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Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN X-Mount Review

Dustin Abbott

September 1st, 2023

When I completed my review of the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN on Sony E-mount several months ago, I noted that I really anticipated its release on Fuji X-mount for the simple reason that it felt like it was sharp enough to handle the huge resolution of Fuji’s 40MP APS-C sensors.  I now have had an opportunity to put that theory to the test, and, even more tellingly, have just completed reviewing Fuji’s own premium 23mm F1.4 (the XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR – my review here), which gives me a very natural point of comparison.   The Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary is (according to Sigma) the APS-C equivalent of their 35mm F1.4 DN ART lens, though, as we’ll see, Sigma’s design brief for the APS-C series follows a different formula than their full frame lenses.  Here’s a look at the DC (APS-C) DN (mirrorless) lineup thus far.

  1. Sigma 16mm F1.4
  2. Sigma 23mm F1.4
  3. Sigma 30mm F1.4
  4. Sigma 56mm F1.4
  5. Sigma 18-50mm F2.8

Sigma’s DC DN series has become even more important now that Fuji has lifted their restrictions on third party development for the platform, as the Fuji X-mount is a place where these lenses can really thrive – particularly considering that fact that Sigma likes to make high resolving lenses and Fuji currently has the highest resolving APS-C cameras!  I’m doing this review the Fujifilm X-H2 and its 40.2MP sensor!  There are also cheaper 23mm F1.4 options on Fuji, including the Tokina ATX-M 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD)and the Viltrox 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD).  This Sigma 23mm DN is the closest actual rival to the premium XF 23mm F1.4 LM in size and performance.

The 35mm focal length is one of my favorites, as it works very well as a general purpose walkaround focal length, good for landscapes, cityscapes, street, and people portraits.  This Sigma 23mm F1.4 covers that focal length with aplomb, with plenty of sharpness, nice color, and fairly good bokeh.

On paper, the Sigma 23mm DN is the mid-level option, falling between the premium priced Fuji ($899 USD) and the bargain options from Tokina and Viltrox ($299) at a price point of $549 USD.  This is familiar territory for Sigma, and the company does its best work when it can provide 90% of the performance of the premium option at 60 or 70% of the price.  Sigma hits the first benchmark here, as the 23mm DN is 61% of the price of the Fuji.  But how about that performance?   I’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses throughout this review so that you can make an informed decision as to whether the Sigma is the best choice for you and your budget.  So now you have a choice:  watch the video review below or read on to get the full picture.

 

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Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.

Sigma 23mm DN Build and Handling

The Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN is very slightly longer and heavier X-mount.  It is 65.8mm in diameter and 79.2mm in length.  That’s 2.6″ x 3.1″.  The filter size is 52mm, and the lens weighs in at 333g (on my scale) or 11.6oz.  This places it larger and heavier than either the Viltrox or the Tokina (by about 7mm and 50g) but lighter than the Fuji by 40g.  Here’s a comparison (Sony E-mount of the Sigma shown here, as the X-mount listing is not yet live):

The target here is the Fuji, however, and in many ways these lenses are very similar in shape and size.

Sigma’s build quality on these lenses is quite nice.  Though they position this lineup under their “Contemporary” branding, the aesthetic and feel of the lens isn’t really different than their ART series. The design language and materials are quite similar…just smaller.

The key difference is that the DC DN primes are essentially featureless.  The only “feature” is the manual focus ring.  There is no aperture ring, no switches…nothing.  That’s definitively a disadvantage compared to all the alternatives, which at the least feature aperture rings.  I’ve seen this happen before; a lens maker locks themselves into a certain standard of features for a series of lenses and then the market shifts and that standard isn’t really high enough to be fully competitive.  Aperture rings are pretty much standard in the Fuji space, and I would like to see Sigma embrace that.

The Sigma 23mm F1.4 has a weather sealing gasket at the lens mount, which isn’t quite as good as having further seals inside the lens itself, but it’s something.

The lens barrel is primarily dominated by a large, nicely made manual focus ring.  Like other lenses designed for mirrorless cameras, this is a focus-by-wire system in which input from the focus ring is routed through the focus motor.  It is actually the focus motor that moves the elements, making manual focus more of an emulation than a direct movement of the elements.  Some lenses pull this off better than others, and the Sigma 23mm F1.4 is one of them.  I will note that the lens will automatically alert the body to magnify the image when you are manually focusing, which is a big help in visually confirming focus.  

The 23mm DN can focus down to 9.9″ (25cm), where it provides a 0.136x magnification figure.  That’s not particularly high for a 35mm focal length, and the Fujifilm 23mm can focus closer (19cm) and has a significantly higher 0.20x magnification, though this is an area where both the Tokina and Viltrox come up short with just a 0.10x magnification level.  Here’s what MFD for the Sigma looks like.

The magnification figure isn’t exceptionally good, but up close performance is looks pretty decent (though with some reduced contrast), and for some reason I felt like I could a little closer and get a little higher magnification than what the figure on paper suggests.  It’s definitely enough to be useful.

The lens hood is included, and Sigma’s lens hoods are a cut above the basic hoods included with many lenses.  They include some soft-touch materials, texture variations, and lens information.

The aperture iris is electromagnetic and controlled from within the camera (no aperture ring).  It has nine rounded aperture blades that do a fairly good job of retaining a circular shape even with the lens stopped down.  At F2 we have circular specular highlight all across the frame, and the geometry is pretty good even wide open.  At F2.8 I can see a hint of the aperture blade shape, but everything is still roughly circular.  Here’s a series at F1.4, F2, and F2.8.

All in all this is a beautifully made little lens.  I did miss having both an aperture ring and an AF/MF switch, and wouldn’t mind seeing Sigma shake up the formula moving ahead to be more directly competitive on the Fuji space.  Viltrox has an upcoming 27mm F1.2 in this class that will have more thorough weather sealing and an aperture ring for about the same money as the Sigma. The standard in the class is changing, and I would like to see Sigma adapt in the same fashion they have with their full frame offerings.

Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN Autofocus

Sigma continues to utilize a stepping focus motor (STM) in these smaller lenses as the elements are smaller and lighter than lenses with an F1.4 aperture designed for full frame.  For the most part the STM focus motor gets the job done here, though there was an area that left me wanting a little bit.  In most situations, however, focus was fast, quiet, and accurate.

Eye AF seemed to work fine whether I was photographing a human or animal subject:

I’m using the Fujifilm X-H2 for this review, which has one of Fuji’s best current implementations of autofocus.  I find that the biggest advantage for these most recent bodies comes via the AI learning/tracking, so they work best when there is an identifiable subject that can be tracked.  That means that human, animal, and birds works well, along with the various trackable vehicles.  I found autofocus worked well in a series with Nala rolling around and “posing”.

Here’s another shot from this sequence along with the crop to show the accuracy of focus:

That’s great, but the surprising weakness here was an occasional 100% miss when shooting landscapes or subjects where I wanted a large depth of field (AKA the simplest focus scenario under usual circumstances).  It wasn’t that focus grabbed the foreground or some other object in the frame; it almost seemed to focus beyond infinity where nothing was in focus.  In this shot, for example, I’ve looked and looked to find what is actually in focus.  The short answer is nothing.  Not the foreground or the background.

You’ll note that in the first shot (not cropped), that the image looks almost in the focus…like focus should be on somewhere.  The fact that nothing in the foreground or background is in focus (but the whole image is not obviously defocused) tells me that focus is actually beyond infinity.  Hopefully this is a pre-release quirk that can be sorted via firmware.

It was a surprising/disappointing development that really set the lens apart from the Fuji 23mm F1.4.  I found myself starting to verify focus accuracy after taking landscape shots to be sure I was getting my shot.  Focus just works better when there is a clear subject.

Focus speed was fast enough that I was able to grab birds in flight from a distance:

…but not quite reactive enough to snap a shot of Nala when she refused to stay still and started moving towards me.

Sigma lenses still perform better on Sony than Fuji when it comes to autofocus.  That’s not terribly surprising, however, as they have much more experience on the Sony front.  Most Sony bodies also have superior focus systems to many Fuji cameras, so there are two parts to the puzzle at play here.

That’s particularly true when examining the autofocus during video capture.  Autofocus pulls did not feel particularly confident, with some pulsing and tentative moves at times.  There is some fairly obvious focus breathing that draws your attention to the focus changes.  The new Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2 was slightly more confident in the same situation, and has slightly less focus breathing, but the real winner in this test was the Fuji 23mm F1.4, which had smoother focus pulls and much less focus breathing.  If doing video pulls is your priority, you probably want to spend the extra money on the Fuji.

My “hand test” was slightly better (the AF system has a more definite subject to focus on), but I did note on that one of the three cycles the focus pulled to the background rather than to my hand, which is unusual for this test. 

My static video shots were fine.  Focus did not jump around, but stayed steady on the subject.  I shot a clip of wildflowers blowing in the wind, and the focus stayed locked on them as they moved around.  The focus issues seem to be reserved for bigger focus changes.

Thus far I’ve yet to be blown away by any of the Tamron or Sigma lenses that have been ported over to Fuji when it comes to video autofocus.  This is still a work in progress.

In most situations, however, I was able to achieve pinpoint focus even at F1.4 for stills.

If video isn’t a priority for you, then the Sigma will work just fine.  Those that do a lot of video will probably want to spend the extra cash for the Fuji.

Sigma 23mm F1.4 Image Quality Breakdown

Sigma’s lineup of F1.4 DC DN lenses have all been very strong optically, and the 23mm F1.4 is no exception.  It essentially becomes the second sharpest lens in the lineup, falling only behind the 56mm F1.4 in absolute performance.  Here’s a look at the MTF charts for each of the lenses along with the 35mm F1.4 ART for comparison.

This suggests a very strong performance across about 2/3rds of the frame before a drop in the corners and also suggests another lens that can handle the rigors of Fuji’s high resolution 40MP APS-C sensor.  Real world images are indeed crisp and detailed.

Let’s take a look at some of the technical aspects of performance.  Sigma lenses enjoy good profile corrections on either Sony, Fuji, or Leica platforms, but we’ll look past the corrections to the optics of the lens itself.  Here’s a look at my vignette and distortion chart, with the uncorrected result on the left and a manually corrected result on the right.

There’s a moderate amount of barrel distortion (I corrected with a +10), but it is nice and linear, so I was able to correct it without any mustache type pattern left behind.  Vignette is roughly 3 stops in the corner, requiring a +88 for correction, which continues a trend that I’ve observed where lenses released on both Sony and Fuji mounts tend to have about one stop more vignette on Fuji than on Sony.  This most likely has something to do with the smaller X-mount diameter.  The correction profiles take care of that, but in most cases you will want it corrected.

It isn’t unusual for a wide aperture prime lens like this one to suffer from some longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA), and that’s true here.  It’s not bad, but I did notice a bit of fringing in some extreme instances, like this narrow DOF shot of raindrops with the morning light shining through them.

I saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) along the edge of the frame in either my chart tests or any real world images (all of these bare branches are prime breeding grounds for LaCA:

Nothing too concerning here.  We’ll move on to testing sharpness.  The sharpness tests are done on the Fujifilm X-H2, with it’s extremely high 40MP APS-C sensor – the equivalent of over 90MP on full frame.   Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.

If we look closely wide open at F1.4 (crops are at nearly200%), we find that the lens produces extremely strong resolution results across most of the frame.  Yes, you can see that the extreme corners are softer, but they are still not bad.

Here’s an F1.6 shot that shows that the lens is capable of producing credible results even near maximum aperture at landscape distances…and that’s on a 40MP body!

Closer shots show great sharpness and contrast at F1.4:

The Sigma 23mm F1.4 also showed very good centering, with consistent sharpness everywhere I looked.  

Stopping down to F1.8 produced slightly higher level of contrast with a bit more on tap at F2.  Here’s a corner comparison:

By F2.8 we have reached very near peak sharpness, with little further improvement through F5.6.  Here’s a midframe comparison with F2.8 on the left and F5.6 on the right.

After F5.6 there is a mild softening effect as diffraction starts to set in.  By F16 (minimum aperture) diffraction has really softened the image.  This effect is very pronounced on a high resolution body:

This compares quite well to the more expensive Fuji 23mm F1.4 WR lens, which shows very slightly better contrast in the center of the frame:

…and in the corners.

That’s so little a difference that you really wouldn’t see it in real world images.

