Sigma 30mm F1.4 Contemporary DC DN Lens for Sony E

Comment

I bought 2 months ago , according DxOMark is the sharpest lens that exists for E mount . my personal opinion, focuses fast enough , is excellent for low light conditions have not even had trouble focusing in low light on my sony a6000 , has a bit of distortion that is easily corrected in Lightroom 6.6 , the build quality is excellent , I give it 5 stars why it is a great product at a very low cost, especially because it is the sharpest lens that exists for E mount , only not recommend it for video because it has no stabilizer.

Show more

Comment

This is my most recent lens purchase and it has quickly become my go-to lens. It is a small, compact autofocus lens that I use for both portraits and landscape photography. The low aperture makes for a nice blurry background and a crisp, clean subject in the foreground. It is perfect for if youre shooting a person or group of people with a nice blurry background behind them. It is also super effective at shooting landscape. It delivers high-quality, crisp images and the autofocus is FANTASTIC. Plus, it costs much less (~$100) than other similar lenses. I cant recommend this lens enough.

Show more

Comment

As many have said, this might just be the best prime lens for Sonys E-Mount / APS-C cameras. I use it on my Sony A6000, and its amazing. Quick pros and cons: Pros: Best-in-class aperture. f1.4 is currently the best available on the market, there is no more open lens in this range. Cheap. Compared to the competition, this lens is an absolute steal. Cheaper than the nearest Sony and Zeiss equivalents. Amazing quality. I never knew a lens this cheap, and promising f1.4, could ever look this good. Unless youre a serious photo pro whos crawling over the pixels in Photoshop, this lens is near perfect at any setting. What small flaws it does have, are almost all easily fixed (e.g. very minor, best-in-class, barrel distortion). Anyone using this for point-and-shoot or basic portraits wont need to do a thing, it looks great out of the box. Cons: No image stabilization. This is really both a pro and a con. You dont need image stabilization anyway if you shoot with a tripod, so no sense paying for it. If you know anything about setting up your camera, you probably already know how to setup a fast shutter speed using the 1.4 to avoid almost all concerns about shaky hands. However, lacking image stabilization means handheld shots are a fraction slower and less stable than they would be with the Sony-equivalent lens that does have image stabilization. Really, I wouldnt be worried if you know how to setup a lens, but the Sony is the easier "point and click" lens in the range. If youre a studio photographer with a lot of lighting who depends on each individual shot being perfect yet you dont use a tripod, then maybe youd need to worry. I just shoot in multi-shot mode to make sure I get a good one. Chromatic aberration. Also called "purple fringing", lenses with low enough f-stop values are prone to splitting the light on the edges of a subject, leading to a bleeding effect where sharp differences in light cause the object to have a purple outline. Note that this outline is normally pretty hard to see unless youre really blowing up the image (8x10?) or looking for it on a monitor. This is normal, and for this class of lense, this lense is still great for its class. If this is a major concern for you, either shop around, or learn to shoot around it (increase f-stop when shooting sharp light contrasts, for instance). Zoom by wire. Most e-mount lenses dont zoom on a 1:1 track with how you spin the ring, they relay that information to the camera which tries to guess what value youre reaching for. This is totally normal across the range, but some people seem to be bothered by it, so take note. This lens dials in just as well as any of its fly-by-wire competitors, and I find I can get exactly the results I want using the simple "show a zoom during focus" option on my camera. Overall: This lens has all the normal flaws of a 1.4 in this price range, but it costs less, and has the lowest f-stop you can get. Absolutely, bar-none the best prime lens for most users. Requires only beginner-level knowledge to make the most out of it. Spend one day looking up tips on shooting with lenses with low f-stops, and youll be ready for this.

