here. And that is certainly very very welcome. Another key
9:22
area of improvement is with the autofocus. In the last basically year and a half Sigma
9:27
has developed an all new autofocus system which they call HLA which stands for high
9:32
speed linear actuator. And so rather than an SDM based focus motor this is more of a
9:37
linear style motor that they say in the proper conditions can get up to three times more
9:42
thrust or maximum drive speed compared to the focus motor in the older lens. Now that
9:47
doesn't mean you're going to get three times faster autofocus. It just means that there is more capability there. You're really probably going to notice less in just the short focus
9:56
pools which I didn't have any problem with the older lens. It still does just fine in
10:00
my test for that. But what you will see is near instantaneous autofocus even in more
10:05
demanding situations. And so that was certainly well well appreciated. You can see indoors
10:10
and outdoors for my test that autofocus is just snapping back and forth. And by the way
10:14
it is so quiet that even if I put my ear right up to the lens barrel I hear next to
10:19
nothing happening inside during autofocus. So great marks on the smoothness and the quietness
10:24
of this focus motor. I also found a definite improvement when it came to the focus consistency
10:30
when tracking some action. And in this extended burst of Nala here as I went through each
10:34
one of these frames I found that every one of them was accurately focused. And so that
10:39
certainly is an area of improvement there. Now on the burst front I do have to raise
10:44
the issue that's always there on Sony. It's not on L mount but on E mount. You're going
10:50
to face the reality for example I've got this currently mounted on the Alpha 1. The Alpha
10:54
1 is capable of 30 frames per second but with third party lenses Sony limits that to 15
11:00
frames per second. Now if you're shooting a body that is 15 frames per second or slower
11:04
who cares. But if you happen to own one of the sports models you're going to have this
11:07
artificial limitation with the Sigma lens that you wouldn't have with the equivalent
11:12
Sony lens. And so if you're someone who is a sports photographer you shoot action and
11:16
doing fast burst as a part of your photography style you may want to invest in the Sony lens
11:23
even though you have to spend a lot more for that simple reason which is the whole reason
11:26
why Sony does that. I'm fortunate for Sigma but a reality that we do need to mention
11:32
On the video side of things I was very very pleased with what I saw from this lens. I
11:36
found that autofocus for my focus pulls was very smooth very confident no issues at all
11:42
with it. There's a minimal amount of focus breathing which is again very very welcome
11:47
I also found that when doing my hand test good transitions from hand to the eye and
11:53
vice versa and then when out shooting real world video shots the damping in the focus
11:58
pulls is good. It's not abrupt and again minimal focus breathing helps with that. It makes
12:03
everything seem a little bit more cinematic. I also found I have you know I haven't been
12:09
revealing that I've been filming with it but I have shot a number of my YouTube episodes
12:14
over the past three weeks with this lens and I had zero issues with focus confidence staying
12:19
locked on my face which is very important for shooting episodes like this. So autofocus
12:26
gets great marks from me here. The only reason I would consider the Sony instead is if you
12:31
happen to be one of those sports shooters that needs maximum focus speed and more importantly
12:37
maximum burst rate with your camera. Finally let's get to the optical side of things. Now I will do the deep dive optical breakdown
12:44
and also a comparison not only to the older Sony or older Sigma lens I should say but
12:50
also a little bit to the GM and the Tamron G2 lenses just to give you a little bit of
12:55
perspective on that performance. What I found as I begin to dive into this is that we really
13:01
don't have a new optical formula here. It's the exact same optical breakdown, the elements
13:06
are in the same position. What is why we consider this more of an optimization of an existing
13:12
optical formula. Optimizing largely because Sigma is now capable of developing thinner
13:18
aspherical elements than what we saw on this older lens and those do have some advantages
13:23
that will show up and so as a result we've got minor tweaks and minor improvements to
13:29
the optical performance. Fortunately this was already a very good lens optically before
13:34
and so I didn't see a lot of huge differences to be frank with the two lenses side by side
13:39
I will try to detail those in the optical breakdown but I'm just going to give you an
13:43
overview of what you're going to actually get optically from this new lens. I did find