I also didn’t notice much in terms of sharpness between the Sigma 23mm DN and the new Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2.  The Viltrox has a slightly more nuanced rendering, in my opinion, but, as you can see in the crop below, the sharpness and contrast are largely the same:

We’ve established that this is a very sharp lens, but what softness where it is wanted (aka bokeh)?  I noted this as a weakness of the 56mm F1.4, as while it could compete with and even best most full frame 85mm lenses in terms of sharpness, the bokeh wasn’t as soft and creamy as many of them.  I would say the same is true here, as while the bokeh is reasonably nice, I do see quite a bit of outlining in out of focus areas that should be nice and soft.  This is an issue that plagued the Fuji as well, in that there’s a little more busyness than what I would prefer in the background.

Here’s a second shot that illustrates what I’m talking about on the left side.

It’s far from terrible, however, and in some shots the rendering looks quite nice:

In the balance between sharp and soft, the Sigma slightly tilts towards sharpness…in my opinion.  Bokeh is subjective, however, so I’ll share a few more “bokeh shots” here to allow you to form your own opinion.

Color rendition is nice, with good color saturation but without a skewing towards garish:

Here’s another nice shot from the lens.

I was also impressed with flare resistance.  I shot into the sun pretty much with impunity.  There was little loss of contrast and no big ghosting blobs to ruin the image, and as a bonus, the sunstars look pretty good, too.

Image quality is definitely competitive with the more expensive Fuji lens and bests the cheaper 23mm F1.4 options from Viltrox or Tokina.  I slightly favor the Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2 optically, but that lens is considerably larger and has a longer focal length as well.  The Sigma 23mm DN provides images that hold up to the high resolution sensor points that Fuji is operating at, and my experience has been that lesser lenses are a bit disappointing on it.  You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here.  

Conclusion

It’s great to see Sigma releasing important lenses like the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN on Fuji X-mount, as this lens provides an extremely importance service to Fuji shooters:  a high performing mid-tier alternative to the expensive first party XF 23mm F1.4 WR.  You can get the Sigma 23mm DN for about $350 less, and, while the build and autofocus are not quite as good as the Fuji lens, the optical performance is very close.  There’s a lot of other things you could spend that money on, and still end up with beautiful photos like this:

The Sigma delivers on most fronts with great optics, a nice build, reasonable size and weight, and quick autofocus.  I would like to see more thorough weather sealing and the inclusion of an aperture ring in future lenses, but I also recognize that the difference in price perhaps justifies the exclusion.  The only problem to that argument is the Viltrox 27mm F1.2 (my review here) which includes both of those things at a identical price point of $550 USD.

But the Sigma also manages to slightly undercut even the Fuji in size, and is dramatically smaller than the Viltrox.  Being smaller, lighter, and cheaper will certainly make the Sigma 23mm DN the “just right” option for many people.  And, as always, I wholeheartedly appreciate more options for the Fuji platform.  It is all of these new lenses that make X-mount a more enticing place to be these days!

Pros:

  • Beautifully built lens with some weather sealing
  • Compact and lightweight
  • Large, bright maximum aperture.
  • Exceptional sharpness across the frame
  • Very high contrast
  • Good color rendition
  • Excellent flare resistance
  • Fast, silent autofocus for stills
  • Excellent focus accuracy (including with Eye AF)

Cons:

  • No aperture ring or AF/MF switch
  • The bokeh is a little busy
  • Some focus misses on occasion
  •  Strong focus breathing

 

   

Gear Used:

Purchase the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN @ B&H Photo  | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2 @ B&H Photo | Viltrox (use code DUSTINABBOTT for 8% off) | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Pergear 

Purchase the Fujinon XF 23mm F1.4 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Fujifilm X-H2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Fujifilm X-T5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Find it Used at KEH 

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S20 @ B&H Photo | Adorama  | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

 

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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B&H Logo

 

 

 

Keywords: Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm review, Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN, DC, DN, Contemporary, 23mm, F1.4, f/1.4, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6700, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA23mmContemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADCDN

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Fujifilm X100VI (6) Camera Review
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Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN X-Mount Gallery

Dustin Abbott

September 1st, 2023

When I completed my review of the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN on Sony E-mount several months ago, I noted that I really anticipated its release on Fuji X-mount for the simple reason that it felt like it was sharp enough to handle the huge resolution of Fuji’s 40MP APS-C sensors.  I now have had an opportunity to put that theory to the test, and, even more tellingly, have just completed reviewing Fuji’s own premium 23mm F1.4 (the XF 23mm F1.4 R LM WR – my review here), which gives me a very natural point of comparison.   The Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary is (according to Sigma) the APS-C equivalent of their 35mm F1.4 DN ART lens, though, as we’ll see, Sigma’s design brief for the APS-C series follows a different formula than their full frame lenses.  Here’s a look at the DC (APS-C) DN (mirrorless) lineup thus far.

  1. Sigma 16mm F1.4
  2. Sigma 23mm F1.4
  3. Sigma 30mm F1.4
  4. Sigma 56mm F1.4
  5. Sigma 18-50mm F2.8

Sigma’s DC DN series has become even more important now that Fuji has lifted their restrictions on third party development for the platform, as the Fuji X-mount is a place where these lenses can really thrive – particularly considering that fact that Sigma likes to make high resolving lenses and Fuji currently has the highest resolving APS-C cameras!  I’m doing this review the Fujifilm X-H2 and its 40.2MP sensor!  There are also cheaper 23mm F1.4 options on Fuji, including the Tokina ATX-M 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD)and the Viltrox 23mm F1.4 ($299 USD).  This Sigma 23mm DN is the closest actual rival to the premium XF 23mm F1.4 LM in size and performance.

The 35mm focal length is one of my favorites, as it works very well as a general purpose walkaround focal length, good for landscapes, cityscapes, street, and people portraits.  This Sigma 23mm F1.4 covers that focal length with aplomb, with plenty of sharpness, nice color, and fairly good bokeh.

On paper, the Sigma 23mm DN is the mid-level option, falling between the premium priced Fuji ($899 USD) and the bargain options from Tokina and Viltrox ($299) at a price point of $549 USD.  This is familiar territory for Sigma, and the company does its best work when it can provide 90% of the performance of the premium option at 60 or 70% of the price.  Sigma hits the first benchmark here, as the 23mm DN is 61% of the price of the Fuji.  But how about that performance?   I’ve explored the strengths and weaknesses in my reviews so that you can make an informed decision as to whether the Sigma is the best choice for you and your budget.  So now you have a choice:  watch the video review below, read the text review, or just enjoy the photos below.

 

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Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.

Photos of the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN X-Mount

Photos taken with the Sigma 23mm F1.4 (Fuji X-H2)

Gear Used:

Purchase the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN @ B&H Photo  | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2 @ B&H Photo | Viltrox (use code DUSTINABBOTT for 8% off) | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Pergear 

Purchase the Fujinon XF 23mm F1.4 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Fujifilm X-H2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Fujifilm X-T5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Find it Used at KEH 

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S20 @ B&H Photo | Adorama  | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

 

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

  Buy DA Merchandise https://bit.ly/TWIMerch  

B&H Logo

 

 

 

Keywords: Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm review, Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN, DC, DN, Contemporary, 23mm, F1.4, f/1.4, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6700, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA23mmContemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADCDN

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM | ART Review

Dustin Abbott

June 2nd, 2023

Art Header-1

Sigma Swings for the Fences

Sigma has been on a tear in the past two years.  At some point the brain trust in the corporation realized that being a third party manufacturer didn’t mean always having to produce a cheaper, inferior product.  They completely revamped their global vision and have begun producing lenses that are achieving both critical and commercial success, not to mention putting a huge amount of pressure upon Canon and Nikon.  The most recent addition to the “ART” series is the 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens, and it is, in most ways, a winner.

Build Quality

Sigma adopted a completely new company philosophy and design ethos a couple of years ago with its three pronged approach of “Art”, “Contemporary”, and “Sport” lines. A few of these categories are admittedly vague (what exactly makes a lens “Contemporary”?), but there is no arguing with the direction the design team has taken with the lenses designated “Art”. Sigma not only dramatically improved upon their older design them (which frankly I was not a huge fan of), they have designed some of the best looking modern lenses, period. This is one classy bit of kit!

I will confess to having spent some minutes just looking at this lens and admiring it. There is a very pleasing blend of glossy, matte, and ribbed surfaces that has both a modern yet elegant design. The “flocked” finish is a thing of the past (good riddance, I say), as is the gold ring that seems almost garish now when presented with this sleek, understated new design. Yes, the lens is essentially all black with some small white print in a few points, but the blend of textures keeps the lens from being at all monochromatic or boring. The lens has small white text on one side that says, “Made in Japan”, an understated SIGMA brand on the top, and then the lens designation and filter thread size near the distance window of the top of the barrel. Less obvious is a very small sized serial number in a grey text that is only obvious under close examination. An elegant little silver circle with the letter A (for ART) rests next the focus distance window. On the bottom of the barrel is an 014 which clearly and obviously states the year of manufacture (bravo for simplicity!)

The lens has four distinct bevels that flow into a wider section as you move towards the front element. The first bevel flares from the lens mount section into the area of the distance window and the single switch that controls focus (Auto/Manual). The HSM (Hypersonic Motor) allows for full time manual override. The next bevel moves into the slightly wider focus ring. It has a nicely ribbed, slightly rubberized texture. The movement isn’t as smooth as the manual focus only Zeiss lenses I am currently also reviewing, but it is better than all of the other 50mm AF lenses that I can compare it to. I find the damping a little on the heavy/stiff side, but on the plus side it doesn’t feel “gritty” at all. Manually focusing the lens is also limited by a very short “throw” distance, particularly between about 10 feet and infinity. Making a fine adjustment is somewhat difficult in that range, although this can be adjusted somewhat using the Sigma USB dock (more on that in a moment). The final flare is to the front of the lens where the lens hood bayonet attaches. I will expand on that hood in just a moment, but let me first say that I find the entirely of this lens’ designed very, very pleasing. Sigma has done a great job here. The only real missing element is weather sealing. This is a very classy approach to lens design that borrows a page from Zeiss more than any other design.

Soft Bokeh-1

This is my favorite lens hood to date. It’s not the shape (a fairly standard petal design), but the fine little details. There is a narrow ribbed section on the hood that both echoes the design of the lens barrel (and looks very complimentary) but also has practical value for providing grip when mounting or removing the lens hood. But my favorite part is the rubberized surface that makes the transition to the lens barrel. It has a great textile feel as you go to mount the hood that I immediately noticed and fell in love with. It really feels like Sigma’s designers spent some time coming up a lens hood the truly compliments the lens. This was NOT an afterthought. The lens reverses for storage in a typical fashion.

At the front of the lens is a 77mm filter thread. This is on the larger side, but it is both the same size as Sigma’s previous 50mm lens and is a very common filter size shared by many other lenses. Sigma is kind enough to include a nicely padded and zippered lens case that actually has protection value, unlike the “sock” that Canon provides and the nothing that Tamron and Zeiss include. The inclusion of that case gives me a very good feeling “right out of the box”, and that, to me, is positive marketing for Sigma. I would actually store the lens in the case, unlike what I do with the lenses from other manufacturers.

Now for the bad news.

This isn’t a small lens. Remember when 50mm lenses could be brought along in your pocket? You had better get some bigger pants, because this lens is closer in size to a standard f/2.8 zoom than it is to the 50mm lenses that most of us are accustomed to. It isn’t that it is a big lens, per se (3.36″/85.4mm x 3.93″/99.9mm), but it is large when compared with other 50mm lenses, up to and including Canon’s EF 50mm f/1.2L USM Lens. It weighs 1.79 lbs/815g, which makes it both longer and heavier than Sigma’s 24-70mm f/2.8 Zoom Lens. This is one of my few reservations about this design. Not everyone is going to want such a large lens (of course the Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Otus Distagon T* is larger still). Part of the reason that I elected to go with the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Lens over the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART was the difference in size. This lens is twice as long as the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 and weighs three times as much.

Organist-1

It also costs well more than twice as much. (Canon = $399; Sigma = $949 at the moment)

But when you start to use the lens and see the images, you realize why the lens is as large and as expensive as it is. Sigma wasn’t even using Canon or Nikon as their benchmark, they were setting their sights much higher. The recently released Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Otus Distagon T* was the target, and that lens costs around $4000. The Sigma suddenly seems reasonably priced when you consider that it brings an “almost” as good image quality (the Otus is still in a class of its own) along with AF ability at 1/4th of the price.

Optical Goodness

This lens is optically very, very good. I have heard a few report that this new ART lens is not much better optically than the older Sigma 50mm f/1.4? All I can say is…huh? They are not occupying the same time/space continuum as me. I got a copy of the previous Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Lens for review a few months and frankly I hated it. All I saw was green fringing (focus consistency left a lot to be desired) and optics that just didn’t seem to sharpen up to a level I deemed acceptable until the lens was stopped down…a lot. It lacked microcontrast and had a general “dreamy”, soft look at wider apertures. Why would I buy a 50mm prime that needs to be stopped down to beyond the wide open aperture of my Tamron  24-70mm f/2.8 VC before it will begin to provide similar image quality?

