[Music] Hi I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today To give you my video review of sigma's Newest lens that is the 10 to 18 mm DC Meaning it's designed for apsc DN Meaning designed for mirrorless and this Is from their contemporary lineup there Have been already in the last 4 years Alone there have been 29 D DN lenses coming from Sigma lenses Designed purposely for mirrorless camera Systems but this is only the out of Those 29 lenses this is only the second Apsc Zoom it is the six of their dcdn or APS CDN lenses but only the second of Them that is a zoom so it is in many Ways a great companion to the 18 to 50 Mm f2.8 which was their previous zoom Lens this is the smallest and lightest Wide angle zoom on these mirrorless Platforms this lens is going to be Available for Sony E Mount which I have Tested here Leica L Mount and then also For Fuji X mount it seems like on these Platforms that there are some lenses With a constant aperture of f4 and then Only a few with a constant apture of F2.8 and really the chief competitor is Actually the Tamron 11 to 20 mm f2.8 Which is the closest in uh price and I Would say overall focal link SL Maxim Aperture combination now obviously the Sigma does have a slightly smaller Zoom Range though most importantly it goes
All the way to 10 mm which is very very Important giving you more of that wide Angle point of view it's always easier To crop in than it is to try to get a Little bit wider this is as we're going To see a strong performing lens and it Comes at a very competitive price point Of $599 which amongst the main competitors That I can kind of source as analog logs It is actually the cheapest of those Options so that makes this a really Intriguing lens the idea of getting such A compact lens on your camera ability to Travel light but to still have that Maximum apture of f2.8 is very Intriguing so is this a lens that you Should consider well we'll find out Right after a word from our sponsor Today's episode is brought to you by Phantom wallet the minimalist modern Wallet that is now even better with the New Phantom X that is crafted from Aluminum right here in Canada it is 22% Smaller and 35% lighter while still Making it easy to access your cards and Money when you need them thanks to their Unique Fanning mechanism you could even Customize your wallet due to its modular Design with accessories like a money Clip cash holder ID display and even Chipolo and air tag tracking integration Visit store. fanom wallet.com to check Out their unique sizes Styles and
Finishes that span from aluminum to Wood To carbon fiber and use code Dustin 15 For 15% off when you're ready to check Out so let's start by talking about that Focal length this is a fullframe Equivalent of 15 to 27 mm and obviously That's not a big Zoom ratio but at the Same time it does cover a number of Really important focal links as a part Of traditional wide angle type Photography the lens as noted is the Lightest and the most compact here on The platform it is 72.2 MM in D diameter Leaving us a 67 mm front filter thread That is 2.8 in by comparison and it is Only 64 mm or 2 and 1/2 in in length so It is a very very short lens and it is Very much a palm siiz type lens it Weighs in only 255 G that's 9 oz and so It is extremely lightweight it is very Easy to bring along now the closest Competitor being that Tamron 11 to 20 mm Uh f 2.8 and so obviously the tamon goes 2 mm further but I think probably most Importantly it doesn't go quite as wide As what the sigma does making the sigma Of the two in my opinion the more Attractive Zoom ratio but that Tamron Lens is 22 millim longer it is 80 g Heavier and it cost $100 more definitely Some pluses for the sigma now the build Quality here is very nice uh Sigma has a Lot of really great design elements in Their lens a variety of different
Textures and they use those textures I Think not only to give style but also Function to their lenses grip places Things like that so the lens looks very Nice I will point out however that their Contemporary Series has been somewhat Stuck when it comes to the design Philosophy it hasn't really evolved in Terms of features and or weather ceiling All of their contemporary lenses Continueed to have only a weather Sealing gasket at the lens mount but no Internal SEALS or anything anything like That there's nothing like a focus hold Button there's no aperture ring there's Basically nothing outside of the manual Focus ring and then the zoom ring here Now fortunately those things are very Well executed the manual focus ring is The first of the two rings it has a nice Damping I found that the actual manual Focusing process was very good um it has Good Precision to it but also there is No visible stepping there's no lag Between the interface here it feels like A direct connection even though it Actually is focused by wire and where The focus changes are actually taking Place driven by the Focus Motor now up near the front of the lens Is the uh the zoom ring and my only Critique of that is that because it is So close to where the lens Hood actually Seats if you happen to have longer
Fingernails or thicker fingers it can be A little bit of a tight fit when you're In the fully retracted position for your Fingers to fit in there to zoom it and So ergonomically can be a little bit of A challenge and I can imagine that That's not going to get easier in a few Months when I'm shooting with gloves on And so my one criticism there this is Not a fully internally zooming lens and Actually it's kind of a reverse zoom and That it is fully retracted at the 18 mm Position and it extends its furthest Which is only about 10 mm at the 10 mm Position so about a centimeter of travel Forward but throughout that Zoom range It is very smooth it's very precise all Of those things are very very well Executed now one thing that has changed From the typical uh plan here is that Sigma has redesigned the concept of a Lens Hood rather than this being a Bayonetting hood you line up a the line On the lens Hood with the line on the Lens barrel and you just press it in and There is a tension and locking lever That keeps it there and so it will stay In place and you actually have to do Just a little bit of a rotation to um to The left and then you're able to bring That free now for storage there's a Secondary position where you'll see an Arrow on there you'll line that up with That same marker on the lens barrel and
