[Music] Hi I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today To give you my video review of the Sigma 18 to 50 mm f2.8 dcdn meaning it's Designed for mirrorless apsc and while I Actually reviewed this lens a couple of Years ago on Sigma they have re-released It this year for Fuji X Mount and I have Been revisiting some of these lenses Because the reality on Fuji is a little Bit different than on Sony there is Obviously some different competitors Typically more competitors and also There is some different performance Requirements when it comes to an Autofocus system that tends to be a Little less robust than what we find on Sony but a 40 megapixel sensor that is Definitely more robust than anything That I've seen before and when I last Reviewed this lens I was reviewing it on A 24 megapixel Sony a6400 so on this 40 Megapixel Fuji xh2 it is a completely Different reality in terms of the Optical demands of this particular Sensor so I'm very interested to see how It holds up now here on Fuji there are Kind of three primary competing zooms One of those is shared on Sony and it's The Tamron 17 to 70 mm f2.8 that lens Does have image stabilization obviously It has a bigger Zoom range but it as you Can it is a vastly larger lens than what The sigma is it retails right now on
Sale for $699 the other most common competitor And closest in size is the Fuji 18 to 55 Mm f2.8 to F4 ois lens often used as a Kit lens but it does retail separately Also for $699 then finally the kind of Premium Option in the class is the Fuji 6 16 to 55 mm f2.8 lmw and it retails for a Whopping 10.99 or 1,00 us the sigma you Can get it right now for 500 bucks and As you can see it is incredibly small it Is very light and it is the cheapest by Far has a constant f2.8 aperture does Have a smaller Zoom range has no image Stabilization has fewer features but it Does have a very strong performance and So as we're going to see in this review Even on Fuji it's positioned quite well Uh for this particular Marketplace and To me it is an intriguing lens we'll Explore all of that 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 now when it comes to the build and Handling I refer you to my original Review in that basically everything here Is the same this lens has a 27 to 75 mm Fullframe equivalency and it as kind of The standout feature is the fact that it Is so incredibly small and compact it is Only 61.6 uh millim in diameter it is 76.8 MM In length or 2.4x 3 in and it weighs in At only 285 G or 10.1 o That compares most closely to the Fuji 18 to 55 mm which is 65 mm in diameter a Little bit wider and 70.4 mm in length So just a little bit shorter so it is 2.56 by 2.77 in but it weighs in at 310 G or 10.93 o so a little bit heavier but The one thing to remember in comparing These lenses is that the sigma is f2.8 All throughout the Zo range whereas the Fuji actually only holds f2.8 till about 23 mm and they every you know little Ways down the chain you drop by 1/3 Until you arrive at F4 and so it isn't a True competitor at least in terms of Maximum aperture now the Tamron has the Largest Zoom range of all going from 17
To 70 mm but it is a honking lens it is I always consider it to be more of a Fullframe sized lens and that's Definitely true it is 7 4.6 mm by nearly 120 mm in length 2.9x 4.7 in and it Weighs in at 525 G or 1.2 lbs and so as You can see in this photo once again it Just dwarfs the sigma in terms of the Size so obviously the sigma is going to Be a a very nice pairing and a much Nicer pairing for smaller bodies like The xs10 or xs20 series bodies like that You can get away with it on a bigger Body like this xh too but even so I Really am enjoying the compact size now Fuji 16 to 55 mm is not quite as long But it's the widest lens by good margin It is 83.3 MM in diameter and 106 mm long so That's 3.28 by 4.17 in and it weighs in By far the heaviest at 655 G or nearly 1 And2 lb and so there is a radical Difference in the size of these Competing lenses and as we've already Seen in price now as far as the build And handling everything that's here is Nice it everything is compact but Everything feels nicely executed it Feels like a well-made lens in one area It lags behind the all the competing Lenses and that there is a weather Sealing gasket at the lens mount but There are no internal seals and the Tamron and both of the Fuji lenses are
Weather sealed the two Fuji lenses also Have a aperture this lens does not it Also does not have any Optical Stabilization and both the uh Tamron 17 To 70 mm and then the the Fuji 18 to 55 Mm both of those lenses do have an Optical image stabilization built into Them and so overall what's here is nice The uh lens hood is compact lens Hood it Is nicely made it you know bayonets in There nice and precisely all of that is Good but just not a whole lot going on In terms of features now when it comes To autofocus we have sigma's pretty Standard stepping motor on these STM Focus motor and fortunately both the 18 To 55 millim and the 10 to 18 millim That I previously looked at they hold up Really quite well for Stills when it Comes to autofocus as you can see here Autofocus is really Snappy back and Forth nice and quick uh no real Hesitations in that setting and I'm Happy with that and I was happy in Real World Shooting as well I felt like Autofocus speed was EX excellent Focus U Noise is very quiet and focus accuracy Was just generally good across all of The Stills images that I took and so no Complaints on that front when you switch Over to the video side that's where some Of the cracks start to show but then Again that's often true of on Fuji Platform in general and so you can see