Show more

Comment

(NOTE: If you like this written review, do a search for “Loloho Photo” to find my complete video review! Also, this written review will be updated with more information as I gain experience with the lens.) First, my frame of reference: I own the Sony Zeiss FE 35, Sigma 30mm f/2.8, Sony FE28 f2, and Sony/Zeiss 24 f/1.8. Yes, I suffer from a severe case of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS). The only treatment is the constant purchase of new camera gear. If not for the steady supervision provided by my vigilant wife, Id have already declared bankruptcy by now. Thankfully, I was able to secretly sell some blood plasma to get my hands on a copy of this lens. Sigma sent shock waves through the camera world when it announced this 30mm f/1.4 lens for Sony E and Micro 4/3. Even though APS-C sensor cams like the a6300, a6000, and a5100 sell faster than Spock ears at a Star Trek convention, in recent years Sony has delivered nothing but full frame glass - mostly of the “expensive and heavy” variety. So Sigmas announcement of this native APS-C lens was met with enthusiastic cheers. (No pom poms, though.) Alas, unboxing the lens revealed an immediate disappointment – no lens case! All of my other Sigma lenses (including the “Art” series) have included nice padded and zippered cases, so the exclusion of a case was a letdown. Tsk, tsk, Sigma... My poor "Contemporary" lens feels naked without a matching case. Fortunately, matters improved upon examining the lens itself. With the Contemporary series, Sigma has returned to a more traditional styling. Gone is the smooth metal barrel of the “Art” series. In its place is a more traditional ridged polycarbonate appearance with a dash of metal to boot. Sigma calls the material Thermally Stable Composite (TSC) and its supposed to handle changes in temperature well. Anyway, Im happy to see grippy rubber ridges on the lens barrel; now I can eat greasy French fries without fear of the lens slipping through my fingers at a crucial moment. The lens is made in Japan - not Thailand, China, or Bangladesh. Build quality is completely decent. Its not pretending to be a vintage Leica or Nikkor, but it suits a modern Sony body quite nicely. In fact, the lens feels great attached to a Sony a6000 or a6300. Goldilocks would approve of the handling: its just right. The weight is manageable at 9.35 ounces. Theres some substance here, but nothing that would prevent you from toting this well balanced rock all day long. The thing is just under 3 inches long (thats what she said!) so its not terribly bulky. The front filter thread is 52mm, unusual for Sony E-Mount lenses. This will work nicely for those of you who have Nikon glass and filters lying around. If youve invested in 49mm filters for your other Sony lenses, then you may want to buy a step-up (or is it step-down?) ring. And speaking of rings, the manual focus ring is YUUUUGE. Personally I like the massive manual focus ring and its reassuring rubber grip. Although focus is by wire, the ring appears to have been dampened. It turns with a smooth buttery feel. When manually focusing this lens wide open, you will want all of the control you can muster. Why, you ask? Well, theres one main reason you buy this lens, and it aint the fancy plastic: f/1.4, baby! Lets say it again, all together: f/1.4. f/1.4. EFFFF... ONE POINT FOUR.... Ahhhhh, that felt good, didnt it? Indeed, this lens is faster than a Ferrari Enzo running on 110 octane with a stuck gas pedal. Its faster than Usain Bolt after drinking three tall pints of Red Bull. Its faster than... well, you get the idea. The lens has a maximum aperture of f/1.4. This means loads of light, and a razor thin focal plane. You want bokeh? You got it! The bokeh, or out of focus areas, that this lens produces are smooth and beautiful. The lens has a rounded 9-bladed aperture. Bokeh is creamier than a Breve latte . If you want to see your subject swimming in a veritable sea of blurry background bliss, this is your lens. Whats arguably more important than background blur? Acuity, which is a fancy word that photo nerds say instead of “sharpness.” Thankfully, this