No such fears with the new Sigma ART lens. It provides great image quality even wide open. It is sharp and has excellent contrast, rendering a nice amount of detail wide open and improving a bit more when stopped down a bit. It blows every other 50mm lens (save the mighty Otus) out of the water at wide apertures. Check out the near 100% crop from the image below (handheld).

Pencil Sharpness-1 Pencil Sharpness-2

Chromatic aberrations are much, much better controlled (though not non-existent), and the lens has excellent micro-contrast that eliminates that hazy, dreamy look that many wide aperture primes have wide open. Here is a small gallery of other wide open samples with crops to show off the excellent sharpness of the lens at f/1.4.

The lens does pretty well in the text “torture test”that really shows off chromatic aberrations and a lens’ degree of micro-contrast.

Text Bokeh-1

There is some “bokeh” CA here, but also notice the nice black look of the text despite the lens being wide open.  The Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 ZE Planar T* looks pretty bad on this test by comparison, as would Canon’s own 50mm f/1.4.

It is an excellent optical match for some of the better portrait lenses like the Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM Lens (though it’s rendering is not as special as that lens). I don’t buy large aperture primes to shoot them at f/5.6 (although I certainly will when the situation calls for it!); I buy them to shoot at wide apertures to create the narrow depth of field look so unique to such lenses.  The sharpness and contrast of the Sigma wide open allows me to do that.

Another plus for the Sigma is that it has a slightly closer minimum focus distance than all of it’s non-macro-designated competitors. This allows you to both get a bit closer and also to get slightly more magnification (.17x) than the typical (.15x). This little bit makes a surprising difference in the field. These comparison shots of the bowling shoes vs. the Zeiss Planar T 50mm f/1.4 show the sharpness advantage of the Sigma and also shows how the extra magnification produces slightly more defused bokeh. Realize that the shooting at this focus distance produces a very shallow depth of field, so careful focus is critical.  Zeiss on the left | Sigma on the right

Minimum Focus Comparison

How’s the Bokeh?

Bokeh is a somewhat subjective topic, but is very important when discussing a wide aperture prime.  I personally did not feel that the bokeh of the  35mm f/1.4 ART was as good as the bokeh from the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Lens. I called the look more “clinical” and less artistic. The Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens is also a very sharp lens, but it seems to straddle the line between sharpness and “drawing” somewhat better. I have not been displeased with the bokeh of the Sigma 50 ART. The larger aperture definitely makes out of focus areas melt away at closer focusing distances and gives a nicely three dimensional look to shots at wide aperture. The 9 curved blades of the aperture iris continue to produce round highlights when stepped own. This shot of the “farmer” shows a bit of nervousness in the transition bokeh in the grass that seems to be characteristic of some 50mm lenses (Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 is notorious for this same issue).

Nervous-1Nervous-2

My 35mm f/2 IS handles this region better, as does the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 ZE Planar T*. I would say that I prefer the “drawing” of the Zeiss better than the Sigma, but I don’t think that the Sigma’s bokeh will be a concern for anyone.  Here’s a number of examples and you can judge for yourself.

I think you will probably conclude as I did the bokeh from the Sigma is fine.  It is better than Canon’s 50mm f/1.4 but is less “artistic” than the “drawing” from either Canon’s 50mm f/1.2L or either of the Zeiss 50mm options (50mm f/1.4 Planar T* or Makro-Planar 50mm f/2) that I have just reviewed.  I recognize that bokeh is subjective, but to my eye this simple photo favors the “drawing” of the Zeiss even though the Sigma shot is sharper on the leaf subject (note too the color difference between the two).  Zeiss on the left | Sigma on the right

Artful

At the same time, however, the Sigma blows the Zeiss/Canon/Nikon 50mm f/1.4 competitors out of the water in the sharpness and contrast departments.  It’s not even close.  The Sigma does relatively well in the flare department as well.  It will produce some ghosting, as this sample shows, but the contrast holds up reasonably well.

Flare-1

Sigma deserves a great deal of praise for their excellent work in the optical department.  This is the best of the bunch amongst autofocusing 50mm lenses (though the far more expensive manual focus only Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 is still in a league of its own).  For most ordinary mortals, this is the best 50mm prime that money can buy.

Storm over Gaspè

The Fly in the Ointment

The brilliant optics are somewhat held back by Sigma’s old nemesis: AF accuracy. You’ll note that there are no Sigma lenses in my personal kit at the moment (although I have owned a few), and it isn’t because Sigma doesn’t make some very appealing lenses with great optics. When you work professionally shooting events, weddings, or portraits, you cannot afford to have shots ruined by inaccurate focus.

Things started well: Reikan FoCal produced a repeatable result of a -3 AFMA on my 6D body, and it scored a very respectable 98.3% in the Consistency of Focus test (identical to my EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Lens). If the story ended there, I would probably be finding out how I could keep this lens and add it to my kit. But unfortunately it doesn’t. I am no stranger to shooting with large aperture lenses, and, as a lens tester, I have used more than 50 lenses in the last of couple of years alone. While the software says that the consistency of focus is as high as my EF 35mm f/2 IS, field testing says otherwise.

When I do reviews, I tend to write as I go. When I make a field observation, I want to get that down and articulate it (often expanding on a quick audio note I make to my phone). Never before have I been so conflicted about trying to accurately report my findings…because my findings have not been consistent. The following section was started early on in the review, and it was and is accurate, but please read on, as it doesn’t tell the full story.

Thanks to a very cool plugin for Lightroom called “Show Focus Points”  we can take a closer look at the peculiarities of the ART50’s AF system. This particular plugin shows the focus point(s) that was used for any given shot and details about whether or not it was manually selected and focus was locked. In all of these samples you will see that the lens indicated locked focus; some are outer focus points, some are center focus point. The results are the same regardless of which focus point was selected. Some show perfect focus accuracy while others show locked focus but the focus is so far out that the picture is a blurry mess. I’ve not seen any lens in recent history miss focus quite this badly. It is no secret that the 6D bodies that I use are not equipped with Canon’s most robust AF system, but after several years of use of the bodies and dozens of lenses tested with them, I can say with some confidence that these results are not due (solely) to the limitations of the camera body’s AF.

I will occasionally get shots from any lens in my kit where focus is just a hair off, but never misses this badly with a still subject. Fortunately focus seems to have stabilized a bit as the review progressed, so these are extreme examples. I have, however, heard anecdotal accounts from experienced photographers who have had AF accuracy come and go for them. These accounts come on a variety of camera bodies, so they don’t seem to be body specific. Some have reported that purchasing and using Sigma’s USB dock has helped, others do not feel that it made much of a difference.  Clearly this continues to be a problem for Sigma, as similar reports are rampant with their 35mm f/1.4 ART.  I recognize that user error often plays a part with anecdotal accounts on internet forums, but I am personally no stranger to using large aperture primes and know that my findings are outside of the realm of user error alone.

Third party manufacturers are forced to reverse engineer the algorithms for autofocus, but for some reason Tamron seems to have been able to do this more effectively. I currently own three Tamron lenses, all of which have very good focus accuracy. If Sigma can solve this issue (their whole USB dock seems designed around that aim), they are certainly going to increase their market share. They have shown a lot of innovation and sheer courage in recent product designs.

Sigma Dock

As I have noted a few times, Sigma has released a USB dock that allows advanced calibration of their newer lenses.  This allows the user to optimize the lens for both their camera body and also for the style of shooting they most often do.  This is great for the technically savvy, but I can’t help but also think that this introduces a degree of complexity to ownership that some users will simply find overwhelming.  Many have never even done a more simple AFMA on their lenses (should their camera body allow this).

On the positive side, the AF is actually very quick; it is quick enough that I didn’t notice a difference between using it, my 35mm f/2 IS, and the 135mm f/2L in a recent portrait session. I will be sharing more of my findings in an upcoming article about this affordable “holy trinity” of lenses for portrait and event work. This wasn’t a scientific comparison but more an observation that I wasn’t really aware of one lens standing out as being particularly fast or noticeably slower. I spent some time analyzing hundreds of shots taken in the portrait session, and came to the following conclusions:

  1. The most accurate of the three lenses used in the session was the 35IS. I have been consistently impressed with this lens since acquiring it. It didn’t miss…not even once.
  2. The Sigma did great for the most part. There were some shots where focus was not 100% but the shot was still acceptable, but there were also a few when the lens missed badly for no apparent reason, and none of these were shot wide open.
  3. My 135L actually had the most misses, enough so that it makes me wonder if a fresh AFMA is not in order for the lens, as I know it to be a lens that typically focuses accurately.  Update:  December 1st, 2014.  I did a fresh AFMA on my 135L and discovered that focus had indeed shifted on both camera bodies by a significant amount (from a +2 to a -13 value).  It can happen!

The Sigma proved a very nice tool for portrait work:

Recent focus accuracy seems to be quite excellent. A series shot in a recent church event (almost exclusively shot around f/2) really shocked me with how consistently sharp and perfectly focused they were.

Here’s a final series of tests done after the lens was performing more consistently.  I saw none of the major misses the AF produced early on, but I also noted that AF consistency is still not in the top tier.  The variables to this test are that all shots were done using a stable tripod on a floor with low vibration, mirror lock-up, trigger release, 2 second timer.  The subject was the high contrast text on the Zeiss Planar T lens.  The control shot was shot using Live View focus:

Test shot-1Test Crops Right-1The near 100% crop shows great sharpness and low fringing because of focus being nailed.  The next series was captured using standard AF and the extreme right point of my Canon EOS 6D DSLR Camera, a camera whose AF I know very well at this point.  This gallery shows the crops of five shots taken one after the other.  I would defocus the lens between each capture.

While none of these are as well focused as the control shot using Live View, they all in the relative range of each other, with a few (1 and 5) better than others.  The middle shots are definitely not as well focused.  I would not have been happy with 2-4 if I were shooting professionally.

The next series swapped the subject to the extreme left point of the 6D’s AF system.

The left side results are slightly better, with 1,3, and 5 all falling in nicely focused range.  2 and 4 are a little softer and not as well focused.

The final series used the ultra-powerful center focus point on the 6D, which is the best of it’s kind.  Would that make a difference?

Unsurprisingly there are the most consistent.  Focus seems nicely repeatable on these samples.  All in all, I would say that this a fairly typical (but not exceptional) performance and certainly not with the wilder swings that I saw early on with the AF.  And yet no variables changed from those earlier observations to the present. Same camera bodies. Same AFMA settings. Same photographer using the same techniques. As I said, this leaves me conflicted. This lens is so good in so many ways that it belongs in a lot of photographer’s kit, but I can’t help but believe that there will be times that photographers will also be inexplicably disappointed by shots randomly missed for no apparent reason. Some of these issues might be mitigated with the use of Sigma’s USB dock, but even those who own it and know how to use it have found that it does not “exorcise” all of these gremlins. Just know that this is really the only serious shortcoming with this lens, and if you are using this lens professionally (and I think you can), just shoot a few extra frames during critical moments.  Another option is to try a rental of the lens first and decide for yourself if the AF is consistent enough for your purposes.  I recommend LensRentals in Canada.  I certainly felt far more reassured by the end of my month-long test period.  Shooting it stopped down of course minimizes the obvious nature of slightly missed focus, and I never had any issues when shooting the lens stopped down.

Crystalline

Conclusions

All in all, Sigma has made a major breakthrough in creating a large aperture prime with world class optics that is in a price range that most professional and many amateur photographers can afford. While the stated “target” is the Zeiss Otus, there will actually be fairly few photographers that are cross-shopping these two lenses. The Otus is still the optical king and enjoys a certain cache that Sigma can’t touch. But the Sigma is a far more practical lens for most photographers, as most photographers need autofocus for their work. The inconsistency in the AF performance is a concern, but the truth of the matter is that there are a variety of focus concerns with other 50mm lenses, too. The AF in the 50mm ART is snappy and (most of the time) accurate. I have already used the lens in professional settings and have been mostly pleased with the results.  I wouldn’t hesitate to use it professionally in the future. This is an excellent lens that sets a new benchmark for autofocusing 50mm lenses.