From the autofocus pulls that there is You know the sufficient power or Torque There to drive Focus pulls back and Forth but there's just not a lot of Confidence without a track able subject In the frame so there's hunting and Settling and you just rather than just Locking onto the subject there's you Know there's some gradual things that Are taking place there Focus breathing As you can see is relatively low but uh Overall you know autofocus in that Setting was just okay it's a little bit Better with my hand test in that uh Fuji's autofocus system on its most Recent bodies the actual Focus system is Not really all that improved over stuff From even years ago but what is improved Is it now has AI tracking and has an Engine that if there's a trackable Object autofocus is just much much Better and so when it came to my my ey Sland test it did a better job with That another area that I did find a Little bit bothersome is for example if I try to zoom in uh while shooting video You can see that there are Focus Readjustments all along the way but even If I was just doing a standard shot of Just in a landscape type setting you can See that there is some it just doesn't Hold Focus every now and then there's There's a little bit of a pulse that Kind of just pulls you out of the
Experience so as is has been pretty Typically the case with any lens on Fuji But particularly these third party Lenses I think that autofocus does best When there's a trackable subject in the Frame uh you know an animal an eye just The various lists you know be it a a Vehicle things like that where the Camera is able to recognize and track Then it does better for video but if You're looking for you know other type Video performance you might be better Served with a different kind of lens I Did also note that for video purposes That stabilization didn't feel great Obviously I've got there's no built-in Stabilization in the lens but my Fuji Xh2 does have quite good mbody image Stabilization and you can just see that There's a lot of little little jittery Motion movements uh in you know static What should be static still shots and so Not Ed when it comes to that so let's Talk about image quality this lens has An optical design of 13 elements in 10 Groups the MTF charts you know look Pretty good for a zoom like this I was Really pleased with the overall Sharpness and performance on Sony but as I've said in introduction I know that The demands of a 40 megapixel sensor are Just radically different compared to That 24 megapixel sensor point that I Reviewed at before and so let's dive in
Together and let's see how this lens Holds up win on this much more demanding Platform so we'll start by taking a look At vignette and Distortion as I saw on Sony there is a significant amount of Barrel Distortion and you can see that Manually correcting it isn't Flawless Just a little bit of a mustache pattern Left behind in that manual correction I Dialed in a plus 24 to try to correct For the Distortion you can see I had to Dial in a lot of vignette correction Plus 92 and has has been been the case With basically all third party lenses That I've tested on both Sony and then On Fuji it's about a plus 40 difference There's something about the either Optical path or the mount uh diameter Flange something in there that causes More vget on these thirdparty lenses That are ported over to Fuji and not Designed specifically for them and so uh On Sony it was plus 54 to correct for The vignette plus 92 here now at the Telephoto in of the spectrum it's about The middle of the range we start to flip From Barrel Distortion to a pin cushion Distortion you can see that that is most Pronounced by 50 mm you can see on the Right side here that pincushion Distortion in general tends to correct More easily than what Barrel Distortion Does and you can see that even with the Manual correction I was able to hit
Things pretty easily Distortion was Corrected with a minus1 here and then Vignette ever so slightly less than what We saw on the wide end but not far off And so so in this case we're still uh Good three plus stops of vignette Correction now the good news is is that Even wide open um the profile in camera Is going to do a fine job of correcting For that vignette and Distortion so you Can see in the shot even with snow right Here in the foreground and into the Corner I haven't done any correction Other than just the standard correction Profile and you can see it's cleaned up Everything nicely now when it comes to Longitudinal chromatic aberration we can See that they are low enough that They're not robbing away contrast it's Good as you go out of focus however you Can see a little bit of a blue green Fringing that is going to take place we Can also see here that you're going to See a little bit of that fringing that Will outline specular bouh highlights And so you'll just see just a little bit Of a kind of a bloom with a little bit Of color fringing around that and in These really high contrast areas here You can also see a little bit of that Fringing now without correction there is A bit of lateral chromatic aberration Near the edge of the frame you can see It here in these transitions from black
