p.6 #1 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
An excellent guide to image appeal is looking at different users' experiences. All the above are pretty eye-opening. Looking for reviews, the Petapixel guys have one that covers a lot of ground, even though they too compare the lens to three primes for the issues of: bag space, carry weight (travel) and coverage.
Some thoughts: at 28mm wide open they say it's a little soft in the corners. Who cares, right? It gets good at f4, and it breathes out to (my estimate) 30mm or so for the near focus images for hyperfocal users etc.
It adds fuel to the idea for Sigma to replicate this beautiful look in a slower, lighter (two lens equivalent) f2.4 lens or so, maybe 28-60mm. At 45mm, it will show up as 47-48mm, a good thing for closer portraits. Many of the better modern lenses retain IQ stopped well down, worth remembering.
I see their problem though, they want a near-50mm lens with good lens speed to replace (or stand in for) a good light prime. Everyone but me hates slow 50s, lol. Other virtues: great sun stars, very fine bokeh, high presence - the secret of the huge 3D, very good fade character, very clear focal plane, CA near-invisible. It's a beautiful look, this one.
In usage, add a 21mm and a favourite 75-77-85 and that is very doable, with the 45mm end being cropable in any case to over 55mm for tidier corners. thanks for posting, Tim.
YT titles:
Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art: The brightest full frame zoom EVER MADE (petapixel)
Sigma 28-45mm F1.8 DG DN ART Review | World's First FF F1.8 Zoom! (Dustin Abbott)
p.6 #2 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
The Sigma 28/1.4 might be a bit sharper in the corners at wide apertures, but gives up some in the center. I haven't tested them against each other to know for sure. There is the Laowa 28/1.2, think there is a Viltrox 28, the FE 28/2 of course. Not sure any of them would better this. It is more than good enough for me anyway. I would probably apply more sharpening than just the LR defaults. I wish it wasn't so hazy here in the summer.
Here is default sharpening in LR, distortion off. Upper left corner from the shots earlier in the thread. Compared in PhotoMechanic at 100%.
philip_pj wrote:
An excellent guide to image appeal is looking at different users' experiences. All the above are pretty eye-opening. Looking for reviews, the Petapixel guys have one that covers a lot of ground, even though they too compare the lens to three primes for the issues of: bag space, carry weight (travel) and coverage.
Some thoughts: at 28mm wide open they say it's a little soft in the corners. Who cares, right? It gets good at f4, and it breathes out to (my estimate) 30mm or so for the near focus images for hyperfocal users etc.
It adds fuel to the idea for Sigma to replicate this beautiful look in a slower, lighter (two lens equivalent) f2.4 lens or so, maybe 28-60mm. At 45mm, it will show up as 47-48mm, a good thing for closer portraits. Many of the better modern lenses retain IQ stopped well down, worth remembering.
I see their problem though, they want a near-50mm lens with good lens speed to replace (or stand in for) a good light prime. Everyone but me hates slow 50s, lol. Other virtues: great sun stars, very fine bokeh, high presence - the secret of the huge 3D, very good fade character, very clear focal plane, CA near-invisible. It's a beautiful look, this one.
In usage, add a 21mm and a favourite 75-77-85 and that is very doable, with the 45mm end being cropable in any case to over 55mm for tidier corners. thanks for posting, Tim.
YT titles:
Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art: The brightest full frame zoom EVER MADE (petapixel)
Sigma 28-45mm F1.8 DG DN ART Review | World's First FF F1.8 Zoom! (Dustin Abbott)...Show more →
p.6 #3 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
Would be nice to see a modest FL range f/4 zoom that didn't rely too much on optical corrections, just not sure we'll see that. It seems for a lot of f/4 lenses, the goal is to be very small and often relies quite a bit on digital distortion correction.
What also nice about this, there is virtually no LoCA or LaCA. The results are very clean without doing much. There is a bit of distortion, but nothing too horrendous, and in many landscape uses you could probably avoid correcting.
philip_pj wrote:
An excellent guide to image appeal is looking at different users' experiences. All the above are pretty eye-opening. Looking for reviews, the Petapixel guys have one that covers a lot of ground, even though they too compare the lens to three primes for the issues of: bag space, carry weight (travel) and coverage.
