[Music] Foreign T and I'm here to give you my review Today of the sigma 23 millimeter F 1.4 DC DN contemporary lens now the 23 Millimeter F 1.4 is sigma's first aps-c Specific prime lens in about four years Last one that I reviewed was back in 2019 and it was the 56 millimeter F 1.4 And so this joins the 16 millimeter F 1.4 30 millimeter F 1.4 and then that 56 Millimeter F 1.4 as their current lineup Of fast aps-c specific primes with an F 1.4 aperture now this Lens comes in a Sony e-mount which I'm testing here a Leica L Mount and then some of the other Lenses have already been released in Fuji x-mount which is a recent Development this lens will be coming in The summer of this year for Fuji x-mount What Sigma is essentially looking at This lens as is a miniaturized 35 Millimeter F 1.4 art lens for or a Smaller sensor 23 millimeters roughly Corresponds to 35 millimeters and of Course we've got the F 1.4 aperture the Very high Optical performance as we're Going to see and obviously just in a Miniaturized lens with a few less Features But designed for that smaller sensor so The question is is it is this lens worth The price tag of 550 US Dollars well Let's find out right after a word from
Our sponsor today's episode is brought To you by Ridge the wallet redefined Ridge's RFID protected wallets typically Employ contemporary finishes like Aluminum titanium carbon fiber or even Specially finishes like 18 karat gold or Damascus steel what if your personal Style is less Wall Street and more California Ridge has you covered as they Have teamed up with Travis Matthew a Premier Lifestyle brand owned by Callaway that takes its inspiration from Southern California's surf sand and Sun Ridge is premiering three limited Edition Travis Matthews signature Designs Ridge wallets hold up to 12 Cards and you can customize them with The included cash strap or money clip Visit ridge.com forward slash Dustin Abbott and use code Dustin Abbott to get 10 off your order plus free shipping Worldwide so as noted this is a Miniaturized lens at least relative to The 35 millimeter F 1.4 and it is fairly Compact here it is right under 66 Millimeters in diameter with the 52 Millimeter front filter thread and right Under 79 millimeters in overall length So that's 2.6 inches by 3.1 inches and It weighs in at 330 grams or 11.6 ounces So in an absolute sense this lens is Obviously very Compact and it's you know Fairly light easy enough to bring along Now let's not say that there aren't
Smaller and lighter lenses there is a Competing lens from viltrox along with Tokina 23 millimeter F 1.4 very slightly Smaller very slightly lighter and then There is also a Fuji 23 millimeter F 1.4 Now the Fuji is a little bit more full Feature a little bit more professional Grade and more expensive and it is very Slightly larger and heavier so Sigma Kind of strikes the balance in there of Kind of a moderate size where it's all Reasonable in terms of the size and the Weight the dimensions here Now as has been the case with this Particular series There are very few features here there Is the manual focus ring on the barrel But that's basically it there's no Aperture ring there's no Focus hold Button there's no afmf switch any of Those type things And while I lauded the fact with the 56 Millimeter F 1.4 I went back and read my Review I allotted the fact that they had They had added in a weather sealing Gasket into the mix But I will note that over the last four Years the standard has changed and so Even the very inexpensive under 300 Lenses from viltrox and tokina they come With an aperture ring and of course the More expensive Fuji it's more full Featured yet having you know an aperture Ring and a little bit more thorough
Weather sealing as a part of the design So while this standard worked in 2019 I Do think that Sigma is certainly capable Of more and if they're looking at this As being a miniaturized version of the 30 their 35 millimeter F 1.4 art their Art Series has become very robust in its Feature set and competes pretty pretty Directly with the Sony G Master Series And so I would like to see them take Things a little bit further as you know That we do have a weather sealing gasket At the lens mount but no the other Weather seals inside the lens itself So outside of having a very nice lens Hood that you know Insignia lens hoods Are Cut Above what I see from a lot of Other companies it would be the one area Where I would say that the build quality Exceeds the Fuji for example you Basically just have a nice wide manual Focus ring now fortunately this is a Well executed manual focus ring it has Good precision and I found when doing Manual focus pulls that I liked the Performance I felt like I had a good Amount of control And I could do polls that you know had Either speed or move slowly but we're Smooth in operation and the weight is About right to where you can do it even If you're doing it with a fairly light Touch but it's not so light that there's Zero resistance there there is a little