It’s greatest weaknesses beside the occasional AF inconsistency are price and size. It is not that the price is out of line; it is just that 50mm f/1.4 lenses have historically been much cheaper. It is expensive (and large) enough to give some photographers pause and make them cross-shop a 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom instead. It is certainly NOT a lens that one throws into a jacket pocket and brings along. I mused on multiple occasions during the review process that I wish that Canon would make a 50mm lens along the lines of the newer 35mm f/2 IS lens. Reasonably compact, sharp, and with highly accurate focus. Perhaps even IS. I would be willing to accept a slightly narrower aperture (f/1.8 or even f/2) in the tradeoff so long as it could be shot wide open with excellent sharpness. At the moment, however, no such lens exists.  Perhaps the best alternative is the Zeiss Makro-Planar 50mm f/2 lens, which adds 1:2 macro performance but with a narrower maximum aperture and no autofocus (expect my review of this lens next month). If I were to buy a 50mm wide aperture lens right now, though, it would be this Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART lens. It is beautifully designed, classy, and takes great pictures. I know of no higher a compliment to give.

Pros:

  • Beautifully designed lens with great build quality
  • Exceptional optics
  • Better than average minimum focus distance
  • Excellent contrast, even wide open
  • Good bokeh without any overly distracting tendencies
  • Autofocus is fast and quiet
  • Great lens hood and nice case included
  • Lens completely usable wide open (unlike most 50mm primes)

Cons:

  • Lens is very large and heavy for a 50mm prime
  • Autofocus can be inconsistent
  • Price is considerably higher than Sigma’s previous 50mm
  • Lens will exhibit some ghosting when bright light is in the frame

Image Gallery: for more images and a few full size samples, click here

End Notes: I have reviewed a retail copy of the lens provided to me for review by B&H Photo. The majority of the photos in this review have received only minimal processing and are representative of what this lens can produce. Purchasing your gear from B&H through these links helps fund this website and keeps the reviews coming. Thanks!

You might also like:

Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS Review
Samyang/Rokinon 24mm f/3.5 Tilt-Shift Review
Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD Review

Gear Used:

Canon EOS 6D DSLR Camera (Body Only)
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Canon EF
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Software for Mac and Windows (Boxed Version)
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Alien Skin Exposure 7 Use code “dustinabbott” to get 10% off everything.

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. Thank you for your support.

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Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary Review

Dustin Abbott

May 9th, 2023

It has been four years since I last reviewed a premium Sigma DN prime lens designed specifically for APS-C.  The last one that I tested was the Sigma 56mm F1.4 DN, which impressed me as a portrait/short telephoto lens that was extremely sharp (one of the sharpest APS-C lenses that I’ve tested).  Sigma is finally back with a new entry in the line-up, and this one covers the incredibly important full frame equivalent 35mm focal length.  The Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary is (according to Sigma) the APS-C equivalent of their 35mm F1.4 DN ART lens, though, as we’ll see, Sigma’s design brief for the APS-C series follows a different formula than their full frame lenses.  Here’s a look at the DC (APS-C) DN (mirrorless) lineup thus far.

  1. Sigma 16mm F1.4
  2. Sigma 23mm F1.4
  3. Sigma 30mm F1.4
  4. Sigma 56mm F1.4
  5. Sigma 18-50mm F2.8

Sigma’s DC DN series has become even more important now that Fuji has lifted their restrictions on third party development for the platform, as the Fuji X-mount is a place where these lenses can really thrive – particularly considering that fact that Sigma likes to make high resolving lenses and Fuji currently has the highest resolving APS-C cameras!  I’m doing this review on Sony E-mount, but I would love to see this Sigma 23mm (and other lenses from the series) on a Fujifilm X-H2 and its 40.2MP sensor!  You can also get this lens in a Leica L mount, though there aren’t any L-mount APS-C bodies and you would be using it in APS-C mode on one of the high resolution full frame models.  While I’ve done my formal tests on a Sony a6400 (along with some of the sample photos), I actually enjoy the lens much more on my 50MP Sony Alpha 1 in APS-C mode because I vastly prefer the ergonomics, viewfinder, IBIS, and focus system of that camera.  I’ve recently said that the best APS-C camera that Sony has at the moment is the a7RV in APS-C mode!

The 35mm focal length is one of my favorites, as it works very well as a general purpose walkaround focal length, good for landscapes, cityscapes, street, and people portraits.  This Sigma 23mm F1.4 covers that focal length with aplomb, with plenty of sharpness, nice color, and fairly good bokeh.

The maximum aperture of F1.4 is always attractive, as it gives you low light versatility along with creative depth of field options.  I’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review.  So now you have a choice:  watch the video review below or read on to get the full picture.

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Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a6400 along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Sigma 23mm F1.4 Build and Handling

While the 23mm F1.4 is much smaller and lighter than the full frame equivalent 35mm F1.4, it isn’t a particularly small lens by APS-C standards.  It is 65.8mm (D) x 78.9mm in length (for Sony E – it is slightly shorter for Leica L and slightly longer for X-mount).  That’s 2.6″ x 3.1″.  The filter size is 52mm, and the lens weighs in at 330g or 11.6oz.  There are a few competitors if we widen the net to include Fuji X-mount, and the Sigma is middle of the pack in terms of size and weight though at the larger end of the spectrum (the Fujinon XF 23mm F1.4 LM is slightly larger and heavier).

The Sigma also falls short of the Fuji lens in price at $549 USD, though it is significantly more expensive than either the Viltrox or Tokina budget alternatives (both available right under $300).

Sigma’s build quality on these lenses is quite nice.  Though they position this lineup under their “Contemporary” branding, the aesthetic and feel of the lens isn’t really different than their ART series. The design language and materials are quite similar…just smaller.

The key difference is that the DC DN primes are essentially featureless.  The only “feature” is the manual focus ring.  There is no aperture ring, no switches…nothing.  That’s definitively a disadvantage compared to all the alternatives, which at the least feature aperture rings.  I’ve seen this happen before; a lens maker locks themselves into a certain standard of features for a series of lenses and then the market shifts and that standard isn’t really high enough to be fully competitive.  That’s going to be key as they shift into the Fuji space, as Fuji lenses are often built to a higher standard of features.

The Sigma 23mm F1.4 has a weather sealing gasket at the lens mount, which isn’t quite as good as having further seals inside the lens itself, but it’s something.

The lens barrel is primarily dominated by a large, nicely made manual focus ring.  Like other lenses designed for mirrorless cameras, this is a focus-by-wire system in which input from the focus ring is routed through the focus motor.  It is actually the focus motor that moves the elements, making manual focus more of an emulation than a direct movement of the elements.  Some lenses pull this off better than others, and the Sigma 23mm F1.4 is one of them.  I will note that the lens will automatically alert the body to magnify the image when you are manually focusing, which is a big help in visually confirming focus.  

The 56mm DC can focus down to 9.8″ (25cm), where it provides a 0.136x magnification figure.  That’s not particularly high for a 35mm focal length, and the Fujifilm 23mm can focus closer (19cm) and has a significantly higher 0.20x magnification, though this is an area where both the Tokina and Viltrox come up short with just a 0.10x magnification level.  Here’s what MFD for the Sigma looks like.

The magnification figure isn’t exceptionally good, but up close performance is looks pretty decent (though with some reduced contrast), and for some reason I felt like I could a little closer and get a little higher magnification than what the figure on paper suggests.  It’s definitely enough to be useful.

The lens hood is included, and Sigma’s lens hoods are a cut above the basic hoods included with many lenses.  They include some soft-touch materials, texture variations, and lens information.

The aperture iris is electromagnetic and controlled from within the camera (no aperture ring).  It has nine rounded aperture blades that do a fairly good job of retaining a circular shape even with the lens stopped down.  At F2 we have circular specular highlight all across the frame, and the geometry is pretty good even wide open.  At F2.8 I can see a hint of the aperture blade shape, but everything is still roughly circular.  Here’s a series at F1.4, F2, and F2.8.

All in all this is a beautifully made little lens.  I did miss having both an aperture ring and an AF/MF switch, and wouldn’t mind seeing Sigma shake up the formula moving ahead to be more directly competitive on the Fuji space.  Viltrox is including at least an aperture ring even on Sony E mount, and their recent Pro AF 75mm F1.2 (currently just out for Fuji X, but expected for Sony E) has more thorough weather sealing, an aperture ring, and an AF/MF switch for about the same money as this Sigma lens.  The standard in the class is changing, and I would like to see Sigma adapt in the same fashion they have with their full frame offerings.

Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN Autofocus

Sigma continues to utilize a stepping focus motor (STM) in these smaller lenses as the elements are smaller and lighter than lenses with an F1.4 aperture designed for full frame.  For the most part the STM focus motor gets the job done here, though there was an area that left me wanting a little bit.  In most situations, however, focus was fast, quiet, and accurate.

Eye AF seemed to work fine whether I was photographing a human or animal subject:

As per usual, I enjoyed autofocus more when using the lens in APS-C mode on my Alpha 1 than on the a6400, but that’s more a reflection of the fact that the Alpha 1 just has a better, well, everything.  For my “walkabouts” in the woods focus was fast and accurate on various subjects that caught my eye…allowing the optics to really shine.

During my focus pull test I heard no focus noise despite working in a near silent environment.  Focus pulls were smooth and quick without pulsing or settling.  There is a moderate amount of focus breathing that takes place during focus pulls.

The area where I was less than impressed was during my “hand test”.  I ran it multiple times, and the second time I was deliberately very slow with my transitions of either putting my hand up or removing it, but I still found focus changes very sluggish (this was on the a6400).  I didn’t have a successful transition where focus had fully pulled to my hand before I removed it…even when I was deliberately moving much slower than usual.  I’m not quite sure what to blame that on.  

Focus worked fine for gimbal footage and for video tracking in general; just don’t expect rapid focus transitions in some situations.  My assistant, Craig, noted in his review that the Sigma did a great job staying properly focused on the subject as both the subject and the camera moved around.

But I had good results for general photography.  

In short, the focus system is excellent, and I have no really concerns to report.

Sigma 23mm F1.4 Image Quality Breakdown

Sigma’s lineup of F1.4 DC DN lenses have all been very strong optically, and the 23mm F1.4 is no exception.  It essentially becomes the second sharpest lens in the lineup, falling only behind the 56mm F1.4 in absolute performance.  Here’s a look at the MTF charts for each of the lenses along with the 35mm F1.4 ART for comparison.

This suggests a very strong performance across about 2/3rds of the frame before a drop in the corners.  This should be a sharper lens than the full frame 35mm F1.4…and images are definitely VERY sharp.

Let’s take at some of the technical aspects of performance.  Sigma lenses enjoy good profile corrections on either Sony, Fuji, or Leica platforms, but we’ll look past the corrections to the optics of the lens itself.  Here’s a look at my vignette and distortion chart, with the uncorrected result on the left and a manually corrected result on the right.

There’s a moderate amount of barrel distortion (I corrected with a +9), but it is nice and linear, so I was able to correct it without any mustache type pattern left behind.  Vignette is roughly 2 stops in the corner, and again it corrected in a linear fashion, so no concerns there.  I actually felt like the Sigma RAW profile for Lightroom slightly overcorrected the distortion and created a bit of pincushion distortion.

It isn’t unusual for a wide aperture prime lens like this one to suffer from some longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA), and that’s true here.  I noticed most strongly during video work where some fringing was apparent in bright areas.  It is most prominent near the window frames, though I also see some purple fringing in some other zones.  Here’s a screen shot to depict what I see: 

I didn’t see much LoCA in my stills photos, however, and a pull across the black and white lines on my test chart didn’t show a lot of fringing either.  I would say that you’ll just have to watch out for certain scenarios that trigger it, and, if you do see it, stopping down to F2 or F2.8 will resolve that.

I saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) along the edge of the frame in either my chart tests or any real world images (all of these bare branches are prime breeding grounds for LaCA:

Nothing too concerning here.  We’ll move on to testing sharpness.  The sharpness tests are done on the Sony a6400, which has 24MP of resolution.   Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.

If we look closely wide open at F1.4 (crops are at roughly 200%), we find that the lens produces extremely strong resolution results across most of the frame.  Yes, you can see that the extreme corners are softer, but they are still not bad.

Here’s an F1.4 shot from a golf course that looks great at a global level but holds up even when viewed at a pixel level.

Closer shots show great sharpness and contrast even at high magnification levels.

This is actually a lens I would be interested in revisiting on a high resolution Fuji body like the X-H2 when Sigma releases it on X-mount (summer 2023), as I would love to see how it handles the extreme resolution there.

The Sigma 23mm F1.4 also showed very good centering, with consistent sharpness everywhere I looked.  

Stopping down to F1.8 produced slightly higher level of contrast – not significant, but enough to be noticeable.  By F2 there is a definitive improvement in the corners.

By F2.8 we have reached very near peak sharpness, with only the tiniest corner improvement by F5.6.  This F4 image shows great detail and contrast across the frame.