13:48
a little bit of longitudinal chromatic aberration. I expected that actually to be a little bit
13:53
better than what it was. It's not bad but there is some still there. There is no lateral
13:58
chromatic aberration however and so that's not going to be an issue for your landscape
14:02
style shots. Unfortunately I saw the exact same vignette and distortion patterns that
14:07
I saw on the previous lens and so that's an area that frankly could have used some improvement
14:12
at least on the 24mm wide angle end. I found that there is still a distortion that is quite
14:19
complex and required a fair bit of correction if I tried to manually correct it, a plus
14:24
24 but I'm not at all satisfied with what I could get in a manual correction. Obviously
14:28
there is going to be in-camera profiles for JPEGs and there will be a profile available
14:33
in editing software but it certainly is the amount and the type of distortion, non-linear
14:39
distortion means it's not easy to correct manually. And so it definitely has both more
14:44
distortion than competing lenses either the Sony or the Tamron and I would say the distortion
14:50
is more complex. It also has a considerable amount of vignette at 24mm. I needed a plus
14:57
76 to correct for it which is about three stops of correction needed in the corners
15:03
so again a significant amount there. That distortion changes to a pin cushion style
15:09
distortion later on. It's much more linear, it's easier to fix. Vignette also reduces
15:14
as you go throughout the zoom range so it's really only an issue at 24mm but just note
15:19
that it is there and so there's always, there's some minor prices to pay when you have to
15:24
correct a significant amount of distortion and so that does affect corner performance
15:29
a bit on the lens. Now what I found when looking at the 24mm end optically as far as sharpness
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and contrast is that it is very, very good in the center of the frame. It is good in
15:41
the mid-frame and it is very, very slightly better in the corners than what the older
15:46
lens was. Again nothing significant here and both the Tamron and the GM Mark II are a little
15:52
bit better in the corners though this lens is just as good as either those lenses in
15:57
either the center or the mid-frame. Peak sharpness across the frame arrives at f8 where you're
16:02
going to get the most consistent results from corner to corner and then after f11 you're
16:07
going to see some reduced results due to diffraction and so on this 61 megapixel camera, my a7r5
16:15
which I did the test on, I found that f16 was softer and f22 much softer looking still
16:21
and so you're going to probably want to keep it at f11 and brighter than that if you want
16:26
to get the optimal results out of the lens. I did find in some situations where I was
16:30
out shooting landscape in fairly bright conditions that I could definitely tell that Sigma's
16:36
optical glass was better than a less expensive lens from another brand that I was shooting
16:42
at the same time. I had a prime lens along that is less expensive and the optical glass
16:47
superior optical glass of the Sigma definitely showed in those situations and I definitely
16:51
prefer the images out of the Sigma in more challenging conditions. Now moving on to 35mm I saw a little bit better performance, just a little bit better everywhere
17:01
pretty much. At 50mm the center is a little bit worse and the mid-frame and the corners
17:08
maybe marginally better but just a little bit of a different optical profile there
17:12
And then at 70mm what I did notice, unfortunately the copy I'm reviewing I think is a little
17:17
bit de-centered. I got stronger looking results on the left side of the frame than what I did
17:21
on the right side of the frame and so if I was looking on the left side of the frame
17:25
it looks better than the older lens. If I looked at the right side of the frame
17:30
this lens looked better. I repeated my test three times setting everything up again just
17:34
to make sure it wasn't a tilting issue so unfortunately I do think there's just a little
17:37
tiny bit of a de-centering issue. Truth of the matter though is when I looked at real world shots where I'm not looking at 200% magnification everything looked great. Real
17:47
world sharpness even on a 61 megapixel body is very very good and on top of that I found
17:53
that bokeh looks really good from this lens. It's quite soft and pleasing for a zoom lens
17:59
and so that's definitely a strength. I also found flare resistance was very strong from
18:03
the lens. I basically could not induce any kind of flare artifacts and so that's fantastic there
18:08
It did work very nicely for portraits. Again it's got great autofocus now and that combination of
18:13