Bit of damping and it makes for a more Positive experience minimum Focus Distance here is 25 centimeters it gives You right under a 0.14 times Magnification frankly it felt like Magnification was a little bit better Than that but that's what it says on Paper because I followed that up from Multiple sources and that seems to be The case there are nine rounded aperture Blades inside and as you can see here We'll look at more detail later on but From this quick series you can see that It does a nice job of retaining a Circular shape as you stop The Lens down So there's not a whole lot going on here In terms of features but what is here is Nicely executed there's good materials In the construction it feels like a Quality lens and it handled just fine Particularly that very nice manual focus Ring Now autofocus comes via a stepping motor And once again this has been Sigma Standard along with this and they've got A well executed stepping motor that Doesn't suffer from things like visible Steps or some of the more negative Things that I've seen with some of the Poor stepping Motors in pass this is a Very good stepping motor it has good Focus speed good Focus accuracy ief Works well grabs onto the eye and is Sticky there and this footage of
Courtesy of Craig that he shot with with It on the a6600 does a very good job of Keeping track onto the subject even as The subject moves and the camera moves Around as well Focus speed was also good with Focus Changes being fairly close to Instantaneous and no real concerns there I also found in my focus pulls test that The focus pools were confident and Smooth there is a a little bit of amount Of focus breathing there but nothing Extreme I did find that I prefer manual Focus pools in the exact same situation Just because they could be a little bit More cinematic and I had a little bit More control over them but overall the Auto focus pulls were good as well the One area where I have a critique here is Really when it comes to my hand test That I typically do that is making a Transition from you know a subject where I'm putting my hand and stopping the Camera sensor from seeing my eye and Then trying to see that that transition Back I ran the test multiple times Because the first time I did it it just Didn't make any kind of transition at All so I I did it again and I held my Hand for a much longer time than what I Typically did what I found when I Actually reviewed the footage is that it Had started to make a transition but it Hadn't actually completed that so as you
Can see we just kind of get a little bit Of stuck in between So for whatever reason it is starting That transition slower than what I would Expect and so the one thing that I would Say probably isn't going to be a Strength is something kind of reactive Where Focus itself is reacting to a new Subject and transitioning towards that But outside of that for photography my Autofocus performance was exceptional And for video I think that everything Works fine here as well so overall it is A well executed package that works well Either on my a6400 I also used in an Aps-c mode on my Alpha One and by the Way I always prefer these lenses on the Alpha One you know for one thing there's No in body image stabilization in the Lens or in this in the a6400 no lens Stabilization in the lens itself and so Footage is I forg I forget how terrible Handheld video footage is if you don't Have a body stabilization so I I prefer The you know the ergonomics and the Focus system and definitely the embodied Image stabilization of my Alpha One But The lens works fine for its intended Purpose and if you happen to have a body Like an a6600 or an a6500 that has image Stabilization it's going to work well And then obviously there's lots of Fuji Bodies when it comes to that that have Very good image stabilization and so it
Will thrive in that environment as well So how about the Optics it's interesting To me now that I've spent some time with Some of Fuji's 40 megapixel sensors that I recognize that holding up to the 24 Megapixel standard of this a6400 is not Really the true test unfortunately it's Only out in email right now and so That's where I'm going to do that test I Certainly would be interested in Revisiting some of these uh Sigma lenses On the uh x-mount with the 40 megapixel Sensor I suspect that they're going to Hold up just fine to that resolution Level but let's dive in let's take a Closer look at the standard of Performance here so we can see that this Series has long had a very strong MTF Performance and this 23 millimeter Basically slots right under the 56 Millimeter as maybe being the second Best performing in the series and sigma Points out it's actually even higher Resolving than what their full frame 35 Millimeter F 1.4 art is we'll break how Down how that plays out in real world Performance along with some of my chart Tests here so we'll start by taking a Look at vignette and Distortion as you Can see there is some Barrel Distortion Kind of the Bulge out there along with a Moderate amount of vignette fortunately In both cases both things are quite Linear in nature and so here's my manual
Correction and you can see that I was Able to correct it essentially perfectly Without any kind of wave pattern Mustache pattern Left Behind similarly For the vignette just to give you those Numbers I used a plus nine for Correction of the Distortion and a plus 55 for correction of the vignette moving That all the way over Now the plus 55 represents somewhere Around two stops of shading in the Corners so nothing too severe here for An F 1.4 lens now on the left you have My manual correction on the right you Have the profile correction for raw Images in Lightroom I actually think That it's slightly over corrects as you Can see it at least in my test it's Producing a little bit of a pincushion Effect so I would back that off just a Little bit because I think that it's Kind of overdoing the correction so Let's take a look at chromatic Aberrations in this case we've got a Shiny surface here and you can see just The faintest hint of some purple Fringing that is there nothing too Severe in the autofocus area a very very Slight amount of green fringing there Looking at this image where we've got Again a lot of shiny surfaces here on The front of the stove you've got a Little bit of fringing there and very Very mild amounts as you go towards