After F5.6 there is a mild softening effect as diffraction starts to set in.  By F16 (minimum aperture) diffraction has really softened the image even on the 24MP resolution sensor.  Expect the effect to be worse still on a very high resolution Fuji body.

We’ve established that this is a very sharp lens, but what softness where it is wanted (aka bokeh)?  I noted this as a weakness of the 56mm F1.4, as while it could compete with and even best most full frame 85mm lenses in terms of sharpness, the bokeh wasn’t as soft and creamy as many of them.  I would say the same is true here, as while the bokeh is reasonably nice, I do see quite a bit of outlining in out of focus areas that should be nice and soft.  Take a look at this image of an interesting fallen tree.  The sharpness of the place where the branch once was is fantastic, but you can see a lot of outlining in the bed of fallen leaves in the background where it should be just soft and creamy.

Likewise this shot of a lock shows some busyness in the background beyond it, too.

For some perspective, here’s a shot that I took to match the Sigma though under less ideal conditions (rainy and dark).  I framed the two shots in a similar fashion.  I used an F1.8 lens on full frame rather than a F1.4 lens due to the difference in depth of field between the two sensors.  The Samyang image on the right presents with softer bokeh and less outlining in the background.

This is not to say that the Sigma bokeh is bad (it’s not), but just to illustrate the point that in the balance between sharp and soft, the Sigma slightly tilts towards sharpness…in my opinion.  Bokeh is subjective, however, so I’ll share a few more “bokeh shots” here to allow you to form your own opinion.

Color rendition is nice, with good color saturation but without a skewing towards garish:

Here’s another nice shot from the lens.

I was also impressed with flare resistance.  I shot into the sun pretty much with impunity.  There was little loss of contrast and no big ghosting blobs to ruin the image, and as a bonus, the sunstars look pretty good, too.

There are essentially no better lenses optically at this focal length that I’ve seen thus far.  The Sigma 23mm F1.4 provides images that are going to delight with their detail, and with the move to higher resolution APS-C cameras in this generation, having such high performance is going to be even more important.  You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here.  

Conclusion

It’s always nice to see new development for APS-C, and it has been several years since we’ve seen a new APS-C specific prime lens from Sigma.  Their recent move to start developing for Fuji X-mount may help spur more development, as the more platforms that each lens can be sold for helps Sigma get a better return for their investment.  Between Sony E, Leica L, and Fuji X mounts there should be plenty of potential buyers for the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN | Contemporary lens.  The fact that this lens covers an important focal length so well surely won’t hurt, either.  Only Fuji has a more feature rich option at the 23mm focal length, and it retails for $350 more than the Sigma.

The Sigma delivers on most fronts with great optics, a nice build, reasonable size and weight, and quick autofocus.  When I reviewed the 56mm a few years back the standard in the industry was for APS-C lenses to be bare bones, so even the fact that there was a weather sealing gasket was a bonus.  That standard has changed, however, and it feels like a $550 lens like this should come with a few more features in 2023.

My list of complaints about this lens is pretty brief.  There’s a lot of things that the Sigma 23mm F1.4 does well, and I’d be hard pressed to point to a better 35mm equivalent lens for APS-C.  There’s going to a be a lot of photographers who love this lens for its amazing sharpness, compact size, and large maximum aperture.  It’s a great compliment to other standouts in the series, and I suspect it will be welcomed in the Fuji, Sony, and Leica platforms by future owners.

Pros:

  • Beautifully built lens with some weather sealing
  • Compact and lightweight
  • Large, bright maximum aperture.
  • Exceptional sharpness across the frame
  • Very high contrast
  • Good color rendition
  • Excellent flare resistance
  • Fast, silent autofocus
  • Excellent focus accuracy (including with Eye AF)

Cons:

  • No aperture ring or AF/MF switch
  • The bokeh is a little busy

 

Purchase the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Sigma DN 56mm F1.4 C @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

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Keywords: Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm review, Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN, DC, DN, Contemporary, 23mm, F1.4, f/1.4, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6400, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA23mmContemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADCDN

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Fujifilm X100VI (6) Camera Review
Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Review
Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS Gallery
Canon EOS R50 Review

Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

May 8th, 2023

It has been four years since I last reviewed a premium Sigma DN prime lens designed specifically for APS-C.  The last one that I tested was the Sigma 56mm F1.4 DN, which impressed me as a portrait/short telephoto lens that was extremely sharp (one of the sharpest APS-C lenses that I’ve tested).  Sigma is finally back with a new entry in the line-up, and this one covers the incredibly important full frame equivalent 35mm focal length.  The Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary is (according to Sigma) the APS-C equivalent of their 35mm F1.4 DN ART lens, though, as we’ll see, Sigma’s design brief for the APS-C series follows a different formula than their full frame lenses.  Here’s a look at the DC (APS-C) DN (mirrorless) lineup thus far.

  1. Sigma 16mm F1.4
  2. Sigma 23mm F1.4
  3. Sigma 30mm F1.4
  4. Sigma 56mm F1.4
  5. Sigma 18-50mm F2.8

Sigma’s DC DN series has become even more important now that Fuji has lifted their restrictions on third party development for the platform, as the Fuji X-mount is a place where these lenses can really thrive – particularly considering that fact that Sigma likes to make high resolving lenses and Fuji currently has the highest resolving APS-C cameras!  I’m doing this review on Sony E-mount, but I would love to see this Sigma 23mm (and other lenses from the series) on a Fujifilm X-H2 and its 40.2MP sensor!  You can also get this lens in a Leica L mount, though there aren’t any L-mount APS-C bodies and you would be using it in APS-C mode on one of the high resolution full frame models.  While I’ve done my formal tests on a Sony a6400 (along with some of the sample photos), I actually enjoy the lens much more on my 50MP Sony Alpha 1 in APS-C mode because I vastly prefer the ergonomics, viewfinder, IBIS, and focus system of that camera.  I’ve recently said that the best APS-C camera that Sony has at the moment is the a7RV in APS-C mode!

The 35mm focal length is one of my favorites, as it works very well as a general purpose walkaround focal length, good for landscapes, cityscapes, street, and people portraits.  This Sigma 23mm F1.4 covers that focal length with aplomb, with plenty of sharpness, nice color, and fairly good bokeh.

The maximum aperture of F1.4 is always attractive, as it gives you low light versatility along with creative depth of field options.  I’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review.  So now you have a choice:  watch the video review below or read on to get the full picture.

 

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Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a6400 along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Photos of the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN

Sigma 23mm F1.4 Image Quality Breakdown

Purchase the Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Sigma DN 56mm F1.4 C @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony a7IV @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase a Sony a9M2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

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Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like.  Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like.  Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.

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Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product:  Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

 


 

Keywords: Sigma 23mm F1.4 DN, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm, Sigma 23mm review, Sigma 23mm F1.4 DC DN, DC, DN, Contemporary, 23mm, F1.4, f/1.4, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6400, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA23mmContemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADCDN

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Fujifilm X100VI (6) Camera Review
Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Review
Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS Gallery
Canon EOS R50 Review

Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN (iSeries) Review

Dustin Abbott

May 1st, 2023

Over the past four years Sigma has easily been the most prolific lens developer on Sony FE and Leica L.  We went from no full frame options from Sigma on Sony’s mirrorless platform three years ago to 30+ lenses today.  And, while I tend to look at these lenses from a Sony slant (I don’t cover Leica L-mount), I do recognize that often these iSeries lenses (a lineup of compact prime lenses that debuted in late 2019) are designed even more with Leica cameras in mind.  Compact lenses are even more desirable on compact cameras, and while Sony does have the compact a7C full frame camera, there are a variety of L-mount supporting compact cameras, including some from Sigma itself.  The newest lens to join the growing ranks of the compact iSeries lenses is the Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN, which we will refer to as the i17 for brevity in this review.  It was announced alongside the 50mm F2, an interesting lens that I reviewed here.  If you’re interested in other focal lengths, here is the growing list of iSeries compact prime lenses all hyperlinked to my review of them.

  1. Sigma 17mm F4
  2. Sigma 20mm F2
  3. Sigma 24mm F3.5
  4. Sigma 24mm F2
  5. Sigma 35mm F2
  6. Sigma 45mm F2.8
  7. Sigma 50mm F2
  8. Sigma 65mm F2
  9. Sigma 90mm F2.8

I’ve noted that Sigma’s marketing language for the iSeries is typical marketing word salad (impressive words without much grounding in reality), but the premise for the series is sound.  Sigma has recognized that there are multiple segments within the mirrorless market, and those segments have different priorities.  One group wants maximum performance in aperture and optics, and these are served by Sigma’s larger ART series (like the excellent 20mm F1.4 DN ART), but there is a secondary market who bought into the mirrorless vision of smaller and lighter while retaining the performance.  This second group is the target audience for the iSeries.  The iSeries lenses are beautiful crafted, very tactile, but are also much smaller and lighter than other premium lenses.  I’m a fan of the premise, myself, and have liked most of the iSeries lenses quite a bit. 

As time has passed, there has been an additional bifurcation of the iSeries into two lines with different priorities.  It gets a little “lost in translation”, but Sigma describes the distinction as, “Difference between the lineup that pursuits “supreme compactness” and that “combines superior image quality with everyday use”.  Some of that makes about as much sense as the “Contemporary” designation (aren’t all new lenses “contemporary”?), but essentially the way it plays out in the real world is that some of these lenses pursue compact size at the cost of a few things, most notably maximum aperture.  There are a 45mm and 90mm that have F2.8 apertures, one (24mm) that has a F3.5 aperture, and this compact 17mm has but a F4 aperture.  The other line all have maximum apertures of F2 and are a little higher end optically, though they they are a bit larger (more medium size lenses than really compact ones).

But while the maximum aperture isn’t huge here, there is something very appealing about the notion of being able to carry a very wide angle of view (103.7°) in such a very compact package.  This is a full frame lens that is barely over 50mm long and can use traditional filters.  There are going to be a lot of opportunities to use a lens like this to compliment longer focal lengths.  So should the new Sigma jump onto your wish list for an extremely portable wide angle option?  I’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review.  So now you have a choice:  watch the video review below or read on to get the full picture.

 

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Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Sigma i17 Build and Handling

I’ve been a fan of the iSeries design philosophy.  I love the all-metal construction, attention to detail, and beautiful handling.  Sigma has very intentionally crafted another lens that is both aesthetically and functionally pleasing.  The first thing that stood out to me about the 17mm F4 is how extremely small it is.  It is just 64mm in diameter (2.5″) and 50.8mm in length (2″).  It is 2mm shorter in Leica L mount.  We have a 55mm front filter thread.  The i17 weighs just 220g (7.8oz).  The closet comparison I can think of on the Sony E mount is Samyang’s 18mm F2.8 from their “Tiny” series, which is 63.5 x 60.5 mm (about 10mm longer) but weighs only 145g due to having a very plasticky construction.  The two lenses can’t really be compared in terms of build, as the Sigma is beautifully constructed of high quality materials, while the Samyang is, umm, light.

Sigma has chosen to position the i-Series lenses under the Global Vision division of “Contemporary”.  Typically the lenses branded Contemporary carry Sigma’s lowest level of build, with Sport lenses given the most robust build while Art lenses land in the middle.  The build of the i-Series, however, is arguably nicer than that of the ART series, and cosmetically every bit as nice as the Sport lenses (though the Sport lenses receive a much higher degree of weather sealing).  The positioning of the iSeries lenses into the Contemporary lineup may have more to do with optical design, however, as I’ve had internal discussions with Sigma employees and it seems the idea is that ART lenses should be well-corrected optically without needing a lot of software or profile corrections while Contemporary lenses may require some electronic correction to achieve optimal performance.  Frankly I have not found that to be a hard and fast rule, however.  Some ART series lenses still need a fair bit of correction and some Contemporary lenses need little, so I think it comes down to the unique engineering of each lens.

In many ways these i-Series lenses remind me of two things:  1) classic lenses like the SMC Takumar lenses (which I own about 5 of), and part of why I love them is their beautiful timeless construction that is all metal and glass – and – 2) cine lenses where the aperture and focus rings are raised rather than flush with the barrel and have wider, deeper ribs that accommodate gearing (something that cinematographers often do but stills photographers almost never do).  We’ve got a similar design element in the i-Series.

The Sigma i17 is made all of metal alloys, up to and including the lens hood.  The lens hood itself is a beautifully crafted piece with a great tactile feel to the metal and ribbing, and it has an added practical value that there is plenty of grip friction due to the ribbing that makes it easy to remove.  I love the way that the vertical ribs of the two rings flows right into the lens hood. I appreciate that the hood doesn’t looked “tacked on”, however, and to me the lens looks completed with the lens hood in place because the design language of the lens carries on into the lens hood.  There’s a nice “flow” to the design.  This lens feels like a miniaturized premium lens in a similar way to the feel of the Zeiss Loxia lenses.