good sharpness and very soft bokeh is going to be very pleasing for those of you that are either
18:18
shooting portraits or weddings and like using a standard zoom for doing that. So optically this
18:24
lens is very good. Again it's not significantly improved over the previous generation lens
18:29
but it was already very good and it's gotten just a little bit better. I would say that in
18:35
summation that kind of brings together what my view of this lens is. It's more of an evolution
18:41
but was already a good lens. I certainly appreciate the added features, the improved autofocus, the
18:47
bit of weight loss that is there is certainly very welcome to help keep Sigma more competitive
18:52
with what's happening on the market right now. The image quality improvements were a little bit
18:57
more minimally than what I expected but I understood it more when I did a little bit of a
19:02
deeper dive and found that it was more of an optical optimization as opposed to a new optical
19:09
design. Fortunately the previous lens was already very good and so you are getting a lens that is
19:13
still very competitive with the lenses that are available on the market. I would say that if you
19:19
are looking for that solid sweet spot of a mid-tier priced lens, $1,200 US dollars here that goes all
19:26
the way to 24mm and kind of does all the things, this is still a very very solid buy and so if
19:32
you're on the market right now this I think really is going to hit a nice middle ground
19:37
Tamron's 28-75mm G2 lens is fantastic but 28mm is not 24mm so it's not going to work for everyone
19:45
and that extra 4mm may be the difference in needing to buy an additional lens to cover
19:50
you know the wide angle of things. So I understand the attraction here. Sony's GM Mark II lens is
19:55
still the top of the heap lens. It's a little bit better you know in most areas, a little bit lighter
20:01
but it's also $1,100 US more expensive and so I think for many people they're not going to see
20:07
enough of a difference between these two lenses to opt for the Sony instead of the Sigma. So that
20:12
leaves us in a very very good position and finally I would say that if you already own this first
20:17
generation lens I would only do the upgrade if you need the new features here or if you're
20:23
dissatisfied for some reason with the autofocus performance. This is already a good lens and while
20:28
it is better in the Mark II by the time you sell your old lens and pay for the upgrade it may not
20:35
be worth it for you but of course your mileage may vary and you can do whatever you want it's your
20:39
money. If you want more information you can check out my written review that is linked to in the
20:44
description down below. There's also an image gallery linked to there along with buying links
20:48
as well. Now if you want also a deeper dive into the optical performance jump in with me right now
20:54
we'll take a look at that together. All right well we'll start with a comparison looking at
21:06
vignette and distortion between the new lens which is going to be here on the left you'll
21:10
see the DN2 will always be on the left and other lenses I'm going to put on the right
21:14
So as far as the actual distortion pattern at 24 millimeters you can see it's just basically
21:19
the exact same. It's a barrel distortion with a significant amount but it's not linear there's a
21:25
middle bulge and then it kind of squeezes out on the edges. So with either lens it's you can't
21:30
really manually correct it very well because if you correct the center lines as I've done here
21:34
you start getting the bulges out of like a pincushion distortion out on the edges. Same thing
21:39
that I saw back on the older version. So as far as vignette and distortion goes these lenses are
21:44
virtually identical. Now if we compare to a lens like the Tamron 28 to 75 millimeter of course
21:51
Tamron just at 28 millimeters you can see there's a lot less distortion and it's a much more linear
21:56
easy to correct pattern. Now that's not really an apples to apples comparison because the Tamron is
22:01
28 millimeters which is much easier to engineer but if we look at the G Master we can see that
22:07
the G Master at 24 millimeters has much much less distortion and again it is it's got a little bit
22:14
of that same kind of mustache pattern but not nearly as pronounced much easier to correct for
22:19
Now throughout the rest of the zoom range we go to a pincushion style distortion and much less
22:26
distortion and much less vignette and you can see even manually correcting very easy to do
22:31
no problem at all with that. It's basically only at 24 millimeters you have an issue
22:35
Now if you utilize the standard correction profile it really isn't a that big of an issue
22:40
you can see here this is a shot with a lot of straight lines and you're not really seeing any
22:45
kind of bending or distortion pattern there it looks just fine. Now when it comes to the fringing
