I received the new Sigma 90/2.8 DG DN lens this morning and since I had a day off, I headed to Showa Kinen Park (about 31km from home) by train and enjoyed some shooting there with my Sony A7C. Some SOOC JPEG samples, all shot at f2.8 or f4:
I had the distortion and color fringing corrections set to auto in-camera, and the vignetting compensation set to off (those are my usual settings).
Enjoyed using the lens, it's small and light and the handling is of course similar to other I-series lenses. I think the sharpness is pretty good even at wide open close to minimum focus distance. Today I used the lens with the original hood but I might start using it with the shorter hood from 45/2.8 DG DN later.
LoCA looks very minimal in that fountain shot. Nice performance!
Juha Kannisto wrote:
I received the new Sigma 90/2.8 DG DN lens this morning and since I had a day off, I headed to Showa Kinen Park (about 31km from home) by train and enjoyed some shooting there with my Sony A7C. Some SOOC JPEG samples, all shot at f2.8 or f4:
I had the distortion and color fringing corrections set to auto in-camera, and the vignetting compensation set to off (those are my usual settings).
Enjoyed using the lens, it's small and light and the handling is of course similar to other I-series lenses. I think the sharpness is pretty good even at wide open close to minimum focus distance. Today I used the lens with the original hood but I might start using it with the shorter hood from 45/2.8 DG DN later....Show more →
Juha Kannisto wrote:
I received the new Sigma 90/2.8 DG DN lens this morning and since I had a day off, I headed to Showa Kinen Park (about 31km from home) by train and enjoyed some shooting there with my Sony A7C. Some SOOC JPEG samples, all shot at f2.8 or f4:
I had the distortion and color fringing corrections set to auto in-camera, and the vignetting compensation set to off (those are my usual settings).
Enjoyed using the lens, it's small and light and the handling is of course similar to other I-series lenses. I think the sharpness is pretty good even at wide open close to minimum focus distance. Today I used the lens with the original hood but I might start using it with the shorter hood from 45/2.8 DG DN later....Show more →
Thanks for the beautiful samples Juha.
Technically a marvel for its size. Very low in color aberration, high resolution/contrast and smooth rendering. What more can we ask for? As perfect as it can be for a 90mm f/2.8 lens.
Because it lacks imperfections, some may call it clinical though but I see this tiny telephoto AF lens working well for many applications from landscapes to close-ups. The amount of blur may even be enough for portrait headshots.
How was AF? Fast/Silent/Accurate? Did you use phase detect or contrast detect AF?
Fred Miranda wrote:
Thanks for the beautiful samples Juha.
Technically a marvel for its size. Very low in color aberration, high resolution/contrast and smooth rendering. What more can we ask for? As perfect as it can be for a 90mm f/2.8 lens.
Because it lacks imperfections, some may call it clinical though but I see this tiny telephoto AF lens working well for many applications from landscapes to close-ups. The amount of blur may even be enough for portrait headshots.
How was AF? Fast/Silent/Accurate? Did you use phase detect or contrast detect AF?
Thanks Fred! I agree with your assessment of the lens' rendering. AF was silent as far as I could tell, I didn't hear any sounds from the AF activity. It's not something I'm especially looking out for usually but I think this one is similar to the other I-series lenses which also feel pretty silent to me.
I use AF-A setting on my A7C which alternates between AF-S and AF-C depending on the scene, it uses AF-S for static targets which I like especially for infinity and long distance scenes where I'm not going for any kind of subject isolation and just want corner-to-corner sharpness. It would automatically switch to AF-C when it detects a moving subject but most of my subjects are not moving. However, for the scenes where I focus closer and expect some bokeh / subject isolation etc. I often choose the focus point by activating touch tracking using the screen and I drag the focus point to exact spot where I want it (especially when AF didn't magically pick the exact point I wanted to focus on by itself) and this activates real time tracking and then it's AF-C. So it was pretty much mixed use of both contrast and phase detect AF depending on the scenes. I did find the focusing to be fast and accurate in any of the modes as well. Didn't see any surprising focus misses today. I didn't really test AF on moving subjects though except for some little flower movement in the wind and I used silent shutter all the time.
I see this lens has neutral looking. color, sharpness and contrast seem all good. It does remind me of Leica M f2.8 Elmarit actually and I guess it mostly comes from that 90mm focal length and f2.8 aperture will give this kind of in focus and background look.
I personally don't like the corner looks(vignette and cat eye looks) from this lens at mid to long distance at wide aperture. Again size and weight are the top selling point for it. It remind me of 40mm f1.2 M, special for the speed and size with nice rendering mostly but with limitation at corner.
@Juha Kannisto - thanks for sharing your initial images. Been waiting to see some walk-around images and this lens will certainly meet my needs. Will be ordering the 90 to fill my gap between 65 and 135.
CV15/4.5, FE 20/1.8, CV21/3.5, 35i/2, 45i/2.8, 65i/2, 90i/2.8, 135/2.8
Very much a 'clean' modern multi-purpose lens. The 0.5m MFD is great and it apparently has little breathing too. The MFD opens doors to creative bokeh rather than macro-level sharpness. Bitingly sharp cross-frame at f5.6-f8. Distortion is a question at this stage, how much is lost? I'm a profilaphobe. Does it show in the EVF, is it off-putting? Bokeh so far looks promising, contrasty bokeh in strong light?
'The manual focus ring is beautifully damped' but the aperture ring is not unclickable. That plus 90mm tells me they are aiming at serious stills photographers at the edge of the envelope between mainstream and Leica-adjacent enthusiasts. Two lens caps, a similar nifty idea to CV's hood cap - lens cap pairing on several of their lenses. The money means you will never lose much in resale. What's the hood weigh?