Sigma has adopted the inclusion of an aperture ring on many of their DN series lenses (DN indicates that the lenses is designed specifically for mirrorless, while DG designates that the lens is designed for full frame cameras). It works just like Sony G Master lenses where one has the option of selecting A (Automatic) and controlling aperture from within the camera like most lenses, but then one can also manually select aperture in one-third stop detents.  There is a nice extra bit of friction between the A position and the manual section which will help avoid any inadvertent bumping between the two choices.  The aperture ring (like everything on the lens) is beautifully engineered, and has very precise, definite movement and feel for each of the detents.  Some people question the necessity of an aperture ring (particularly one that cannot be declicked for video aperture racking), but I can say for myself that I personally strongly prefer to have an aperture ring even for stills.  I find it helps me to be more intentional about the use of aperture and plan in advance for what aperture will best suit my shot.

Another solid addition is the AF/MF switch on the side of the barrel.  This is something that many mirrorless lenses lack, but I still find an actual physical switch the quickest and easiest way to move between autofocus and manual focus.  The F2 lenses  have the AF/MF switch mounted transversely, which I would preferred here as it fits into the tight space better.  As it stands the raised knurls on the aperture ring can make it hard to engage the switch when in the AF position because there is just a few millimeters of clearance between the ring and the switch.   A subtle positive touch here is that the paint exposed when in AF is white, while the exposed paint when in MF mode is black.  It’s a quick visual clue.  Sigma’s ART series DN lenses include a focus hold button as well, but that’s not a feature we’ve seen on the iSeries lenses.

There is also a manual focus ring.  The focus ring, like the aperture ring, is a “by-wire” system, meaning that input on either the focus ring or the aperture ring is electronically communicated rather than through a direct mechanical coupling.  This means that input on the focus ring or the aperture ring will not create any physical changes unless the lens is attached to a camera and powered on.  The focus ring has a nice feel to it, and Sigma has done a good job emulating traditional manual focus by designing a high quality focus ring that actually has some weight to it.  It is worth noting that Sigma has released a firmware update for its L-mount lenses that enables the user to have control over whether the focus ring operates in a linear or non-linear fashion.

Like most of the iSeries lenses, Sigma is leveraging the all-metal construction to give consumers an option when it comes to the front lens cap.  There is a traditional pinch-style plastic lens cap included, but the lens also ships with a magnetic cap that pops easily into place.  I find that it works better if you are using the lens without the hood, as reaching in to remove it with the hood fixed is quite difficult.  The lens hood is fairly shallow here, but I find the only way I can removed the magnetic cap is to hook a fingernail under a ridge on the side, and it isn’t always quick or reliable.  I’ll confess that for me, personally, the magnetic caps have proved more gimmick than revolutionary, and I just use the traditional pinch cap.  Your mileage may vary, of course.  I know that some people love the magnetic caps.

The lens does have a weather sealing gasket, though there are no other internal seals in the lens.  There is no image stabilization (though almost no prime lenses do, so I don’t exactly look for it).  You’ll have to rely on IBIS if your camera is so equipped.

The aperture iris has seven rounded aperture blades, and this helps keep the aperture shape fairly circular when stopped down, though that’s going to be less of a concern with a wide angle lens that has maximum aperture of F4.  The specular highlights near the edge of the frame suffer from the strong distortion from the lens – they are obviously stretched and elongated.  The correction profile doesn’t fix this.  Pretty “bokeh balls” (specular highlights) are not going to be a particular strength of this lens.

Minimum focus distance here is 12cm or 4.8″, which is really close!  The distance from the sensor to the end of the lens hood is right over 9cm, which leaves you less than 3cm of working distance.  You will almost certainly want to remove the lens hood when working up close, as there’s a good chance you’ll shade your subject with it.  If you can get that close, you can produce a very high nearly 0.28% magnification (1:3.6).  Here’s what MFD from the Sigma looks like:

Distortion gets exaggerated when you are that close (you’ll note the plane of focus is not flat at all), so you either need to compose as “flat” as possible to avoid any exaggeration, or use that creatively, like this:

Unlocking the close focus abilities of the lens takes some work, but I do appreciate the inclusion.  It adds versatility to the lens, and also means that when doing video work you won’t have to worry about exceeding the minimum focus distance as you’ll be bumping into your subject by then!

The Sigma 17mm F4 is the widest lens in the series thus far, and is wider than many of the lenses I could think of that might compete, though it also has a smaller maximum aperture than any of those lenses.  The price point of $599 is much higher than the cheaper alternatives from Samyang or Tamron, and is high enough that the Sony 20mm F1.8 G comes into the picture at the higher end ($898) if you want a lens with a much larger maximum aperture.  Here’s a look at where the Sigma slots in with these alternatives.

Sigma 17mm F4 DN Autofocus

Sigma continues to utilize a stepping focus motor (STM) in these smaller lenses as the elements are smaller and lighter and require less overall power than, say, an F1.4 lens.  I have no problem with this decision, as focus is snappy and quiet.  A wide angle lens with a small maximum aperture is never going to put too much stress on a focus system, but that doesn’t change the fact that the focus system did pretty much everything that I would expect it to do.

I used the lens got get some wide angle perspective on a basketball game, and found that it did fine tracking the action there, though again depth of field means that only minimal focus changes are needed at F4 since so much is already in focus.

I worked at tracking Nala as it can sometimes be hard for a lens to grab focus initially on a small, fast moving animal.  The i17 did pretty well, however, though in that kind of lighting the maximum aperture of F4 meant that I had really jack up the ISO to prevent everything from being a blurry mess due to motion blur.

I saw good results when I got close enough to a subject that there were some things actually out of focus, though in many cases just about everything in frame will be in focus.

During my focus pull test I heard no focus noise despite working in a near silent environment.  Focus pulls were smooth and quick, and made more so by the fact that there are A) minimal focus changes to be made and B) there is next to focus breathing.  I also saw a good result when doing my hand test (where I block the lens from viewing my face and then remove it to see how confidently focus returns to the eye), with a smooth transition back to my eye once the blocking hand was removed.

This will make the 17mm F4 a nice gimbal lens.  The light weight, wide angle of view, and quality focus make it a nice option for vlogging or just getting a wide angle of view for video work.  It’s also worth noting that 17mm is wide enough to also be useful on APS-C (25.5mm equivalent), and the lens is certainly small and light enough to be a natural fit there.

As per usual, I’ll add the warning label:  the burst rate on Sony’s sports cameras will be limited to 15FPS rather then the potential 20/30FPS that Sony’s sports bodies can achieve with a Sony lens.  That’s true of all third party lenses on Sony FE.  No such limitation will exist on Leica L, where Sigma is technically a “first party”.  It also isn’t supported by Sony’s Focus Breathing Compensation, but that’s basically a moot point here because there really isn’t any focus breathing to compensate for.

In short, the focus system is excellent, and I have no really concerns to report.

Sigma i17 Image Quality Breakdown

Sigma has done a pretty remarkable job as a third party lensmaker in that people expect a new Sigma release to automatically be a very high performing lens optically.  While the 17mm does have a few optical shortcomings, sharpness isn’t one of them.  This is a very sharp lens from F4 on all across the frame, and can deliver beautifully detailed results even on my 50MP Sony Alpha 1:

It is rare for a wide angle, wide aperture lens like this to suffer much from longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA), and that’s true here.  I see only a faint amount of green/blue fringing around some specular highlights, but next to none on the facets of the crystal in the foreground.

I saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) along the edge of the frame in either my chart tests or any real world images (all of these bare branches are prime breeding grounds for LaCA:

Sigma lenses enjoy good profile corrections on either Sony or Leica platforms, but we’ll look past the corrections to the optics of the lens itself.  Here’s a look at my vignette and distortion chart, with the uncorrected result on the left and a manually corrected result on the right.

There’s some heavy barrel distortion (manually corrected with a +12) and a significant amount of vignette (I corrected it with a +78).  The distortion has a bit of a mustache profile, so it doesn’t manually correct particularly well.   That’s about three stops of vignette in the corners, and if left uncorrected that vignette does penetrate quite deeply into the frame, giving images a certain look that is a little “heavy”…even at F6.3:

The correction profile does a cleaner job of correcting the distortion, so you’ll want to use that if you have any straight lines in the frame:

Even this cityscape really benefited from using the correction profile to straighten out the fence on the left side of the image.

This is some significant distortion, but I’ve seen worse.  Much worse.  

The Tamron 20mm F2.8 OSD isn’t as wide, and I had to dial in a +42 to correct the distortion (vs +12 for the Sigma).  The Canon 16mm F2.8 STM was worse still – I had to dial in a +70 to correct it!  Bottom line is that for a compact wide angle lens this really isn’t too bad of a performance, so I wanted to put things into perspective.

We’ll move on to testing sharpness.  All of the tests and photos shown in this review are done on the 50MP Sony Alpha 1, which is Sony’s second-highest resolution full frame mirrorless camera at the time of this review.  Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.

If we look closely wide open at F4 (crops are at roughly 170%), we find that the lens produces extremely strong resolution results all across the frame.

The i17 also showed very good centering, with consistent sharpness everywhere I looked.  

The strength of a lens like this is not in producing shallow depth of field but rather in having a whole scene in focus at “larger” apertures.  This shot at F5.6, for example, has everything in focus from the snow in the foreground to the distant tree line beyond the bay.

I see little difference across much of the frame if stopped down to F5.6, but the corners do show a visible improvement in contrast.

I would say that you’ll only see the slightest bit more in the edges at F8, though I don’t really see a diffraction hit elsewhere, so it seems to be worth using even on a high resolution body.  This F8 shot shows a lot of punch!

Minimum aperture is F22, though by that point diffraction has softened the image quite a bit.  I typically recommend using F11 as a practical limit if you are using a higher resolution camera.

Obviously this is a very sharp optic.  While it is considerably more expensive than a lens like the Samyang AF 18mm F2.8, it is also a higher performing lens.

This isn’t really a “bokeh” lens as there are limited opportunities to really blur out backgrounds, but here’s a few shots to give you a sense of what you can do if you get very close to your subject.

This lens is more about getting lots of things in focus than in getting them OUT of focus.l

Flare resistance is extremely strong, and I really couldn’t make the lens do much of anything negative with the sun in the frame.

The one thing I will note is that I didn’t actually find it particularly easy to make a nice sunburst with the i17.  The final shot above shows fairly good conditions for creating one, but I just didn’t feel like the blades produced a highly distinct effect.

Color rendition was nice, and besides the vignette and distortion, I didn’t really see a lot to complain about optically…so I won’t.  You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here.  This is a very strong lens optically and one that has few flaws.  It’s a solid choice if you want something smaller and lighter yet high performing.

Conclusion

I was intrigued when I pulled the little Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN out of the box.  The notion of getting a very wide angle of view in an extremely compact form factor is always appealing, as there are many occasions where I like to bring along a lens just like this to help augment shooting with a longer focal length.  You could pair this with a 24-70mm or 28-70mm zoom to fill in the wider shots, and it is a very easy lens to throw into the bag or even a pocket to bring along.  The fact that it can also produce great looking images is icing on the cake.

The iSeries always delights me with the tactile feedback of the designs.  They feel exquisitely well made, with unique textures and design language that speaks of a company that really does love to produce beautiful lenses.  This 17mm F4 backs up those good looks with nice optics as well.

The final hurdle for most of the iSeries lenses will be the price.  At $599 USD, this isn’t a cheap lens, but it’s also quite a premium little lens.  The challenge is perceptual.  A big ART series lens at $900 feels like a value, and while this is a very quality little lens, the small size makes some people feel like they are getting less of a value.  The iSeries has always been for a certain type of photographer, however, and I think that for the right buyer this lens will be a delight.  It’s easy to bring along, makes beautiful images, and has a very useful focal length for a lot of things.  The Sigma 17mm F4 DN is one of the more unique additions to the iSeries, but I, for one, welcome it.