To white it is there it's not super Strong and it corrects perfectly with The oneclick correction so not really a Big deal so now we'll take a look at the Overall resolution here and so again my Test chart here and this is on a 40 Megapixel xh2 and the results are shown At 200% so this is an extreme torture Test in the center of the frame at 18 mm Everything holds up just fine there's Good detail there's good contrast no Issues there mid-frame is still pretty Good it's not exceptionally uh High Detailed but it's quite good and as we Move down towards the edge you can see For example here that we're crisper on This side of the build than we are in This and so as we transition towards the Edge you're going to see a drop in the Contrast and the detail there in General now a quick pop around shows That we've got a roughly equal result Here on the left side near the bottom up At the left top about the same and then In the upper right about the same and so Uh it's at least the centering is good And that kind of degrading of Performance is consistent across the Frame stopping down to f4 on the right Gives us a little bit more contrast and Detail in the center of the frame the Mid-frame also is pretty clearly Improved the bottom is improved a little Bit in terms of the brightness of it but
You can see that the detail has not Really significantly improved from F4 to F5.6 a very Mild improvement but not Great yet and from f5.6 to f8 there is Just a little bit more sharpness but We've kind of Hit the limit where Defraction is going to start to limit Things from here on out and so you know Looking at some other places looks Pretty good there we'll look over here At Sir Winston and you can see that it's Kind of a lateral move there between F5.6 and f8 and so somewhere in that Range you're going to get your maximum Performance at 18 mm now on a high Resolution body defraction comes early And so f8 is pretty much the limit after That you're going to see a degradation In contrast and sharpness due to Defraction and you can see by the you Get to the minimum aperture of F22 the Image is very soft due to the effects of Defraction now if we compare 18 mm to 24 Mm we can see that in the middle of the Frame we've definitely got more contrast Here at 24 mm in the mid-frame you can Definitely see better contrast in detail And the most obvious difference is going To be found down in the corners where You can see there is a significant Difference from 18 mm to 24 mm stopping On down to F4 gives us a very Mild Improvement but you can see it's not Going to be particularly significant
Because 24 mm is pretty much the optimum Here in terms of this uh Zoom range and So it's kind of the peak and so you your Returns stopping it down further are a Little bit more mild now from 24 mm to 28 mm in the center of the frame more Similar than different no significant Improvement or degradation there Likewise in the mid-frame I very Slightly favor 28 mm here down in the Corners it's a little bit of a wash I Would say and so good news is in the Middle of the frame we have consistently Strong performance now from 28 mm to 35 Mm we can see that there is uh a little Bit of a softening of the image this is Probably a low point in the middle of The zoom range around 35 mm you can see Here in the mid-frame not quite as sharp Either and down into the corners the Corners being the closest and that There's not a significant difference but In other places in the frame it's not Quite as sharp or high as contrast as What we saw at either 24 or 28 mm for Ely from 34 to 50 mm there is another Bit of an uptick not quite as good as What we saw in 24 and 28 mm but improved Over the 35 mm point and you can see That here that the mid-frame definitely Looks better down into the corner and uh Once again here it's more of a lateral Move there but certainly no softer than What we saw and over on this side you
Can see that contrast is a little bit Better and even off here towards The Edge again I slightly favor the contrast And the detail of what I see at 50 mm so Taking a look at a few real world images At 100% magnification we can see in this Wintry scene that detail and contrast Look pretty good and this case it's not Quite as good right at the edge of the Frame but looking pretty good overall This uh wideopen f2.8 shot of Nala shows Good not exceptional in terms of the Contrast and detail but good good Performance you know plenty of workable Uh detail and information there this Shot here shows you know kind of what is A a pattern in that in the center of the Frame everything looks really really Good you move off a little ways to the Midf frame still looking good you get Off towards the edges here and it's not Bad here but it's obviously not quite as Sharp and high contrast is what we see In the center or mid-frame this shot at About 45 mm shows that that in the area Of focus you know the contrast and the Detail look pretty good holding up Pretty well on this very high resolution Body another shot from a similar scene That you know as I get towards the front Of the image here down towards the edge It's not super sharp but if you look at The image as a whole in most places it's Pretty sharp and if you look at the