lens delivers optical acuity. Yes, its sharp. How sharp? Sharper than a Hattori Hanzo sword. Its reasonably sharp wide open, thank goodness, and matters improve as its stopped down a bit. By f/5.6, you risk slicing your eyeballs. This is why we buy prime lenses, folks. What about the focal length? Well, on an APS-C camera 30mm translates to a 45mm field of view. Personally Im fond of the focal length, as it delivers a fine “normal” perspective. Again, Goldilocks would approve: its not too wide, and not too narrow. You see something similar to what the human eye sees. The lens is thus an ideal walkabout type of lens. The fast aperture means you can take it into just about any lighting situation. Its useful indoors and outside. Its great for shots of people and contextual portraiture. Its good for street photography and landscape. Its excellent for museum shots of stuffed wombats, too. (Just a suggestion.) The minimum focus distance is a decent 11.81 inches. While not as short as the wonderful Sony/Zeiss 24mm f/1.8, its not half bad. No, it wont replace your macro lens. But if you want to get a dreamy shot of your fettucine alfredo before scarfing it down your gullet, this lens will get the job done. Downsides? HOLY PURPLE FRINGING, BATMAN! When shooting wide open, sometimes high contrast areas can exhibit signs of lateral chromatic aberration in the form of purple fringing. Yes, The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (may he rest in peace) would have loved this lens. Ahhh, purple fringing – the unsightly dandruff of photography. Unfortunately, the purple fringing here is pretty extreme. Take a shot wide open and examine the high contrast areas. You will hear the song "Purple Rain" playing in your head, again and again. Fortunately purple fringing is easily solved in post processing with a simple one click treatment. If you have the software (Adobe Lightroom is what I use) and your right finger is capable of clicking a mouse button, you need not fret too much over purple fringing. Or you can stop down your aperture a bit to keep things under control. Theres also some distortion. If you shoot JPGs you wont need to worry about it, since it will be automatically fixed in camera. If you like to develop RAW files, well, youll want to correct the distortion. If you have tried the FE28, then you know the drill. Again, its not really a big deal in these digital days. So whats the bottom line? Not only does this lens offer performance comparable or better than the lenses I mentioned above, the price is pretty great. Sure, it costs more than the Sigma 30mm f/2.8 Art series, but in exchange for a little extra cash you get a fast fast fast f/1.4 aperture. To my knowledge, this is the only native APS-C f/1.4 autofocusing lens for Sony E-Mount. (Sure, theres the massive SEL35F14Z 35mm f/1.4 full frame lens, but that will cost you an extra $1200 or so, and you need a forklift to carry it.) The Sigma 30mm is a lot cheaper than the sublime Sony Zeiss 24mm f/1.8. If you want to pony up the cash for the Zeiss, youll get a slightly wider focal length, a shorter minimum focus distance, and those mythological Zeiss colors (including a nice blue badge). I love my 24mm, and would never discourage anyone from buying one. But you can pick up this Sigma and keep around $700 in your pocket. Your choice. With the Sigma youll have a faster lens, but youll also have purple fringing. I was tempted to dock Sigma a star for the stingy exclusion of a proper case. But for now, Ill be kind and simply wag my finger in their direction. After all, Sigma has delivered where it counts most. Theyve given E-Mount shooters a sharp fast normal APS-C prime at a reasonable price. Lets hope they sell a lot of these things and are motivated to keep making more. Next time, maybe theyll do a better job with the purple stuff. Go ahead. If you want it, buy it. I think you will like it. (As mentioned at the outset, if you like this written review, do a search for “Loloho Photo Sigma 30 Contemporary” to find my complete video review! Also, this review will be updated as I gain more experience with the lens. Thanks and happy shooting.)

