Christmas came early this year! Or perhaps just really late last year. Either way I have been saving up and lusting after this lens for roughly a year. I had saved up enough to get a used one about 3 or 4 times over but due to the fact that bills are real and the used ones I found were always in the GTA, I kept putting it off. The wait is finally over! Here she is:
Now before we get too far ahead let me just start by saying I did a ton of research and that did a lot to add to my anxiety of buying this thing used. So many counts of people with focus issues, adjustments being needed and people just giving up on it and going with the Canon/Nikon versions at hundreds more. I had previously asked someone who was an advocate and user of pretty much all the Sigma Art primes. He said they just need to be focus adjusted in the camera and so I did exactly that the night I brought it home. After about 40 pictures of a cactus later I thought things were pretty consistently in focus even when at 1.4.
Time to test this in the field, or the wooded area near my house to be exact. With 2 of my 3 little minions in tow we walked around and snapped away, seeing what this beauty is capable of. I was pretty happy with what I was getting. When your subjects are less than 6 years of age combined, there is very little standing still time and with the lens wide open that can mean a lot of out of focus images. It wasn't until I got the images loaded up in bridge(yea I'm old, OK!) that I realized how good this lens can be.
Focus and Sharpness. Lets be clear and state that this is not a scientific discovery or comparison and that I'm not expecting razor sharpness when shooting anything at a very wide aperture. For me this lens and many others are just fine provided they are in focus. When shooting at f 2 and below this lens is still very detailed. Here's a close up of little Carter to demonstrate:
f 2, ISO 400
It was not a particularly sunny day when I broke out the lens and there were some occasions where I was shooting in some low light conditions with a subject that moves constantly. I had very little problem with the AF despite using this on a now 10 year old body with inferior AF system. It was fast, very quiet and rarely did it search for the focus point. Mine did have a bit of a squeaky sound but it was barely audible and again this was a used lens.
Vignetting. There is a lot of it when shooting wide open on a full frame body. If you are using a crop sensor I don't know that you would see any. I'm shooting this on a Canon 5D mk II and I actually don't mind a little bit of vignetting for my own applications but it is certainly noticeable.
Colour and Contrast. I find this lens to be a little on the warm side with a lot of contrast compared to something like my 50mm f1.8 II. I find this to be a positive as I will often add a bit of warmth to my images in post anyway. There is great depth and clarity even when shooting a muddy, gloomy day.
DOF. This lens stops down to f 1.4. You really don't need more info than that do you? The bokah is smooth and beautiful. This is why you buy a lens like this!
Build. If you have ever picked one of these up you will notice it is a tank. Very solid build quality but at a cost of being rather heavy. Not saying I'm a tough guy or anything but heavy has never really been an issue. I'm not likely to travel around the world with my bag full of heavy lenses any time soon so I'll sacrifice for the image quality.
Conclusion. I didn't take these photos or even start writing this post with the intention of reviewing the lens but I guess thats how you know you've found something thats not just ok. It was good enough to sit down and write about it without a real plan in place. Sometimes my best shoots start out this way. Perhaps its the new focal length combined with the lower aperture(I own the 24-105 and I hardly ever use it) but I just feel like I can be more creative with this lens. The images have a distinct look my work has been lacking for a long time due to using primarily longer focal lengths. This reminds me a bit of the first "photo shoot" I ever did with an old friend after purchasing a Rebel XT with the kit lens. Except, these images are sharp and I know a bit more about what I'm doing. Cheers!