You're able to reverse it for storage And as you can see it stays locked until Again I rotate it and it comes free so a Unique uh design and you say well was There a need for a new design the reason That Sigma is giving for this is the Simple fact that by eliminating the Bayonetting action that allowed them to Make a much narrower lens hood and so it Takes up less room for storage it Doesn't need to flare out as widely and So it allows them to make a smaller lens Hood that makes this lens even more Portable so we'll see if you know how it Stands the test of time in terms of Holding up but so far it seems like They've actually executed their idea as Has become more the case with a lot of Modern zoom lenses there is a dual Minimum Focus distance at the 10 mm Position you can focus as closely as 11.6 cm and so that is within just a Little bit of the front of the lens and Then at the 18 mm position your distance Is a little bit further at 19 cm of Distance and remember that's from the Sensor not from the front of the lens so You do get your higher maximum maximum Magnification value of 0.25 times at the 10 mm position but you almost have to be On top of your subject to do that which Creates extra exaggeration of distortion And field curvature and so don't Typically love the macro images you can
Get at those I actually prefer typically On the telephoto in and in this case the Magnification drops to a more pedestrian 0.14 times but in real world use I still Found it probably a little bit more Useful than trying to get right on top Of something to take a photo the upside However at 10 mm is that if you're Shooting video you don't really have to Worry about getting too close to your Subject you're basically going to be Bumping into it before Focus actually Stops keeping up so certainly a positive On that point finally we have a seven Bladed aperture here and while you know Getting that circular shape when stop Down is far less important in a wide Angle Zoom what is more important is That you have a fairly nice looking 14o Sunburst as you can see here it's not Mind-blowingly good but it's fine it's Nice so overall uh my only criticisms About the build are really what's Missing because everything that's here Is very nicely executed and I love the Package very small very compact but very Nicely made now autofocus uh follows the Pattern once again that Sigma has Established for the Contemporary lineup On mirrorless and that it has an STM or A stepping Focus motor now in this case Because the elements are small focus is Fast it's quiet I have no really Concerns there as you can see in my
Autofocus speed test Focus changes are Pretty much instantaneous going from Close to distant subject for any kind of Stills type photography graphy you can See also in this video that even when Nala's eyes were closed you can see that If is staying nice and sticky on her eye And so all of that works fine as well Which is pretty much part for the course These days I also found that Focus was Fine in backlit situations focusing on Some of these leaves even with bright Light coming through I was able to Accurately focus when it comes to the Video side of things I found that my Focus pulls were smooth you see that There's very little Focus breathing here So that helps likewise when I did the Test with my hand that there's good Transitions from the uh the hand to the Eye and vice versa and again the fact That there is very low Focus breathing Means that you don't really see a lot of Focus change it's just one thing stops Being in focus and another thing all of A sudden is in Focus so those Transitions are really nice I did a test Like I've been doing some recently where I put the lens on a Gimbal and I just Tried to see how it would do tracking With Nala and in this case it was able To keep up fairly well there are a few Focus misses where focus is you know Either not quite there or it's
Transitioning and again because there's Such low Focus breathing you don't see It all that much you can just kind of Tell that Focus isn't always nailed During the sequence so not quite as good As the recent similar test I did on the Tamron 17 to 40 mm for fullframe cameras Now when it came to vlogging type Situations obviously this is a lens That's going to gimble really well you Can use quite a lightweight gimbal Depending on your camera and and so you You know that that's obviously great and For vlogging it did a great job of Tracking my eye either while walking or While spinning around and so I think That this is going to be a really Intriguing lens for that kind of Application if you're wanting to travel Small and light but have the versatility Of a zoom it's going to be very Attractive for that so overall autofocus Is is good it's not as like top tier Good you know but I mostly found the Places that it was missing more when I Was pushing it to the extremes for most Applications autofocus did a fantastic Job I was able to get Beautiful video Footage uh nice transitions from one Subject to another because Focus Transitions were smooth so overall I'm Quite happy with autofocus performance So let's talk about the image quality From this little lens it's actually
