Thursday, September 9, 2010

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Wide! Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM Lens



I recently had a few minutes to quickly shoot with a very interesting new Sigma lens, the ultra-wide 8-16mm zoom. This lens is only for APS-C crop digital cameras and on my EOS-7D, which shot the test photos in the gallery, it equates to a (rounded off) 13-26mm zoom, in 35mm full-frame equivalent terms. Very very wide indeed!

Above is a link to a gallery of test images and when you click the thumbnails, you'll get a enlarged view with metadata showing as well as the option to open a much larger 3000 pixel sized image in a new window for closer examination. Please read the notes at the start of the gallery for some additional info. In short, I am impressed with the sharpness of this very wide lens. It handles well, focuses fast, has minimal barrel distortion and seems very well built. The only shortcoming I felt, was the very saturated and obvious nature of the flare spot when the sun is in the field-of-view. Something to definitely watch out for!

Clearly, one also needs to watch for serious perspective distortion if the camera isn't level or square on to your subject.  Not a flaw specific to this lens of course, rather a consequence of its extraordinarily wide FOV. I am impressed enough with this lens that I am seriously considering stocking Canon and Nikon mount versions at Beau Photo...

3 comments:

Mike Nelson Pedde said...

"I recently had a few minutes to quickly shoot with a very interesting new Sigma lens, the ultra-wide 8-16mm zoom. This lens is only for APS-C crop digital cameras and on my EOS-7D, which shot the test photos in the gallery, it equates to a (rounded off) 13-26mm zoom, in 35mm full-frame equivalent terms. Very very wide indeed!"

Not a criticism, just a comment, but if it only shoots with APS-C sensor cameras, why even call it an 8-16mm lens? Why not call it a 13-26mm lens and be done with it... Things were a lot simpler with film! ;-)

Mike Mander said...

Well, focal length is focal length. Nothing to do with the size of the device capturing the image, be it film (35mm, 6x7cm, 4x5 inch etc.) or digital, be it a P&S with a teeny sensor, an APS-C crop sensor, full frame 35mm or a medium format digital back.

In the "old film days", when shooting on a variety of differing film formats, photographers would often also mentally juggle focal length equivalencies! I used to shoot with a 35mm Nikon as well as a 4x5 Linhof, and I would mentally juggle too. Although it was easier since I only ever had two fixed lenses for the 4x5! However on my Pentax 67II, I had numerous lenses and would often mentally convert into 35mm terms, especially when talking to others who only ever shot with 35mm cameras.

I started out with a 35mm camera and shot that size film for many years before switching to larger formats, so I have always been "35mm biased". I suspect a photographer who learned his trade on 4x5 sheet film, and is now shooting 35mm digital, will convert the opposite way! The more things change, the more they stay the same... ;-)

Mike Mander said...

Oh, and to be clear (sort of), on a Nikon DX APS-C camera (like a D300 for example) which has an ever so slightly larger sensor than my Canon EOS-7D, the lens would be equivalent to a 12-24mm zoom on a full-frame, so slightly wider. Sigma would then have to label the Canon version a 13-26mm and Nikon versions as 12-24mm. Hmm... that might be even more confusing!

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