Juha Kannisto wrote:
I received the new Sigma 90/2.8 DG DN lens this morning and since I had a day off, I headed to Showa Kinen Park (about 31km from home) by train and enjoyed some shooting there with my Sony A7C. Some SOOC JPEG samples, all shot at f2.8 or f4:
I had the distortion and color fringing corrections set to auto in-camera, and the vignetting compensation set to off (those are my usual settings).
Enjoyed using the lens, it's small and light and the handling is of course similar to other I-series lenses. I think the sharpness is pretty good even at wide open close to minimum focus distance. Today I used the lens with the original hood but I might start using it with the shorter hood from 45/2.8 DG DN later....Show more →
Juha,
Thanks for posting these. There are some very nice images among your test shots. For my eyes, the rendering in real compositions, as distinct from the more test-like shots, is very lovely. I don't find the rendering of the lens to be clinical at all so far.
I especially like the look and the rendering of three images that I looked at more closely: the third shot of the buildings at the start of your sequence; the first image of the boats in the water; and the image of the man cycling on the curving road surrounded by grass (my favorite--a very nice shot). None of these rely on MFD or a distant background to a focused foreground. I think those images all show very lovely rendering and they do remind me of the 45mm/2.8 and the 24/3.5.
I'll hope to still feel that way when I see my own shots with this lens.
I'm torn between the Sigma 24/3.5i and 24/2i. Love the former's size but welcome the latter's speed.
I requested the 24/2i for review as well and will compare to my f/3.5 version. There should be a noticeable difference in blur between 24mm f/2 and f/3.5 but I'm curious how they render at f/3.5 and which is better optically.
philip_pj wrote:
Very much a 'clean' modern multi-purpose lens. The 0.5m MFD is great and it apparently has little breathing too. The MFD opens doors to creative bokeh rather than macro-level sharpness. Bitingly sharp cross-frame at f5.6-f8. Distortion is a question at this stage, how much is lost? I'm a profilaphobe. Does it show in the EVF, is it off-putting? Bokeh so far looks promising, contrasty bokeh in strong light?
'The manual focus ring is beautifully damped' but the aperture ring is not unclickable. That plus 90mm tells me they are aiming at serious stills photographers at the edge of the envelope between mainstream and Leica-adjacent enthusiasts. Two lens caps, a similar nifty idea to CV's hood cap - lens cap pairing on several of their lenses. The money means you will never lose much in resale. What's the hood weigh?...Show more →
On my kitchen scale the 90/2.8 hood weighs in at 54 g. 45/2.8 hood is 44g on the same scale and 24/3.5 hood is 43g. All 3 hoods can be used on all three lenses and they can be reverse mounted on all lenses as well. I've been using the 45/2.8 hood on my 90/2.8 this weekend as it's nicely shorter but otherwise exactly the same shape. The weather's been really poor though so I didn't get much shooting done after last Friday.
EDIT: Although I wrote that all 3 hoods can be used on all 3 lenses, I just meant that they physically fit without issues. Trying to use the 90/2.8 hood on 24/3.5 will result in a blocked edges and corners as it's too long and blocks part of the wider field of view. Main purpose of mixing the hoods for me would be to be able to have a shorter hood on 90/2.8 than the native one for that lens.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I'm torn between the Sigma 24/3.5i and 24/2i. Love the former's size but welcome the latter's speed.
I requested the 24/2i for review as well and will compare to my f/3.5 version. There should be a noticeable difference in blur between 24mm f/2 and f/3.5 but I'm curious how they render at f/3.5 and which is better optically.
Looking forward to your comparison. I'm also debating which one would be the better choice for me.
Meanwhile my 90i has shipped and should arrive this week
Bought a Sigma 24/2 DG DN. Trip report: lens is good. Fully metal exterior, aperture ring is stiffer and better than in 85/1.4 DG DN. Everything just works. This is what I've always wanted, and Nikkor 24/2 Ai-S could not deliver IQ wise since the design was just too old. But the Sigma has it all.
450g with caps, hood and a 62mm Hoya HD filter.
The forum software doesn't understand my hotlinks so I can only leave the url to gallery here. One was taken with 50/1.4 art.
Ihmemies2 wrote:
Bought a Sigma 24/2 DG DN. Trip report: lens is good. Fully metal exterior, aperture ring is stiffer and better than in 85/1.4 DG DN. Everything just works. This is what I've always wanted, and Nikkor 24/2 Ai-S could not deliver IQ wise since the design was just too old. But the Sigma has it all.
450g with caps, hood and a 62mm Hoya HD filter.
The forum software doesn't understand my hotlinks so I can only leave the url to gallery here. One was taken with 50/1.4 art.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I'm torn between the Sigma 24/3.5i and 24/2i. Love the former's size but welcome the latter's speed.
I requested the 24/2i for review as well and will compare to my f/3.5 version. There should be a noticeable difference in blur between 24mm f/2 and f/3.5 but I'm curious how they render at f/3.5 and which is better optically.
I have 2 Sigma 24/3.5i (one in E and one in L for my Sigma fp) and I'm also tempted to trade in one of them for 24/2i to have more variation but I also already have 24/1.4 GM so it wouldn't make so much sense to get 24/2i in E-mount for me as GM is almost same in terms of size and weight. Might make sense to swap my 24/3.5i in L-mount to 24/2i but I quite like the small size of 24/3.5i paired with fp when not using EVF-11. Still contemplating about it...