Fairly complex in its Optical design There are 13 elements in 10 groups a Wide variety of those almost half of Those elements are exotic elements and And you can see that there's also a Really strong MTF chart that is a vast Improvement over sigma's kind of Previous similar lens a 10 to 20 mimer That was an F3.5 and so um obviously some Improvements there let's see how it Holds up if we kind of drilled down and We actually put it to the test so we'll Start by taking a look at vignette and Distortion here so as is typical with Wide angle zooms the widest focal length Is where most of the issues are when it Comes to to vignette in in particular Distortion so you can see that there is A significant though not obscene amount Of barrel Distortion here you can also See from my manual correction here that While it doesn't correct perfectly it's Not much of a mustache pattern it's not All that bad even with a manual Correction to achieve this correction I Dialed in a plus 21 for the Distortion And then for the vignette there is a Plus 53 here so right over two stops of Vignette again not too severe now Elsewhere in the zoom range there's Really not much to worry about here at 14 mm you can see that there's basically Not hardly anything to correct as far as
Distortion vignette drops down to about The plus 40 range so under two stops Again not too severe at the end of the Zoom range at 18 mm there's a bit of pin Cushion Distortion again it's not that Severe it corrects easily and the Vignette stays basically about the same So here at the worst at 10 mm you can Definitely see an an uncorrected raw Image that there is going to be some Bulge there uh that comes from the Barrel Distortion at the same time However just using the correction Profile you can see that it cleans up Pretty nicely and while the lines are Maybe 100% perfect it's good enough that I think that most people would be happy To use it even for some interior Applications now with a wide angle lens Like this there's not going to be a lot Of situations where you have a very Narrow depth of field in this case I've Tried to create one and you can see that There is only minimal amounts of any Kind of longitudinal chromatic Aberration here's a real world image and You can see that if we Zoom all the way In here at the key this is at 200% you Can see that as we look Beyond to the Various surfaces shiny surfaces here I Don't really see any fringing at all There in a real world application so That's a really clean result likewise in This crop from a real world image
Looking at lateral chromatic aberration You can see that in these transitions Near the edge of the frame even with High contrast subjects there is no real Fringing to see so again a really really Nice result there so here's the test Chart that we'll use for our sharpness And contrast test now while I look Forward to revisiting this on a 40 Megapixel Fuji sensor in the future here We're using 26 megapixels on Sony so a Lower resolution Point uh than what but Still I mean higher than what Sony used To be so it's a good test we can see in The middle of the frame at 10 mm that we Have got a fantastic result sharpness in Contrast is very high likewise here in The mid-frame looks very good and even If we go down towards the corners the Corners are holding up really nicely so That's a really sharp image all across The frame a really really good result Now because sharpness and contrast is so High at f2.8 there's not a whole lot Extra to pick up here at F4 just a tiny Bit more contrast I can see it a bit More in the midf frame there if we go Down towards the corner here you can see Again yes there's definitely more Contrast there at the very edge so a Little bit more detail nothing radical However now if we go to f5.6 and then to F8 you can see that sharpness basically Peaks at f5.6 there's not really any
Added Improvement at f8 that I can see Maybe in the very corner there is a Little bit better result after f8 However you're going to see a kind of Diminishing return due to the defraction Starting to affect the image and so you Can see the by F20 2 which is minimum Aperture the image has been really Softened after that point and so I would Say use f11 as your typical max if Possible beyond that you're going to get A increasingly softened image due to Defraction now while some zoom lenses Are only kind of good at one particular Focal length that's really not the case Here if anything I would say that going To 12 mm the image quality is just a Little bit better most everywhere that I Look you can just see just a little bit More sharpness and contrast right out Except for maybe at the very edge of the Frame but comparing this point I would Slightly favor the 12 mm result and Likewise here it's not much but it's Just very slightly better and also what You're going to find is near the edge of The frame because already we're starting To see less of the ven yet that the Image just looks a little bit brighter And cleaner along the edge of the frame Now from 12 to 14 mm we're going to see A very similar level of performance with Maybe just a little bit more contrast For 14 mm but you can see that the
Results are so similar that you know if You didn't have them side by side you Probably wouldn't be able to tell the Difference but there is a very slight Edge for the 14 mm result likewise from 14 to 16 mm the results are very similar But I would say that I like 16 mm just a Little bit better it is somewhat Situational depending on where you're Looking in the frame but I do think that The 16 mm result is just a little bit More consistent so I would say that that Is very close to our Peak Performance Now from 16 to 18 mm there is a tiny bit Of drop off but really it's very little You can see here in the center of the Frame that 18 mm if you look at this Writing here it's just not quite as Crisp but the result is very still very Very similar the mid-frame I would say Looks just as good we'll look at another Spot here to verify that and I would say That yes there's just a little bit less Detail in these various points that we Look at you can see it here just not Quite as crisp but if I look down at This right corner cor I would say that It looks every bit as good if not even a Hair better and so up in this upper Right corner we can see again I would Say that it looks just a little bit Better at 18 mm so it is somewhat Situational it depends on where you look In the frame here on the left side I