Pros:

  • Beautifully crafted lens with a lot of loving touches
  • Has a weather sealing gasket
  • STM focus motor is quick and quiet
  • CA fairly well controlled
  • Excellent wide open sharpness
  • Good color and contrast
  • Good flare resistance
  • Extremely compact

Cons:

  • Might be perceived as slightly expensive
  • Some obvious vignette and distortion
  • The AF/MF switch can be a little hard to engage due to space

 

Purchase the Sigma 17mm F4 DN @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Sigma 50mm F2 DN @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

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Keywords: Sigma 17mm F4 DN, Sigma 17mm, Sigma 17mm, Sigma 17mm review, Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN, DG, DN, iSeries, Contemporary, 17mm, Ff, f/4, Review, Leica L, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA17mmF4Contemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADGDN, #Iseries, #SIGMAIseries

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Fujifilm X100VI (6) Camera Review
Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Review
Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS Gallery
Canon EOS R50 Review

Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN (iSeries) Image Gallery)

Dustin Abbott

May 1st, 2023

Over the past four years Sigma has easily been the most prolific lens developer on Sony FE and Leica L.  We went from no full frame options from Sigma on Sony’s mirrorless platform three years ago to 30+ lenses today.  And, while I tend to look at these lenses from a Sony slant (I don’t cover Leica L-mount), I do recognize that often these iSeries lenses (a lineup of compact prime lenses that debuted in late 2019) are designed even more with Leica cameras in mind.  Compact lenses are even more desirable on compact cameras, and while Sony does have the compact a7C full frame camera, there are a variety of L-mount supporting compact cameras, including some from Sigma itself.  The newest lens to join the growing ranks of the compact iSeries lenses is the Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN.  It was announced alongside the 50mm F2, an interesting lens that I reviewed here.  If you’re interested in other focal lengths, here is the growing list of iSeries compact prime lenses all hyperlinked to my review of them.

  1. Sigma 17mm F4
  2. Sigma 20mm F2
  3. Sigma 24mm F3.5
  4. Sigma 24mm F2
  5. Sigma 35mm F2
  6. Sigma 45mm F2.8
  7. Sigma 50mm F2
  8. Sigma 65mm F2
  9. Sigma 90mm F2.8

I’ve noted that Sigma’s marketing language for the iSeries is typical marketing word salad (impressive words without much grounding in reality), but the premise for the series is sound.  Sigma has recognized that there are multiple segments within the mirrorless market, and those segments have different priorities.  One group wants maximum performance in aperture and optics, and these are served by Sigma’s larger ART series (like the excellent 20mm F1.4 DN ART), but there is a secondary market who bought into the mirrorless vision of smaller and lighter while retaining the performance.  This second group is the target audience for the iSeries.  The iSeries lenses are beautiful crafted, very tactile, but are also much smaller and lighter than other premium lenses.  I’m a fan of the premise, myself, and have liked most of the iSeries lenses quite a bit. 

As time has passed, there has been an additional bifurcation of the iSeries into two lines with different priorities.  It gets a little “lost in translation”, but Sigma describes the distinction as, “Difference between the lineup that pursuits “supreme compactness” and that “combines superior image quality with everyday use”.  Some of that makes about as much sense as the “Contemporary” designation (aren’t all new lenses “contemporary”?), but essentially the way it plays out in the real world is that some of these lenses pursue compact size at the cost of a few things, most notably maximum aperture.  There are a 45mm and 90mm that have F2.8 apertures, one (24mm) that has a F3.5 aperture, and this compact 17mm has but a F4 aperture.  The other line all have maximum apertures of F2 and are a little higher end optically, though they they are a bit larger (more medium size lenses than really compact ones).

But while the maximum aperture isn’t huge here, there is something very appealing about the notion of being able to carry a very wide angle of view (103.7°) in such a very compact package.  This is a full frame lens that is barely over 50mm long and can use traditional filters.  There are going to be a lot of opportunities to use a lens like this to compliment longer focal lengths.  So should the new Sigma jump onto your wish list for an extremely portable wide angle option?  I’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review.  So now you have a choice:  watch the video review, read the text review, or just enjoy the photos below.

 

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Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Images of the Sigma 17mm F4

Photos Taken with the Sigma 17mm f4

 

Purchase the Sigma 17mm F4 DN @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Sigma 50mm F2 DN @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Sony a7IV @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase a Sony a9M2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | | Camera Canada | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like.  Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like.  Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.

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Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product:  Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

 


 

Keywords: Sigma 17mm F4 DN, Sigma 17mm, Sigma 17mm, Sigma 17mm review, Sigma 17mm F4 DG DN, DG, DN, iSeries, Contemporary, 17mm, Ff, f/4, Review, Leica L, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA17mmF4Contemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADGDN, #Iseries, #SIGMAIseries

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Fujifilm X100VI (6) Camera Review
Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Review
Canon RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS Gallery
Canon EOS R50 Review

Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN C (iSeries) Review

Dustin Abbott

April 3rd, 2023

Over the past three years Sigma has easily been the most prolific lens developer on Sony FE and Leica L.  We went from no full frame options from Sigma on Sony’s mirrorless platform three years ago to 30+ lenses today.  And, while I tend to look at these lenses from a Sony slant (I don’t cover Leica L-mount), I do recognize that often these iSeries lenses (a lineup of compact prime lenses that debuted in late 2019) are designed even more with Leica cameras in mind.  Compact lenses are even more desirable on compact cameras, and while Sony does have the compact a7C full frame camera, there are a variety of L-mount supporting compact cameras, including some from Sigma itself.  The newest lens to join the growing ranks of the compact iSeries lenses is the Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN, which we will refer to as the i50 for brevity in this review, with a 17mm F4 lens also being announced at the same time.  If you’re interested in other focal lengths, here is the growing list of iSeries compact prime lenses all hyperlinked to my review of them.

  1. Sigma 17mm F4
  2. Sigma 20mm F2
  3. Sigma 24mm F3.5
  4. Sigma 24mm F2
  5. Sigma 35mm F2
  6. Sigma 45mm F2.8
  7. Sigma 50mm F2
  8. Sigma 65mm F2
  9. Sigma 90mm F2.8

I’ve noted that Sigma’s marketing language for the iSeries is typical marketing word salad (impressive words without much grounding in reality), but the premise for the series is sound.  Sigma has recognized that there are multiple segments within the mirrorless market, and those segments have different priorities.  One group wants maximum performance in aperture and optics, and these are served by Sigma’s larger ART series (like the recent 50mm F1.4 DN ART), but there is a secondary market who bought into the mirrorless vision of smaller and lighter while retaining the performance.  This second group is the target audience for the iSeries.  The iSeries lenses are beautiful crafted, very tactile, but are also much smaller and lighter than other premium lenses.  I’m a fan of the premise, myself, and have liked most of the iSeries lenses quite a bit. 

I recently released my review of Sony’s newest 50mm lens, the 50mm F1.4 G Master, and one of the comments I heard often from my audience was that many of them were less interested in an F1.4 lens (when Sony already has an amazing 50mm F1.2 lens), and what they really wanted was a better quality 50mm F1.8 lens (perhaps in the G series).  Sony already has a very compact 50mm F2.5 G lens (which I reviewed here), but people wanted something a little faster than that.  Sigma is happy to jump into that void, as the i50 has the superior build quality, quality optics, and compact size that people said they are looking for.

The main threat to the i50 on the Sony side is that Sony 50mm F2.5 G lens, as the Sony is a really solid little lens with a great build, excellent autofocus, good up close performance, and very strong optics.  It’s also 25mm shorter and about half the weight of the new Sigma lens…and the price point is pretty much identical.  The main Sigma advantage is that it sports a 2/3rds stop brighter aperture (F2 vs F2.5), and it could be argued that the build is even nicer.  There are fewer alternatives in L mount, however, where this lens will be even more welcome.

So should the new Sigma jump onto your wish list for a new 50mm lens?  I’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review.  So now you have a choice:  watch the video review below or read on to get the full picture.

Follow Me @ YouTube | Patreon |  Instagram | Facebook | DA Merchandise | Flickr | 500px

Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Sigma i50 Build and Handling

I’ve been a fan of the iSeries design philosophy.  I love the all-metal construction, attention to detail, and beautiful handling.  Sigma has very intentionally crafted another lens that is both aesthetically and functionally pleasing.  As noted, this is another nicely compact lens, with a 70mm (2.8″) diameter and a 58mm front filter thread (in metal).  The lens is 70mm (2.8″) in length and weighs 345g (12.2 oz).  Here’s a look at how it fits in between a “plastic fantastic” (Canon RF 50mm F1.8) and the smallest 50mm F1.4 lens on the Sony platform – the Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II.  You can see that the lens is definitely the “medium” option of the three.

Sigma released an excellent 50mm F1.4 DN ART lens about six weeks before this 50mm F2, and the two lenses really give you a significant choice in terms of lens size.  The i50 is 37% shorter (about 40mm) and weighs nearly 50% less (235g).  That clear separation in size was (for many) what some of my audience was looking for from Sony.  Here’s a visual comparison between the two lenses (the chart from Sigma, but the image of the i5o is supplied by me into the scale that Sigma provided).

 

A quick word on filter size.  Thus far the series has utilized three different standards for filter sizes, including 55mm, 58mm, and 62mm.  The 58mm filter dimensions of this lens is shared only with the 35mm F2, so I’m left wondering if Sigma might not have been better off to adopt a common standard throughout this series.  The range of filter sizes only differs by 7mm, so it seems like they could have engineered for a common filter size fairly easily.  It’s also a reasonable debate as to whether it is better to have a common filter standard (at the cost of some lenses being bigger than what they would otherwise need to be) or better to let each lens follow its own most logical design path at the cost of varying filter sizes.  Clearly Sigma has chosen the latter route.

Sigma has chosen to position the i-Series lenses under the Global Vision division of “Contemporary”.  Typically the lenses branded Contemporary carry Sigma’s lowest level of build, with Sport lenses given the most robust build while Art lenses land in the middle.  The build of the i-Series, however, is arguably nicer than that of the ART series, and cosmetically every bit as nice as the Sport lenses (though the Sport lenses receive a much higher degree of weather sealing).  The positioning of the iSeries lenses into the Contemporary lineup may have more to do with optical design, however, as I’ve had internal discussions with Sigma employees and it seems the idea is that ART lenses should be well-corrected optically without needing a lot of software or profile corrections while Contemporary lenses may require some electronic correction to achieve optimal performance.  Frankly I have not found that to be a hard and fast rule, however.  Some ART series lenses still need a fair bit of correction and some Contemporary lenses need little, so I think it comes down to the unique engineering of each lens.

In many ways these i-Series lenses remind me of two things:  1) classic lenses like the SMC Takumar lenses (which I own about 5 of), and part of why I love them is their beautiful timeless construction that is all metal and glass – and – 2) cine lenses where the aperture and focus rings are raised rather than flush with the barrel and have wider, deeper ribs that accommodate gearing (something that cinematographers often do but stills photographers almost never do).  We’ve got a similar design element in the i-Series.

The Sigma i50 is made all of metal alloys, up to and including the lens hood.  The lens hood itself is a beautifully crafted piece with a great tactile feel to the metal and ribbing, and it has an added practical value that there is plenty of grip friction due to the ribbing that makes it easy to remove.  The lens hood itself is fairly deep.  I appreciate that the hood doesn’t looked “tacked on”, however, and to me the lens looks completed with the lens hood in place because the design language of the lens carries on into the lens hood.  There’s a nice “flow” to the design. 

Sigma has adopted the inclusion of an aperture ring on many of their DN series lenses (DN indicates that the lenses is designed specifically for mirrorless, while DG designates that the lens is designed for full frame cameras). It works just like Sony G Master lenses where one has the option of selecting A (Automatic) and controlling aperture from within the camera like most lenses, but then one can also manually select aperture in one-third stop detents.  There is a nice extra bit of friction between the A position and the manual section which will help avoid any inadvertent bumping between the two choices.  The aperture ring (like everything on the lens) is beautifully engineered, and has very precise, definite movement and feel for each of the detents.  Some people question the necessity of an aperture ring (particularly one that cannot be declicked for video aperture racking), but I can say for myself that I personally strongly prefer to have an aperture ring even for stills.  I find it helps me to be more intentional about the use of aperture and plan in advance for what aperture will best suit my shot.

Another solid addition is the AF/MF switch on the side of the barrel.  This is something that many mirrorless lenses lack, but I still find an actual physical switch the quickest and easiest way to move between autofocus and manual focus.  The F2 lenses like this one have the AF/MF switch mounted transversely, which fits better in the space allotted on these compact lenses.  A subtle positive touch here is that the paint exposed when in AF is white, while the exposed paint when in MF mode is black.  It’s a quick visual clue.  Sigma’s ART series DN lenses include a focus hold button as well, but that’s not a feature we’ve seen on the iSeries lenses.

There is also a manual focus ring.  The focus ring, like the aperture ring, is a “by-wire” system, meaning that input on either the focus ring or the aperture ring is electronically communicated rather than through a direct mechanical coupling.  This means that input on the focus ring or the aperture ring will not create any physical changes unless the lens is attached to a camera and powered on.  The focus ring has a nice feel to it, and Sigma has done a good job emulating traditional manual focus.  It is worth noting that Sigma has released a firmware update for its L-mount lenses that enables the user to have control over whether the focus ring operates in a linear or non-linear fashion.