22:52
I was a little bit surprised by how much fringing still remains in this you can see not a lot before
22:57
the planar focus but definitely some of this kind of blue green type fringing and if we take a look
23:02
in some of these real world shots I'll just highlight one here I was just kind of surprised
23:06
to see this here because usually Sigma is really really good at correcting aberrations like this
23:12
and some of them remain now I think it may have a potential positive benefit that I'll get to in
23:16
just a moment. So let's dive into the resolution portion together now I actually went back and did
23:23
a few tests here on the Alpha 1 as well as the a7r V Alpha 1 at 50 megapixels because I had tested
23:29
the GM on the Alpha 1 and so I wanted an apples to apples comparison so if we look in the center
23:35
of the frame here we can see that looking at the two lenses I would say that the Sigma is probably
23:41
a hair bit better in the center of the frame although in this zone I would say there's a
23:45
little bit more contrast and detail for the G Master lens. Now in the middle of the frame it's
23:52
pretty obvious that the G Master has the advantage and looking down into the corner the G Master
23:57
definitely has the advantage there looking over on this side I would say mostly equal maybe just a
24:03
little bit more contrast for the G Master and then over on this side we can see that again the G
24:09
Master is definitely the winner. Now to compare with the Tamron G2 lens at 28 millimeters you can
24:15
see that in the middle of the frame it looks really really good two lenses are roughly equal
24:21
in terms of performance if we look in the mid-frame the G2 has just a little bit more punch
24:28
than what the Sigma does and down here in the corners the G2 is actually probably the strongest
24:32
in terms of the corner performance if we look over on this side again it's looking really really
24:38
strong there and over here it's this area where I would say the Sigma actually looks just a little
24:44
bit better than what the Tamron does so obviously some give and take. So we'll now switch over to
24:50
the Sony a7r mark 5 and I'll do a little bit of a comparison with the older 24 to 70 millimeter
24:57
Sigma lens again this is 200 magnification so 61 megapixels I mean this on full frame is about as
25:05
much of a torture test as I can give a lens I would say in the middle of the frame though the new
25:09
version is supposed to be a little bit better on the two copies I tested I would actually give the
25:14
edge to the older lens which looks really fantastic in the mid-frame it's mostly a wash to
25:20
me I don't really see one better than the other now down here in the corner neither of them look
25:25
fantastic as you can see but if you look at the lines in the building here they're definitely
25:30
more distinct than what were the older lens and so on the older lens it's a little bit more mushy
25:37
and so an improvement there switching over to the left side of the frame side by side I would say
25:42
that the older lens has a little bit of an edge they're coming over to this point and you know
25:49
I'm hard-pressed to really call a winner neither looks fantastic but again the lines just look a
25:54
little bit better for me with the new lens now if we stop down to f4 we can see that there is a bump
26:02
in contrast in the middle of the frame definitely a little bit more pop there looking at some of the
26:07
writing in the mid-frame here you can also see a bit of an improvement there just the textures are
26:12
popping a little bit more popping over to the left side we can see that you know it's definitely a
26:17
it's a mild improvement but a definite improvement there corners starting to look better like here for
26:23
example at f 5.6 but as you get towards the very edge it's not till f8 that we see a real improvement
26:31
and so for the chart test I would say that the corners at 24 millimeters never really impressed
26:36
me that much now on a high resolution body like this by f11 diffraction softens the image just a
26:43
little bit but it's still perfectly fine by f22 which is the minimum aperture though diffraction
26:48
has really softened the image and robbed it of contrast if we go back to this image for a moment
26:53
however this is f 5.6 you can see the detail looks amazing in the middle of the frame it also looks
26:59
fine here towards the edge of the frame as well even in the corners and so overall I don't really
27:05
have a lot of concern I mean there's still some nice detail there you know where it's within the
27:09
depth of field right off to the very edge of the frame now if I compare 24 millimeters with 35
27:15
millimeters here we can see that in the middle of the frame it's about a draw with maybe just a tiny
27:21
bit more contrast at 35 millimeters compared to 24 millimeters mid-frame also more similar than