Image kind of at a global level the way That most people ordinarily do Everything really looks quite good I Think it's important to get a little bit Bit of context here and so if we compare The chief competitor which is the Tamron 17 to 70 mm with the sigma on the wide End we can see that in the center of the Frame the sigma clearly has a better Amount of contrast and detail likewise In the mid-frame the difference is isn't As significant but I do slightly favor The sigma result down here in the corner I would favor the Tamron result um it Has just a little bit more detail and Contrast but you can see it's also not Exceptional in the corners if we compare The 50 mm uh point from the sigma on the Left to the Tamron on the right we can See that in the center of the frame that It's basically a wash I would say that The Tamron may have very very slightly More contrast the amount of resolution Is about the same in the mid-frame the Sigma is a little bit better more detail And uh then off in the corners I would Give the edge to the Tamron which looks Sharper there if we compare the actual End of the Zoom range at 70 mm to the Sigma at 50 mm we can see that they're Again they're roughly similar in the Center of the frame in the midf frame They're close with maybe a slight Edge To the sigma and down in the corner we
Can see that the sigma is a little bit Sharper in higher contrast so bottom Line is that the sigma is much much Smaller but it is not softer by Comparison and so a quick look at a few Other areas of optical performance as Far as as the bouquet quality you can See a little bit of outlining in this Image and I saw in others but overall The quality of the blur for this type of Lens is really not bad there it it isn't Incredibly creamy like a nice prime lens Would be but you can see the detail Works and then the background is Reasonably soft this image right here Holds up quite nicely and of course the The colors are nice and complimentary You can see some of that outlining that I'm talking about that tends to draw the Eye a little bit more than what I would Like here with some specular highlights In the background we can see that There's a little bit of bleeding at the Edges of them and if we zoom in here we Can see they're just a little bit of General busyness but at the same time it Looks reasonably good this image was Perhaps one of the best for having some Creaminess up in this area even though There is a bit of that outlining down Here flare resistance as I found with The Sony review is fairly good you can See in this image with bright Sun coming Through no issues there here with the
Sun up in this corner you can see that Contrast there's a little bit of veiling A little loss of contrast in that bright Area but no big splash of blobs of color Ghosting artifacts elsewhere here Stopped down a bit you can well stopped Down a fair bit to around f11 you can See a little bit more of a ghosting Pattern but it's not terrible likewise Here at f11 you can see a little bit of That here and if I shoot wide open There's a bit more veiling loss of Contrast but overall nothing that's Terribly disruptive to the image so Really not a bad performance when it Comes to flare resistance and so what we Determined in our image quality section Is that there are definitely some areas At least on the 40 megapixel sensor that The lens doesn't look as dramatically Good as it did before that's kind of to Be expected at least by me at this point After I've tested a number of lenses on This platform and frankly there are There's a pretty short list of lenses That really resolve that whole sense and Look fantastic that being said relative To the competition I think that the lens Holds up really well and so I think it Remains a really intriguing option for Fuji despite the demands of 40 Megapixels yes there is slightly less Zoom range there's no aperture ring but It is hundreds of dollars of hundreds of
Dollars cheaper than any of the Competitors and it has that just Wonderful blend of compact size and good Performance and that makes it a really Intriguing option to me in fact I'm Strong strongly considering picking one Up from my own little Fuji kit because I Just find the lens to be really useful And the image quality holds up well Enough that I haven't really seen Anything that's doing a lot better job And so I am happy enough with it that I Think I'll probably snap one up Hopefully this helps you as well in Terms of making a buying decision if you Want more information you can check out My written review that's Linked In the Description down below there's also an Image gallery you can access buying Links if you'd like to purchase one if You haven't already please like And Subscribe thanks for watching have a Great day and let the light [Music] In