Defocus nothing too severe there you can See however in this video clip that as We go back and forth there is some Fringing that shows up along the window Frames and even in some of the front Surfaces and so it really seems to be Quite situational it's not strong or Pronounced but if you do have to watch Out for it in certain situations now When it comes to our lateral chromatic Aberrations they're the near the edge of The frame we can see if we look up Towards the top of this image that they Are really really well controlled here And here up in these branches this is Kind of a hotbed in these transition Zones and I see next to no fringing There without any kind of Correction so A very strong performance and by the way I will point out a lot of great detail In that image so that transitions us to Looking at resolution and contrast here Now in this case I have only the 24 Megapixel Sony a6400 right now that is The highest resolution point in an Actual aps-c body so obviously this is Going to be a harder test on something Like a Fuji 40 megapixel you know be it An xt5 or an xh2 but you know that at This point Sigma has not yet released That lens in the x-mount so we've got to Test it on what it's available for So this is not the hardest test that It's going to pass I just wanted to
Offer that caveat however looking at 200 Magnification here we can see that in The center of the frame the image is Very sharp the mid frame also very sharp And as we we pan down even at F 1.4 we Find that while there is some drop off Here in the edge that overall the Sharpness is very good pretty much Across the frame now to give you some Real world examples at F 1.4 at 100 Magnification you can see here that Contrast at normal viewing levels even At a pixel level it just looks fantastic Great detail great contrast here's Another image which is really quite Complex there's a lot of very hard edges Here but we can see that there's no Bleeding at the edge of all these Transitions but even at F 1.4 everything Is very crisp and detailed if I put a Person in the frame you can see that our You know I detect is grab Focus Appropriately even at F 1.4 and that we Have a nice crisp detail there back to The golf course here and this is you Know obviously a tough challenge Shooting a landscape Type image at F 1.4 And we can see that you know the focus Is going to be somewhere up in this area So as we come back here obviously our Foreground is going to be defocused Because of the depth of field but in the Areas where there is a focus we can see That it's sharp over here on the side
It's sharp in the center of the frame We've got good resolution of the golfers Up there that's a really impressive wide Open performance one final example a Little bit higher ISO settings and Coming indoor we can see in this shot of Nala detail is really really crisp focus Is nailed this is a really quality Looking image despite as you can see Some noise being at a higher ISO setting So if we look at F 1.4 compared to the Stop down to F 1.8 we can see that there Is a little bit of an uptick in terms of Our contrast and so details are just Popping a little bit more we can see That in the mid frame and if we go down Here towards the corner you can just see That there the darks are darker and the Whites are a little bit brighter and so That contrast is edging up and we're not Quite resolved into the right into that Very edge but we're getting a little bit Closer from F 1.8 to F2 there is a very Moderate further Improvement we can also Find that if we look at other places in The frame off towards this left side and Even right up towards the very top we Can see that our centering performance Is good and so it's not just good on one Side of the frame but it is good Everywhere that we look now from F2 to F 2.8 we see a real Improvement in terms Of our detail and contrast in the Corners where everything is now looking
Quite crisp there a really nice looking Performance if we stop on down to Landscape type apertures like f 5.6 we Can see that we've got really great Detail all across the frame again we'll Go to some real world images to just Give you a sense of that so at 100 Magnification you can just see that all Across this beautiful scene here that We've got really really nice detail Being rendered there another shot here You can see that everywhere that I look Here contrast is just really really Popping and you know the center is Sharper than the extreme Edge obviously But these are both both these shots are At F4 we can see see that detail really Is quite good all across the frame and It's rendering a lot of very fine Details with good Precision now Sharpness seems to Peak at about F 5.6 And at f8 and smaller first of all you Have no real Improvement and then as you Get towards f11 and then on to the Minimum aperture of F16 diffraction is Going to start to soften that image now You don't see it as bad here at 100 Magnification but if we look at our Customary 200 magnification you can see How much diffraction is robbing the Contrast in detail even compared to wide Open so returning to our minimum Focus Distance and maximum magnification I Actually found for whatever reason I