27:28
different and a very mild improvement in the corner performance though not by much looking
27:35
over at this side you can see it's a little bit more pronounced there that 35 millimeters looks
27:40
just a little bit better so the I would say that the higher performance reaches out to the mid-frame
27:46
mostly and is only a little bit more in the corners now 50 millimeters is interesting because
27:52
it's not as sharp in the center of the frame it's still good but not as you know just bitingly sharp
27:58
as it is here but if we look towards the mid-frame for example you can see that 50 millimeters is
28:02
actually better still I would say it's stronger in the mid-frame than what it is in the center of
28:07
the frame and if you look towards the corners here it's actually a little bit better at 50
28:12
millimeters than it is at 35 millimeters really the strongest wide open performance we've seen
28:17
in the corners so just a slightly different sharpness profile finally going to 70 millimeters
28:23
you can see that the center performance is just it's very similar I would say there's just a
28:29
little bit more contrast at 70 millimeters if we look in the mid-frame where this was really really
28:36
excellent we can see it's similarly excellent if not a hair better at 70 millimeters so if you're
28:41
shooting in the rule of thirds you're going to get really really good results and you can see
28:45
that corner performance definitely better though what you can see here is if I look at the left
28:51
side it looks great if I pan over to the right side here it isn't as sharp and that's particularly
28:58
true as we go on down to the corners you can see that the right side just doesn't look fantastic
29:03
whereas here on the left side it's quite sharp even towards the edge of the frame and so that
29:08
is definitely and if I compare the upper left corner definitely looks better than what the
29:12
lower right corner so there is a slight centering issue I redid this test three different times I
29:17
got the exact same results now at 70 millimeters truth of the matter is is that I was actually
29:23
really impressed with a lot of my real world results here you can see even at a pixel level
29:28
61 megapixels there's tons of resolution there so I think that most people are going to be happy
29:33
with real world shots I mean you can even see this little hair that is being shed in the air as it
29:38
floats away pretty impressive stuff now as noted you can get really really close so close that it
29:43
is hard to get sufficient light on your subject this close you know you're going to lose a little
29:48
bit of contrast and detail but you've got a great deal of magnification there at 70 millimeters it's
29:54
a little bit easier to get though you can still see that it's really not a very flat plane of
29:59
focus there's some definite field curvature though I do think that contrast close-up is a little bit
30:04
better outside of a little bit of fringing that we see there I was actually quite impressed with
30:08
the bokeh quality and I noted before there's a little bit more fringing than what I like
30:12
here but often where that pays off is that it makes for softer bokeh and I think that that is
30:18
the case here you can see that the defocused area is actually really nice and soft for a zoom lens
30:25
leaving me just impressed with the look of a lot of shots here pretty soft and creamy for a lens
30:31
like this that definitely helps when shooting portraits you can see that we've got good detail
30:37
on the subject I mean I don't think anybody would ever be unhappy with that on 61 megapixels
30:42
but you can see that the fall off focus fall off is really quite nice here and I so I was happy
30:49
with that going a little bit wider and again you can see really really nice detail there no problems
30:54
with that and the quality of the blur looks nice finally talking about flare you can see here that
31:02
wide open that at 24 millimeters there's just no ghosting artifacts that I can see when I stop down
31:08
there's a little tiny rainbow there but and down here but you're really wouldn't even notice that
31:14
if I put it off in the edge again there's a couple of tiny little ghosting artifacts but almost
31:19
nothing to look at contrast obviously still looks fantastic in here at 70 millimeters again this is
31:27
you know stop down I don't see any issue there no artifacts there putting it up in the corner at 70
31:33
millimeters no problem a very very impressive flare resistance performance so hopefully a deeper
31:39
look at the optical performance has helped you to make a more informed decision as to whether or not
31:43
this new sigma 24 to 70 millimeter mark ii lens is for you as always thanks for watching have a great
31:51
day and let the light in
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