Some thoughts: at 28mm wide open they say it's a little soft in the corners. Who cares, right? It gets good at f4, and it breathes out to (my estimate) 30mm or so for the near focus images for hyperfocal users etc.
It adds fuel to the idea for Sigma to replicate this beautiful look in a slower, lighter (two lens equivalent) f2.4 lens or so, maybe 28-60mm. At 45mm, it will show up as 47-48mm, a good thing for closer portraits. Many of the better modern lenses retain IQ stopped well down, worth remembering.
I see their problem though, they want a near-50mm lens with good lens speed to replace (or stand in for) a good light prime. Everyone but me hates slow 50s, lol. Other virtues: great sun stars, very fine bokeh, high presence - the secret of the huge 3D, very good fade character, very clear focal plane, CA near-invisible. It's a beautiful look, this one.
In usage, add a 21mm and a favourite 75-77-85 and that is very doable, with the 45mm end being cropable in any case to over 55mm for tidier corners. thanks for posting, Tim.
YT titles:
Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art: The brightest full frame zoom EVER MADE (petapixel)
Sigma 28-45mm F1.8 DG DN ART Review | World's First FF F1.8 Zoom! (Dustin Abbott)...Show more →
p.6 #4 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
I have thought about this zoom vs prime discussion but you are really not replacing 3 primes because the prime is brighter so technically you can crop and still get the same bokeh and snr.
Based on this analysis I always find it hard to ditch my primes for a slower zoom with limited zoom range.
Example 14mm Gm vs 14-24mm zoom, I have switched to the 14mm Gm ages ago from the zoom.
For 28-45 is a bit less clear cut as Sony does not have a great 28mm prime, probably a reason why sigma chose 28mm to start with. For me, an excellent f1.4 prime always win a limited range f1.8/f2 zoom assuming you can work with cropping and switching between fx and dx.
I think canon way of not sacrificing the zoom range and just build a heavier lens is the right way, as in 28-70mm f2. At least you can’t cover that with a single prime. Even if the 28-45 is lighter than other f2 zooms, once u compare it to f1.4 primes, it is just plain heavy
p.6 #5 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
In photography it's the opposite of the road: speed is not everything. How many of your best are shot at f1.4, outside the UWAs? Designers have quite a degree of freedom to get the rendering and DOF they want, particularly in a lens this well corrected. It's not win-lose over half a stop as all have good and not so good points. What matters more is the design around the focal plane and its fade, this one is redolent of the CV APOs in that respect.
No Sony lens does what this one does. Canon has a different look too, more commercial, settled and bland; not the boldness and 'reach out of the screen' 3D of this one, even in crops and portraits it seems - p.3 #20. C/N/S are more catering to mainstream tastes, which is very conservative. This is more out of the Zeiss/Voigt/SL mold.
APS-C crops of a full frame lens are far from ideal. The 28-45 would be a great event lens, f1.4 is pretty limited despite the hype, unless you want big blur. Put one on the wall and see how long you can look at it. Room for all of them for their niches, of course.
No one is talking ditching anything, that's someway down the track. But Sigma are most definitely on the right track here, if image quality matters to you. See the reviews I linked to above, with an impartial eye and mind. It's a near faultless sleeper.
p.6 #6 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
wind30 wrote:
I have thought about this zoom vs prime discussion but you are really not replacing 3 primes because the prime is brighter so technically you can crop and still get the same bokeh and snr.
Based on this analysis I always find it hard to ditch my primes for a slower zoom with limited zoom range.
Example 14mm Gm vs 14-24mm zoom, I have switched to the 14mm Gm ages ago from the zoom.
For 28-45 is a bit less clear cut as Sony does not have a great 28mm prime, probably a reason why sigma chose 28mm to start with. For me, an excellent f1.4 prime always win a limited range f1.8/f2 zoom assuming you can work with cropping and switching between fx and dx.
