{"id":6510,"date":"2016-04-23T09:46:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-23T14:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=6510"},"modified":"2024-09-05T16:11:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T21:11:17","slug":"review-sigma-30mm-f1-4-dc-dn-sony-e-mount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/review-sigma-30mm-f1-4-dc-dn-sony-e-mount\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 DC DN (Sony E-Mount)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few years back, Sigma made some waves with the release of three very affordable, but moderate aperture prime lenses for mirrorless cameras. The Sigma 19mm f\/2.8<\/a>, 30mm f\/2.8<\/a> and 60mm f\/2.8<\/a> are still among the very best values in the mirrorless world, providing very high quality optics at a fraction of the price of most lenses.  Now, Sigma has released a fast lens to complement those f\/2.8 optics with the new Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 DC DN.  In an odd twist, the 30mm f\/1.4 is from Sigma’s lower cost ‘Contemporary’ line of lenses, rather than the higher end ‘Art’ line; a line that the cheaper f\/2.8 optics were part of.  Does this signal lower performance, or will this fast lens become the go-to normal prime for Sony APS-C and Micro 4\/3 shooters.  I’ve been shooting with the 30mm f\/1.4 for Sony E-mount for the past week, so let’s find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 DC DN is one of the fastest AF lenses for Sony E-Mount<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with my reviews, I review from a real world shooting perspective. You won\u2019t 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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Despite the Contemporary badge that signals Sigma’s consumer line of lenses, the 30mm f\/1.4 is a very solidly constructed lens. It’s built of a mix of metals and high quality plastics that are very tightly assembled.  There is no flimsiness whatsoever, and the whole package feels great.  The lens is a bit longer than the average normal prime lens, and is similar in overall size to the Sony Zeiss FE 55mm f\/1.8. The lens has only one control: a broad rubberized focus ring that spins smoothly, though without much damping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 isn’t super small, but it handles well<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 comes with a plastic lens hood that mounts on the front hood bayonet. The hood on the sample I tested didn’t lock particularly securely, though, so it was prone to being knocked out of the locked in position fairly easily, though when it was mounted, there was no wobbling or rattling. The hood reverses for storage, and only moderately increases the diameter of the whole package.  In all, I was quite impressed with the build quality of the lens given the low price point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it is a bit bigger than many lenses of this focal length for mirrorless cameras, it’s not a pocketable combo with the a6000, but it handles well enough, and should feel right at home on any Sony APS-C camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sigma<\/a>
Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 DC DN on the Sony a6000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One side note: this lens is designed to be used on APS-C cameras, but I did mount the lens on my A7 II as well, and the image circle actually covers quite a bit more than APS-C.  In my informal testing, the image circle covers roughly the APS-H area, at around a 1.2x crop factor, if you want to shoot and crop in post later.  I wouldn’t recommend using it this way, though, as framing your shots is quite difficult, as it’s hard to discern exactly where the cropped area will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autofocus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The 30mm f\/1.4 has a relatively quiet and moderately fast autofocus motor.  It generally locks swiftly, even in dimmer light.  I had a few focus misses with this lens, though, which is a bit odd for a mirrorless lens, though it didn’t seem to occur that often. I didn’t really get a chance to thoroughly test continuous AF performance, but in the limited work I did with it, it seemed to do fine. The lens also is capable of focusing very closely.  The minimum focus distance of just 0.3m allows for some good close-up capabilities for shooting things like flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Given the excellent performance of Sigma’s earlier mirrorless lenses, and the good reputation of the 30mm f\/1.4 for SLRs, I had pretty high expectations for this lens, despite the low price point.  It mostly met those expectations, but there are also a few shortcomings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharpness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 is somewhat of a mixed bag with regards to sharpness, as the performance is rather variable depending on focus distance.  At close to moderate focus distances (say, from 2 feet to 15 feet), the 30mm f\/1.4 produces very good sharpness from wide open across the image frame.  It’s not blisteringly sharp at this aperture, but there is good resolution throughout, that will produce very detailed images.  Stopping down to f\/2.8 or beyond brings the resolution up to excellent levels, with great detail and a bit of pop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"White<\/a>
White Haines Building – Sony a6000 with Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 DC DN @ f\/2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, when focusing closer to infinity, the lens displays very strong field curvature, making it almost impossible to get sharp edges at a distance.  When focused at infinity in the center, at say, f\/5.6, the center will be sharp, while the edges will be focused much closer, at around 5-10 feet away.  These edges are sharp, but when shooting for landscape work, you’ll often have edges in the distance that will be notably soft.  You can mitigate this somewhat by stopping down to around f\/11 or so, which compensates enough for the field curvature to provide decent resolution on the edges, but the overall sharpness of the image will drop somewhat due to diffraction.  Still, for landscape work at a distance, f\/11 or smaller is where you’ll want to be to counteract the field curvature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bokeh<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As of this writing, the Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 is the fastest lens specifically designed for APS-C E-mount, with autofocus, and as such, shooting at f\/1.4 is going to be one of the key reasons to get this lens over something like the Sony 35mm f\/1.8 or the Zeiss Touit 32mm f\/1.8. In most situations, the bokeh is quite pleasing, producing relatively creamy backgrounds at closer focusing distances.  However, the further you focus out, and the higher contrast the background, the more the bokeh suffers.  The lens has notable bokeh fringing (which I’ll discuss further in a bit), which can show up as green accents in the background, or around specular highlights.  It can also get a bit nervous in some situations.  However, the overall impression is positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Viewing<\/a>
Viewing the City – Sony a6000 with Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 DC DN @ f\/1.4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Color, Contrast and Chromatic Aberration<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 has a lower contrast profile than the f\/2.8 Art primes Sigma released a few years back, but for this type of lens, which may often be used for portraiture, the lower contrast at wider apertures will work to its advantage.  At smaller apertures, the contrast picks up a bit, yielding nice pleasing images with a bit of pop.  Color tends a bit to the warm side, but not by much.  Color response is natural, with decent saturation that reacts well to postprocessing, but lacks native richness to the files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One downside to the lens is chromatic aberration.  The Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 shows both visible lateral chromatic aberration towards the edges, as well as the magenta and green fringing of spherochromatism in out of focus areas.  While both of these can usually be corrected with modern postprocessing tools, it’s definitely a weak point of the lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distortion, Flare and Vignetting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 also cuts a few corners when it comes to these other optical aberrations.  The lens suffers from rather high native barrel distortion, with straight lines showing a noticeable bow towards the edges of the frame.  When shooting JPEG or when using most RAW converters, the built-in distortion profile will correct this before you see it (or if you turn on the profile in Lightroom).  I didn’t notice too much of a hit at the edges from the distortion correction, but there is a small impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Walking<\/a>
Walking at Dawn – Sony a6000 with Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 DC DN @ f\/11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lens is a bit of a mixed bag with regards to flare performance.  At wider apertures (f\/4 and wider), the lens loses a bit of contrast with a bright source like the sun in the frame, but doesn’t show ghosting too badly.  When stopping down, however, the lens produces nice sunstars from the 9 bladed aperture, but unfortunately also shows very visible ghosting, as can be seen in the shot above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like most fast prime lenses, the Sigma 30mm f\/1.4 shows visible light fall off at wide apertures, which disappears at smaller apertures.  This behavior doesn’t bother me in a lens of this type.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n