Like most of the iSeries lenses, Sigma is leveraging the all-metal construction to give consumers an option when it comes to the front lens cap.  There is a traditional pinch-style plastic lens cap included, but the lens also ships with a magnetic cap that pops easily into place.  I find that it works better if you are using the lens without the hood, as reaching in to remove it with the hood fixed is quite difficult.  I’ll confess that for me, personally, the magnetic caps have proved more gimmick than revolutionary, and I just use the traditional pinch cap.  Your mileage may vary, of course.  I know that some people love the magnetic caps.

The lens does have a weather sealing gasket, though there are no other internal seals in the lens.  There is no image stabilization (though almost no prime lenses do, so I don’t exactly look for it).  You’ll have to rely on IBIS if your camera is so equipped.

The aperture iris has nine rounded aperture blades, and this helps keep the aperture shape fairly circular when stopped down.  There is some “cat-eye” shape near the edges of the frame, though a stop down to F2.8 produces round specular highlights across the frame.  I’ll throw in the F4 result for good measure.

Minimum focus distance here is 45cm or 17.8″, which is pretty standard fare for a 50mm lens.  That limits the amount of magnification to a ratio of 1:6.9, or 0.14x.  The Sony 50mm F2.5 G can focus as closely as 31cm and gives a more robust 0.21x.  Here’s what MFD from the Sigma looks like:

Magnification isn’t particularly high, but the up close results are pretty good.  Contrast is strong and the plane of focus is surprisingly pretty flat.

Still, the amount of magnification here is slightly below average for a 50mm lens, so that if that is a priority for you, the Sony 50mm F2.5G might be a better option.

Sigma 50mm F2 DN Autofocus

Sigma has unveiled a new focus system (HLA) on their bigger lenses that has helped speed up autofocus in those lenses with bigger, heavier elements, but they are sticking with their tried and true formula on the iSeries lenses.  These smaller, lighter elements on the iSeries lenses don’t really need the higher power of the HLM focus motor, so Sigma continues to utilize a stepping focus motor (STM) that makes fast, quiet focus changes.  I have no problem with this decision, as focus is snappy and quiet.  The Sony 50mm F2.5 G employs dual linear motors, though frankly I’m not sure many people would be able to detect a difference in focus speed between the two lenses  Even large focus changes on the i50 are near instantaneous and without pulsing or settling.  Focus accuracy is also very good.

I found that Eye AF worked well whether tracking a human subject:

…or animal subject.

The tracking remained sticky on the eye on either my Sony Alpha 1 or a7IV.  I also had good focus accuracy with inanimate subjects as well:

When I did my “Nala tracking” test where I try to track her moving towards the camera, I got a mixed bag result.  The first part of the sequence was backfocused, though once focus swung forward to the right spot it did stay there until the end.  Not quite as effective as either the recent ART lens or the Sony 50mm F1.4 GM that I recently tested.

During my focus pull test I heard no focus noise despite working in a near silent environment.  I also saw a good result when doing my hand test (where I block the lens from viewing my face and then remove it to see how confidently focus returns to the eye), though I will note that there was a mildly visible step in the focus transition there (focus seems to very briefly pause about halfway through the focus pull from my hand to my face).  I saw a smoother result during a test where I walked up towards the camera, as that was a longer, slower focus adjustment and I saw no visible steps there.

The stepping was exaggerated in one of those tests by some obvious focus breathing , which leads me to a side discussion for potential Sony E-mount.  Sony has a few areas related to focus where they put a thumb on the scale to give some advantage to Sony lenses.  One of those is that Sony has a focus breathing compensation/correction in some Sony cameras that (at the cost of a minor crop) can largely eliminate focus breathing.  But you’ve probably guessed what is coming:  this correction is only available for first party Sony lenses.  I’ve also noted that while the focus of the i50 is nice and snappy, the burst rate on Sony’s sports cameras will be limited to 15FPS rather then the potential 20/30FPS that Sony’s sports bodies can achieve with a Sony lens.

For many people neither of these things will be a major issue.  The burst rate only affects either those that own an a9/a9II or an Alpha 1 camera at the moment, and it’s not like 15FPS is slow!  It’s also worth noting that none of these restrictions will apply to L mount customers, as Sigma is part of the L mount “cooperative”, and so this is (technically) a first party lens there.

In short, the focus system is excellent, and most of the limitations are those artificially imposed by Sony.  Those for whom video is a priority might want to consider the Sony 50mm F2.5 G for two reasons, however.  The first is that the Sony does allow for declicking the aperture (a video-centric feature) and also that the Sony lens will be compatible with the focus breathing compensation if that happens to be a concern.  Those that want to use their 50mm to track high speed action might want to go with the one of the bigger, more expensive 50mm F1.4 options from either Sigma or Sony, as these seem to be a little more robust for tracking action.  The Sony would be the best choice as it will also deliver the maximum frame rate on sports cameras.  For most people in most situations, however, the Sigma 50mm F2 DN will serve their autofocus needs very well.

Sigma i50 Image Quality Breakdown

Sigma has done a pretty remarkable job as a third party lensmaker in that people expect a new Sigma release to automatically be a very high performing lens optically.  That’s certainly true here, as this smaller lens is actually very competitive with the high end Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN ART that was just released.  According the respective MTF charts, the 50mm F2 is actually about 10% sharper in the center of the frame, is a hair sharper in the midframe, but is considerably weaker (roughly 20%) in the corners.  Here’s a Sigma-provided comparison chart (50mm F2 on the right):

So, for most of the area that matters in many types of photography, the i50 is going to be a very strong performer…and that’s what I find in real world results:

We’ll break down what I actually found in a mix of real world and chart tests.  

There is some longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) visible at a pixel level, but nothing extreme.  You’ll likely mostly see it as a bit of green fringing on bokeh highlights.

I saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) along the edge of the frame in either my chart tests or any real world images:

Sigma lenses enjoy good profile corrections on either Sony or Leica platforms, but we’ll look past the corrections to the optics of the lens itself.  Here’s a look at my vignette and distortion chart, with the uncorrected result on the left and a manually corrected result on the right.

There’s a very minor amount of barrel distortion (corrected with a +1) and a moderate amount of vignette (I corrected it with a +51).  That’s about two stops of vignette in the corners, though if left uncorrected that vignette does penetrate quite deeply into the frame, giving images a certain look that is a little “heavy”.  You can see that the if I use Sigma’s correction profile (on the right), the image looks much brighter as a result.

The correction profile does a nice, clean job of cleaning up the tiny bit of distortion and the vignette, so I don’t see any issues there.

We’ll move on to testing sharpness.  All of the tests and photos shown in this review are done on the 50MP Sony Alpha 1, which is Sony’s second-highest resolution full frame mirrorless camera at the time of this review.  Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.

If we look closely wide open at F2 (crops are at roughly 170%), we find that the lens produces extremely strong center and mid-frame performance with very high contrast and sharpness, and the dropoff to the corners is less than what I expected from the MTF chart.

That’s a nice, strong performance.  I went to check how this compared with the 50mm F1.4 DN ART lens, as Sigma had touted the performance of this smaller lens relative to the bigger ART series lens.  Here’s where the MTF charts don’t tell the whole story, however, as they are comparing wide open performances (F1.4 vs F2).  The apples to apples comparison is at F2, however, and we find there that the by F2 the ART series lens has closed the gap in the center (about equal), the mid-frame slightly favors the ART lens, while the corners are a clear win for the bigger lens.

The two lenses are very close other than in the corners, so that’s a win for the smaller, less expensive iSeries lens.  This is an extremely sharp lens that has most of its sharpness available at wide open.  You can see that this wide open, F2 shot of our city hall building is already very sharp.

In fact, if I compare the F2 result with an F5.6 result, I can only see a very minor improvement in contrast at F5.6.  The F2 shot is nearly as sharp.

In fact, there is little difference between F2 and F2.8, though I see an uptick in contrast at F4 in certain points in the frame.

Resolution seems to peak somewhere between F5.6 and F8 in the corners, though you’ll see slightly sharper center results at wider apertures than that.  Sharpness is never going to be an issue with this lens.  You can see in this quick, casual portrait at F2 that there is tons of sharpness even on a 50MP camera:

Minimum aperture is F22, though by that point diffraction has softened the image quite a bit.

Obviously this is a very sharp optic.  While it is considerably more expensive than the typical “plastic fantastic” (50mm F1.8), it is also in a much higher class optically.  This lens is much like the Zeiss Loxia series – a reminder that small doesn’t necessarily mean “cheap” in either price or performance.

Bokeh is a subjective measure, obviously, but it here that the F2 lens faces its biggest challenge relative to the F1.4 big brother.  Depth of field is just much smaller at F1.4, meaning the the backgrounds will be more blurred/softer.  The slightly lower maximum magnification figure of the iSeries lens will also limit how much you can blur out the background.  The quality of the bokeh looks fairly decent when compared to the ART series lens, however:

This orchid shots shows good subject isolation and a nicely blurred background at closer focus distances.

If I step back a foot or two in this shot of a fancy purse you can see that the room beyond it is fairly nicely blurred, though perhaps with a little more outlining than what I would like.  That’s not unusual for a lens that has such high contrast and a relatively small maximum aperture.

My son and his fiancée helped me with this next test that shows first foreground, then background blur.  For good measure I’ve also demonstrated how he looked with the maximum defocus the lens could produce at this distance.

Bottom line:  I wouldn’t call the bokeh quality anything amazing or magical here, but at the same time it looks fairly good, too.   I think that most photographers will be content with the quality of the bokeh they get from the lens.

I found flare resistance to be exceptionally good, with no noticeable veiling or ghosting.  There’s no blobs of color, loss of contrast, etc…  The final shot shows the look of the sunstar you can get at smaller apertures:

I saw a night with a decently clear sky and good star presence, so I grabbed a few shots to test coma.  I found that star points were nice and crisp, and, while I can see a bit of deformation and growing of “wings” along the edges of the frame, this is a pretty good performance overall.

In short, there really isn’t a lot to complain about optically here.  Colors and contrast were rich, and images had good “bite” to them, particularly if you are looking for sharp, high contrast images. 

You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here.  This is a very strong lens optically and one that has few flaws.  It’s a solid choice if you want something smaller and lighter yet high performing.

Conclusion

I was intrigued that Sigma seems to have read the market’s mind, as my Sigma contact let me know about the incoming Sigma 50mm F2 DN C roughly at the same time that many in my audience were wishing for a high performing compact 50mm lens somewhere around F1.8.  This is pretty much the lens they requested, with a high grade of build, good autofocus, and excellent optics.  Here’s hoping that the market is as receptive to the i50 as those early comments seem to suggest.

The iSeries always delights me with the tactile feedback of the designs.  They feel exquisitely well made, with unique textures and design language that speaks of a company that really does love to produce beautiful lenses.  This 50mm F2 backs up those good looks with nice optics as well.

As is often the case with iSeries lenses, the final question is one of value.  These lenses face a bit of a perception battle, as they are very often priced higher than competing lenses with similar specs on paper.  In this case, the Sony 50mm F2.5 G must be considered, as while the Sigma enjoys a 2/3rds stop brighter maximum aperture, the Sony is smaller, lighter, cheaper ($598 vs $639 USD) while also having a few other advantages (dual linear motors, maximum magnification, focus hold button and delickable aperture).  There are just so many options on Sony at this point, including the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN at just $200 more.  The Leica L market is much more sparse, however, and the Sigma presents as more of a bargain in that space.  There’s no question that the Sigma 50mm F2 DN is a very nice little lens that should check a lot of boxes for the right potential owner.

Pros:

  • Beautifully crafted lens with a lot of loving touches
  • Has a weather sealing gasket
  • STM focus motor is quick and quiet
  • CA fairly well controlled
  • Excellent wide open sharpness
  • Nice bokeh rendering
  • Good color and contrast
  • Good flare resistance
  • Fairly good coma performance

Cons:

  • Some obvious focus breathing
  • More expensive than Sony competition
  • Maximum magnification isn’t impressive

 

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Keywords: Sigma 50mm F2 DN, Sigma 50 2, Sigma 50mm 2 DN, Sigma 50mm, Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN, DG, DN, iSeries, Contemporary, 50mm, F2, f/2, Review, Sony 50mm GM, Sony 50mm F1.2 GM, Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II, Leica L, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA50mmF2Contemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADGDN, #Iseries, #SIGMAIseries

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