I think canon way of not sacrificing the zoom range and just build a heavier lens is the right way, as in 28-70mm f2. At least you can’t cover that with a single prime. Even if the 28-45 is lighter than other f2 zooms, once u compare it to f1.4 primes, it is just plain heavy...Show more →
The thing is, there is no 1.4 prime you can crop to 45mm and get the same level of detail as this zoom at 45mm. The closest would probably be Sigma's own 28/1.4 but it's not much lighter/smaller than the zoom. Of course, this only matters if you really care about IQ, but I don't think anyone who doesn't buys this zoom...
p.6 #7 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
j4nu wrote:
The thing is, there is no 1.4 prime you can crop to 45mm and get the same level of detail as this zoom at 45mm. The closest would probably be Sigma's own 28/1.4 but it's not much lighter/smaller than the zoom. Of course, this only matters if you really care about IQ, but I don't think anyone who doesn't buys this zoom...
If Sony decides to do a 28mm f1.4gm, it should be similar weight/performance to the 24mm / 35mm gm lens. The newer Gm are very sharp even at f1.4 but I get your point that it is might be tough to match the zoom at 45mm f1.8 with an APSC crop in terms of sharpness and detail.
I wonder if anyone has done a comparison... I have a lot of experience with the 14mm gm and I find it very sharp even at f1.8 and I have no issues cropping it to 21mm. Will a 14-24mm be sharper at 21mm f2.8? I am not 100% convinced as the zoom has its own challenges having to cover a variety of focal lengths. Usually manufacturers optimise the wide end and the tele end suffers. On the bright side, the prime will win hands down on vignetting and corner sharpness when cropped
p.6 #8 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
Not sure these links will work, but I'll give it a go. Yes, this zoom isn't 1.4....but realize you're not going to get a similarly fast Sony lens that performs like this wide open. You'll need to copy and paste these links into a browser tab, I think FM is truncating the lins.
So if you HAVE to have f/1.4, then so be it. But f/1.8 is darn closer to f/1.4 than f/2.8 is.
And this lens is so sharp and well behaved (Lloyd Chambers has said that this is better corrected than many Leica APO lenses), I don't see how cropping is going to get you the performance out of another FL lens.
p.6 #9 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
Blasphemous to stop down, but it seems to hold bite even with diffraction. No off color with the strong light poking through the Rhododendron leaves.
Been really dry here this summer. Weather stations around this spot showed 1.5+ inches of rain yesterday. But by the time I made it there in the morning, the stream was already a bit lower than I like. Not sure how much ran off quickly due to the dry ground, or was absorbed by the thirsty plants.
p.6 #10 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
Lloyd is right. And other better reviewers are noticing it as well.
Thanks for the f16 image, too. I'm very interested in some comments I am picking up about the better new lenses being very capable stopped down. The CV 75/1.5 closes to f32 (VM is 'just' f16), it's very surprising (to me at least) to see in a non-macro, let alone an f1.5 lens of that focal length. In the case of CV, they push the envelope for soft as well as sharp results.
Looking around, some people do use it, but it is controversial. A couple of DPR threads:
Diffraction can be offset in post to a fair extent, and not every composition can use stacking, due to field curvature among other practical reasons. I frequently use f11 as an aperture bracketing setting with f8, particularly for short telephotos. Often there is little to choose between them at full size. If you have looked into this here (or elsewhere), maybe you could comment.
p.6 #11 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
I don't focus stack, it's on my list of things to try. Other than using pixel shift occasionally, I'm generally just a one shot kind of guy. I will shoot the widest aperture that gives me what I was shooting for. I know there are various thoughts on having all the frame sharp in landscape, or keeping some blur to provide some depth cues. But I often shoot at f/11, but don't generally go past f/16.
I tend to prefer lenses that stave off diffraction stopped down. I do believe some lenses seem to not take quite a hit stopped down as others.
