GHarris
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 p.1 #6 · In Stock: Sigma 105mm f/2.8 DG DN Macro Art ($799) | |
This is good news. Progress. The old Sigma DSLR telephoto macros needed to be replaced with fully modernised and polished "Art" models sooner or later.
It wasn't urgent, because those DSLR macros were pretty good. They came just before the Art lenses, at a time when Sigma was starting to very noticeably chase a higher-quality market segment than it had previously been reputed to.
But they were DSLR lenses, and not always quite as polished and perfect as the Art lineup lenses Sigma released a few years later. They needed "doing", sooner or later, in mirrorless with all the trimmings: Polished autofocus performance, perfected image quality (from an already good starting-point)... build quality and body styling in line with the Art series. Modern mounts.
So I consider this new 105mm macro to be good progress.
Personally, however, I would find a new 150mm or 180mm macro more interesting. The old DSLR macros, of 150 and 180mm, were good: The working distance they enable has its uses... And they had a tripod collar for easy rotation and better-balanced tripod mounting.
I wonder whether they will, with time, go further, and replace one or the other? 150 or 180, I wouldn't mind which. 105mm is I guess an easier "play it safe" option to start out with - cheaper, lighter, probably more mass-market.
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Here's a niche, seldom-thought-about, but relevant role for a lens like this new macro: it can be used, on old second-generation Sony bodies like the A7Rii (or like the a6000 and some other of the older 6000 lineup), with the installable Openmemories "focus bracket" app...
https://sony-pmca.appspot.com/apps
https://github.com/obs1dium/FocusBracket
The utility of such an app was shown recently, by contrast: DPReview posted an article about how you can buy some complicated, specialised tripod mounting hardware to turn your camera/lens rig into a focus-stacking macro photography rig.
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0652566916/how-to-shoot-better-macro-photos-using-a-slider-and-focus-stacking
The rig would gradually move the camera closer, in definable increments, to shoot a macro subject at different points of focus. Later (with PC software) these different images, with different points of greatest sharpness, could be merged into one image of high, averaged-out sharpness, front-to-back, better than what could be obtained from any single image at any (workable) focal ratio.
Focus bracketing / stacking is a fine principle but (maybe it's just me?) I find the idea of buying special mounting hardware to do it... a rather inefficient bodge, in comparison to having software control the lens' focus point without the camera having to move or be pushed around. Not just because, ideally, you change the focus of the lens in controlled conditions by refocusing the lens, not by moving it (the framing and perspective gets messed with if you move the actual camera/lens to different distances - like a weird kind of physical "focus breathing")... But because it involves fewer single-use specialist hardware widgets in favour of the flexible, free, computational abilities of a modern camera.
A few months ago I was interested in dabbling in, and learning more about, macro photography (like everyone, in lockdown!). I spotted an unmissable low price on a used, old, 150mm f/2.8 Sigma macro lens.
I used it for shooting various things, often bugs and stuff out in the real world where you're just taking single shots, because you can't mess about with a tripod and/or your subject is going to move away any moment now. Fine - it worked nicely enough for all that. Image quality was very good. Autofocus was terrible, but functioned, ultra-slowly but at least basically. For the price, I was more than satisfied.
But to my disappointment, when I attempted to use it with the Focus Bracket app, I discovered it couldn't work. The old 150mm Sigma macro didn't have a distance encoder built into it, or if it did, it wasn't able to communicate distance information to the camera through the MC-11 adapter (I suspect mainly the former - Sigma Art lenses I've used through the MC-11 do communicate distance info). So the Focus Bracket app, which relies on the camera taking controlled, defined focus steps between chosen focus distances, couldn't work.
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Sooner or later, when I find that I'm unexpectedly flush with cash, if there's a good natively-mirrorless macro lens out there with all the good characteristics of this old 150mm Sigma I've grown fond of (tripod collar, long working distance, quality, etc)... I may buy that new native macro and revisit the Focus Bracket functions of the free app.
I suspect, if/when I do, that this particular new 105mm macro won't be the thing for me - for the sake of tripod collar/working distance, and because I'm in no hurry...
...and likewise, the MF Laowa macros are ruled out for me (MF = no focus stacking app), and the Sony 90mm is ruled out (tripod collar, working distance, cost given that I'm in no hurry)... anyway, yeah. I'll come back to the topic one day. Eventually. But for anyone who needs a great autofocus macro lens, very soon, and for less money than the Sony, and yet with the known-superb quality levels of a Sigma Art lens, this 105 might well be "it".
Edited on Sep 30, 2020 at 01:38 PM · View previous versions
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