Would say 16 mm is a little bit better Up into this left corner I would say the Same is true 16 mm being just a little Bit better but as you can see sharpness Really holds up across the zoom range And at 18 mm I will note that as you Stop down there is definitely some room For improvement and so you'll see that The image does get higher contrast and Better detailed even on this side of the Frame which you know we term it was a Little bit weaker than the right side But we can see that stop down that that Picks up really nicely and we've got a Nice result even on the left side here Now one interesting thing that I noticed As a part of my test so I specifically Test is that here this is 18 mm and I Focused for 18 mm now without moving the Camera or Focus here is 10 mm and what You can see is that we are very close to Being properly focused there and so if Not 100% par focal this lens is very Close to being par focal which is going To be very useful for video Applications now I did find that up Close that contrast wasn't quite as good So here we can see our minimum Focus Distance and this is at the uh 18 mm Position you can see the image is just a Little bit softer than what I would like Now taking a quick look at the Comparison at getting close to the same Image at 10 millimeters I probably could
Have gotten even closer still and then At 18 millimeters but I was pretty much Bumping this by that that point and so You can see that you're able to blur out The background a little bit more at 18 Mm so it does remain my preference even If you can't don't get quite as high a Magnification now going out into some Real world applications I would say that Yes you can see that there's like the Detail contrast looks good here but you Can see as it kind of Fades off towards The edge edges Ed Edge kind of Delineation isn't top top notch we can Also see looking at the bokeh Quality That obviously this isn't a lens that is Going to really excel at bab you can see There's a little bit of busyness there Overall not too bad however in this Image just a little bit further away the Contrast you can see is better detail Looks better and looking at the bokeh There is some outlining there's a little Bit of a swirl effect through here you Know people have varying opinions on That overall the Boke looks okay nothing Special now in this image here um you Can see that detail is nice on Nala Focuses good on the eye looking towards The rest of the room again it's it's Okay it's nothing special but not bad For a wide-angle lens like this now I Was blessed with getting some great Color fall is a really beautiful time
Here in Ontario Canada and so obviously These images reflect that these are not I haven't up up the saturation at all This is really how intense the color was But but it's also been really really Nicely captured in these images and so You can see that everything looks very Very nice and clean in them and you know Shot at different times and different Lighting conditions but I'm really happy With the color rendition another shot Here this is part of a time lapse but Looks really really nice and then at a Little bit later time you can just see How wildly changing the colors were even On the ground during this sequence now When it comes to flare resistance Overall I have positive things to say You can see from this image that Contrast is held up well now if I stop Down and I allow more to come through There's a little bit more of a kind of a Glaring effect little bit of some Ghosting artifacts but nothing too Severe uh you can see at wide apertures Kind of in this back lit situation that It's contrast is holding up and it's Looking nice now I did note that in this Video sequence that as I was coming Along the ground into the sun you can See there's moments where you get kind Of a a flashing type effect I didn't Find it dist acting myself fairly Artistic but wanted you to see that
Because your opinion of it may vary Overall I felt like flare resistance was Fairly good from this lens so in Conclusion this is obviously going to be A very intriguing option when you Consider the size and the performance at A reasonable price and obviously if You're a Sony E Mount shooter a Fuji X Mount shooter or a Leica L Mount shooter This may be the most intriguing option That's available to you on your platform For this kind of price point my only Real critiques are more on What's Missing and not so much what is here Because I actually really really like This lens I'm actually very intrigued by It as an option for Fuji X Mount and I Look forward to trying an x-mount Version in the future seeing if it holds Up to that 40 megapixel sensor like on My xh2 and if it does it's very likely a Lens that I'll personally acquire Because it is so useful and deliver such Very nice image quality and a nice easy To bring along package and if that's Something that you're looking for You may find that the sigma 10 to 18 mm F2.8 dcdn is right up your alley I'm Dustin Abbott and if you're look in the Description down below you can find Linkage to my full written review also To the image gallery there are buying Links there if you haven't already Please like And subscribe thanks for
Watching have a great day and let the Light [Music] In