Show more

Comment

I would like to give this 4.5 stars. Image quality wise, its more like 4, value and usability its more like 5. First, its VERY SMALL AND LIGHT. Im using it on the Sony a6000, and those two combined are so small and light it feels like cheating. Second, not all lenses can keep up with the crazy-fast focus and shoot performance of the a6000, but this little Sigma DOES. Its a sharp lens...what its not, is a crazy-sharp lens. Im spoiled by lenses like the Zeiss 55mm f1.8, and comparatively, this lens is good, just not great. Still, usability makes up for the minor failings in image quality. Very bright, very fast, very easy to use.

Show more

Comment

Like many others, I bought this lens for my Sony a6000 because it is the sharpest available and the 30mm (45mm full frame equivalent) is close to the”nifty fifty” focal length so many love. The build quality seems excellent and the weight is reasonable. It’s not a small lens, but it doesn’t feel too unbalanced in my hand or on a tripod. The manual focus ring is huge, which is great because I can see myself needing it often. The autofocus can be slow with my camera in single shot autofocus mode, and the lens “hunts” for a second or two before it locks focus. In continuous autofocus mode the lens constantly hunts and never locks focus, so I get frustrated and switch to manual focus. Not a deal breaker for me, because this isn’t a lens I would normally use for fast moving subjects. And I don’t mind not having Sony’s OSS because I probably won’t shoot video with this lens, either. For my purposes, needing a fast sharp lens for indoor or cityscape shooing, this lens is almost ideal. I gave it four stars instead of five only because of the lousy autofocus ability, but I’m still glad I bought this lens over the native Sony 35mm.

Show more

Comment

Incredibly great lens. I use it with a humble A6000 camera, and the results are much, much better than anyone would have a right to expect, given the price of the camera and lens. As many have noted, it is extremely sharp, but also produces beautiful colors and dynamic range. I have a few other lenses for the A6000 and almost never use them, except for the occasional macro (for which use an ancient Nikon AI 55 mm macro lens and Fotasy adapter -- works great!) and long telephoto (Nikon 80-200 f/4 AI -- works great) shots. (I have the Sigma 60mm f/2.8, which is also a steal, for portraits but dont take a lot of those.) As to how this lens compares with the Sigma 30 mm f/2.8, I dont know. That lens is cheaper and would probably work well, because I rarely use apertures wider than f/2.8 anyway. Im sure the Sony 35 mm is fine. But youll have to pry this beauty from my cold, dead hands. I intend to be buried with it.

Show more

Comment

Sigma lenses rock. Ive got the Sigma 30mm F1.4 and the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 and use them interchangeably on my Sony a5100 (a surprisingly little powerful camera package). The heft and build quality of Sigma lenses is impressive, but their optics are even more impressive. A little slower to focus with auto-focus than Sony OEM lenses, they still focus fast-enough for continuous video use. You cannot go wrong with this lens if youre looking for an around-town portrait lens that can also be used for low-light conditions. I use this lens for professional head-shots and portraits, and also for tight video work with a creamy bokeh and cinematic look.

Show more

Comment

I bought this to pair with a Sony A6300 after being unsatisfied with the sharpness of the FE28/2 and the SEL35mm/1.8. The Sigma was highly recommended and in terms of sharpness its a nearly impossible to beat APS-C lens for the Sony APS-C system. The caveat is that the Sigma 30/1.4 does not focus as quickly as the FE28 or SEL35, and Ive found that it has accuracy issues in low-light more than the FE28 and SEL35. In addition to the focus being less than optimal in low-light I wish the lens were 35mm as I have become very accustomed to that focal range and 30mm is slightly wider than Id like. With that said I own the Rokinon 12/2, Sony SEL 50/1.8 and owned the aforementioned lenses. The Sigma 30/1.4 has rarely left my A6300 since buying it, I consider it a must own for sharpness on Sonys APS-C lineup. I do miss the color rendering, and the focusing quality of the FE28, and the image stabilization of the SEL35/1.8. If youre an APS-C shooter on Sony then here is my recommendation go with the 28mm/2 if you want focusing accuracy and speed and dont mind a slightly wider focal length than 35mm. Go with the SEL 35 if you want image stabilization. Go with the Sigma if you want absolute sharpness.

Show more

Comment

EEEERRRR MY GEEERDDDD!!! This lens is flipping fantastic. Best lens Ive ever owned. Hands down. Perfect focal length on the a6500. Fast focus (even in the dark). Amazing bokeh. Great colors. Shallow depth of field for portraits is wonderful. I chase my kids around with this lens all day. Photos and videos. Its on my camera most of the time at the moment. Im ready for Sigma to make me a 50mm and an 85mm of this lens. It would be awesome.

Show more