Just to give you an idea, this is a 100% view of the right half of the shot with just default 40 LR sharpening. No texture or clarity adjustments. I did run it through Denoise in LR with a setting of 10.
In the finished shot, I took this and brought it into PS, did some finer color and exposure adjustments and sharpened it in Topaz Sharpen AI. This right half view is prior to that work.
Generally you see a dulling as you continue to stop down, but I do think some lenses dull slower than others.
I think that is excellent for f/16.
philip_pj wrote:
Lloyd is right. And other better reviewers are noticing it as well.
Thanks for the f16 image, too. I'm very interested in some comments I am picking up about the better new lenses being very capable stopped down. The CV 75/1.5 closes to f32 (VM is 'just' f16), it's very surprising (to me at least) to see in a non-macro, let alone an f1.5 lens of that focal length. In the case of CV, they push the envelope for soft as well as sharp results.
Looking around, some people do use it, but it is controversial. A couple of DPR threads:
Diffraction can be offset in post to a fair extent, and not every composition can use stacking, due to field curvature among other practical reasons. I frequently use f11 as an aperture bracketing setting with f8, particularly for short telephotos. Often there is little to choose between them at full size. If you have looked into this here (or elsewhere), maybe you could comment....Show more →
p.6 #12 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
tsdevine wrote:
I tend to prefer lenses that stave off diffraction stopped down. I do believe some lenses seem to not take quite a hit stopped down as others.
Tim, Have you tried diffraction deconvolution in post? Capture One has it and I think DXO, not sure about others. Since the cause is mathematically well understood a smart approach to reverse it makes sense. You also mentioned focus stacking, kind of similar problems to pixel shift. If stuff is moving it just doesn't work well.
I personally don't have any issue with the images in the f11 to f16 range, they look fine.
p.6 #13 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
I tried deconvolution sharpening...but so long ago I don't even remember what software I was using. I generally find that between some basic LR sharpening along with Topaz, I can get quite a bit of detail.
I kind of wish I shot pixel shift on that shot. I would have had gobs of detail then, even at f/16.
I'm the same way.
tschopp wrote:
Tim, Have you tried diffraction deconvolution in post? Capture One has it and I think DXO, not sure about others. Since the cause is mathematically well understood a smart approach to reverse it makes sense. You also mentioned focus stacking, kind of similar problems to pixel shift. If stuff is moving it just doesn't work well.
I personally don't have any issue with the images in the f11 to f16 range, they look fine.
p.6 #14 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
I’ve used pixel shift on the a7R V with the stabilize feature and it’s worked pretty darn well for waterfall shots. But I generally avoid it where there is a lot of movement.
tschopp wrote:
Tim, Have you tried diffraction deconvolution in post? Capture One has it and I think DXO, not sure about others. Since the cause is mathematically well understood a smart approach to reverse it makes sense. You also mentioned focus stacking, kind of similar problems to pixel shift. If stuff is moving it just doesn't work well.
I personally don't have any issue with the images in the f11 to f16 range, they look fine.
p.6 #16 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
I'm working on collecting some photos from my library to illustrate this, but my ranking of bokeh between the Sigma Art 24-35mm f/2, Sigma Art 28mm f/1.4, and this Sigma Art 28-45mm f/1.8 (at 28mm)
#1 Sigma Art 28mm f/1.4
#2 Sigma Art 28-45mm f/1.8
#3 Sigma Art 24-35mm f/2
The 24-35mm is definitely far more busy than either the 28mm or the 28-45mm. The new zoom and the prime are closer(?), but I think the mechanical vignetting on the zoom gives the prime the advantage.
Now I need to dig out the photos to illustrate my intuition...
p.6 #17 · Sigma 28-45mm f/1.8 DG DN Art Prime Comparison / Image Thread
Processed in Lightroom, minimal adjustment of exposure and white balance. Default sharpening, distortion correction on, vignetting correction on. Shot with my a7R V on my TVC-22i with an Arca-Swiss P1+. Some change in light due to the clouds passing by. Should be enough to give you an idea of performance.
