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Review: Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN Art (Sony E Mount)

Posted on July 3, 2014July 11, 2014 by Jordan Steele

Contents

  • 1Build Quality and Handling
  • 2Autofocus Performance
  • 3Image Quality
  • 4Conclusion
  • 5Sample Images

Sigma first ventured into the mirrorless space with the release of two lenses for Sony E-Mount and Micro 4/3 in January of 2012 with the 19mm f/2.8 and 30mm f/2.8 EX DN lenses.  Around a year later, they released updated versions of these lenses with a new body style, and perhaps minor changes to coatings, though officially no optical changes were made.  Today, I’m going to take a look at the newer version of the 30mm lens: The Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN Art for Sony E-mount.  This lens is relatively small, incredibly inexpensive, and provides a normal focal length with a field of view equivalent to a 45mm lens on a full frame camera.  It also may be one of the better bargains in photography today.

The Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN Art on the Sony A6000
The Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN Art on the Sony A6000

If you’re not familiar with my reviews, I review from a real world shooting perspective. You won’t find lens charts or resolution numbers here. There are plenty of other sites that cover those. I review products on how they act for me as a photographic tool in real-world shooting.

Build Quality and Handling

The Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN Art ditched the matte finish black plastic exterior of the earlier version of the lens and has received a new body that is available in either black or silver.  The version reviewed here is the silver version.  The lens is constructed of a combination of high-grade plastics with a metal clad barrel and a metal mount.  The bottom half of the lens barrel is covered in a thin metal (likely aluminum) and finished in a matte silver paint (along with an inset glossy ‘A’ for the ‘Art’ series of lenses).  The top half of the lens is the extremely shiny metal clad focus ring.  Having a perfectly smooth focus ring is a bit odd, but it works just fine.  The fine silver finish of the focus ring looks beautiful in person, but is also exceptionally prone to showing fingerprints and it also seems to scratch rather easily (though the scratches sort of blend in a bit since the scratch is the same color as the finish.  As a result, the lens normally doesn’t look as clean as it does when wiped down or when you first pull it out of the box.

Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN Art with Hood
Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN Art with Hood

The front of the lens has the engraved focal length, aperture, filter size, etc, though unlike most lenses, this information isn’t filled in with white, but rather kept as a black relief.  Overall, the lens feels tightly assembled, but falls short of feeling robust. You can tell there are a few corners cut to keep the cost down. Most noticeable is the fact that the focusing group for all of the Sigma DN lenses is a free-floating group controlled by electromagnets.  As such, when the lens doesn’t have power, the focus group will rattle around inside. This doesn’t seem to cause any issues at all, but it doesn’t sound reassuring.

The lens is small and the included reversible lens hood doesn’t add much to the size, ensuring that the 30mm will handle well on essentially any camera.  One thing to note with this lens (and all the Sigma DN lenses) is that boot up takes a bit longer when these lenses are attached, depending on the camera.  There’s an added 1-2 second delay upon turning on the camera before the lens is ready to go when shooting with the NEX-6.  However, this delay is all but gone when the lens is mounted on the new A6000.

Autofocus Performance

The 30mm f/2.8 DN Art features a focus mechanism that is generally very quiet, but not totally silent.  If you are focusing in a quiet room, you can hear a soft buzz when the focus motor is activated.  Autofocus accuracy is pretty good, hitting the target dead on in the majority of situations, though I did have a few times where there was some slight backfocus.  I’m not sure whether to blame the lens or the camera for that, though.  The speed of autofocus is a bit of a letdown.  It’s not particularly slow, but it certainly isn’t fast either, taking between a quarter and a half second to lock focus in most situations.

Continue: Image Quality

Pages: 1 2 3

13 thoughts on “Review: Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN Art (Sony E Mount)”

  1. Pingback: Sony Tidbits… | sonyalpharumors
  2. Miles says:
    September 17, 2014 at 8:32 am

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  3. Nick says:
    October 16, 2014 at 4:04 am

    Great review. I plan on buying a6000 and this lens seems like a very good value for the money…

    Reply
  4. Pingback: Review: Sigma 19mm f/2.8 DN Art (Sony E-Mount) - Admiring Light
  5. Nikhil says:
    February 6, 2015 at 9:22 am

    Hi, I am planing to Buy Prime lens but i am confused if i buy sony 35mm 1.8 or sigma 30mm 2.8, i don’t want a lens of 50MM 1.8 coz it will be difficult to shoot in smaller place. is the sigma 30mm 2.8 is same as 50mm 1.8 on sony A6000.
    or it is focal length will be same as 30mm on A6000

    Reply
    1. rich says:
      February 8, 2015 at 3:28 am

      The A6000 will crop every lens attached to it so the 30mm lens from either Sony or Sigma will look like a 50mm. The 50mm lens would look like a 75mm So you are right to want the 30mm in tight spots.

      Reply
  6. Pingback: Two Sony E-Mount Lenses: Zeiss 24 F1.8 and Sigma 30mm F2.8 - The GetDPI Photography Forums
  7. BK says:
    August 27, 2015 at 11:17 am

    Jordan, on the 30mm DN Art, I have heard that the lens does not work well with the Phase detection auto focus on the A6000, have you experience with this? Unless it was the old model and Sigma has fixed it. Thank you!

    Reply
  8. Kay says:
    March 16, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    What is meant by f/2.8 @ f/5.6?
    I am a novice.

    Reply
  9. wolf says:
    May 23, 2016 at 7:26 pm

    Hi
    Considering DXO reviewing, the older 30mm is apparently sharper than the newer Art version, what do you think about this ?
    I’d like to buy one but i would like the best one of course

    Reply
  10. Pingback: Review: Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DC DN (Sony E-Mount) - Admiring Light
  11. Wolfgang Weidner says:
    September 4, 2016 at 12:38 pm

    Does it support phase detection AF for continuous shootng?

    Reply
  12. Maciek says:
    April 1, 2018 at 6:02 am

    Could you compare this lens and 28/2 on APS-C?

    Reply

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