Felt like the magnification level was a Little bit higher than what the figure Represents and in this case you can see That contrast isn't quite as intensive It is just a little bit further away but Really that's a pretty strong Performance detail looks pretty good There as far as the bokeh quality we can See that there is a little bit of Deformation towards the edge of the Frame but it's not terrible we more go To an oval shape without going to a true Kind of cat eye type look stopping down To F2 you can see that you're going to Now get circular shapes all across the Frame and by F 2.8 you can see a little Bit of the nonagonal shape due to the Nine aperture blades but again the Overall impression is everything is Still very circular now if there's any Real Optical weakness to this lens is The fact that the bokeh is good but it's Not exceptionally good sometimes in Developing really high contrast lenses It can be also hard to make them soft Where you need them to be soft and so Obviously we've got great detail on the You know narrow depth of field the line Of focus here where the grass of the Green and the ball is as we look towards The defocused area it looks fine but it Doesn't look exceptional I'll give you a Little bit more examples here so we can See here a little bit more of a medium
Distance that there's just a little bit More outlining than what I would like You can just see more things in the Background and again detail on that is Great if we jump in really really close Obviously it does help you can still see That there's some more outlining and This is about minimum Focus distance and Again I I find that to be very very Useful for you you know obviously really Changing up the perspective of these Shots but the bokeh quality is good but Not great this image really you know it Pops to me because I look at the line of Detail here and it's just fantastic That's really really strong in terms of The detail again the background is just A little bit busier than what I would Like also here I mean if you look at the Knot you know the area of focus that is Just fantastic looking down here though There's just a little bit more edges Than what I would like in these areas Where you know be the leaves on the Forest floor towards the defocus now Bokeh is objective obviously and so not Everyone's going to agree with me and That's absolutely fine that's my Observation I'll illustrate that point One more way here and that is with this Shot which I recreate created in less Ideal conditions with a full frame 35 Millimeter F 1.8 which is about what This lens will correspond to and so you
Can see that the framing is very very Similar but if we look down here in this Anywhere in this area where it's in the Bokeh region you can just see that there Is more outlining there than what there Is with this samyang lens which is Priced you know somewhat similarly you Can see that you know all throughout This Zone that the samyang is just Rendering a little bit softer and so While if we look in here and obviously Not the same levels of magnification I Would say that the sigma is a pretty Easy winner in terms of the contrast and Sharpness compared to the samyang but we Can see that when it comes to the Softness that's the area where this lens I think is maybe slightly balanced Towards contrast and detail and a little Less towards out of focus rendering now One final area of strength is when it Comes to flare resistance which is Exceptional for a lens with such a large Maximum aperture you can see here that At a large large aperture we don't have Any kind of you know ghosting type Effects it looks nice and clean we can See here that there's a nice looking Sunburst effect and even stop down to F11 we're con still not seeing any Ghosting artifacts not a loss of Contrast and you know that nice looking Sunburst means that this is a lens that Really thrives and you point it towards
The sun in a way that a lot of lenses Might fall apart there overall this is a Very very strong lens optically and so As you can see that's a really strong Optical performance yeah I don't Necessarily love the bokeh quality but It's not bad either it's just not Uber Creamy At the same time it's this is easily a Stronger performance than the viltrox 23 Millimeter F 1.4 I did find the viltrox 23 millimeter to be one of the better of That series but the sigma's colors are Better it is sharper I would say it has Nicer bouquet quality in general of Course it should be it's almost twice as Expensive At the same time it's hard to argue Against the value of this as a high Performing 35 millimeter equivalent lens The you know equivalent lens from Fuji That has a little bit more features but It's also about 350 dollars more and so It makes the sigma look like a value and I would say that this lens along with Others from this series particularly the 56 millimeter F 1.4 are well poised and Ready for that very high resolution Demanding sensor point of that Fuji X Mount so this is an intriguing lens that Gives Fuji Shooters an alternative at a Lower price point it gives Sony Shooters A little bit higher level performance in An aps-c specific body and it's always
Nice to have high performing aps-c Lenses because typically your Alternative is that you're using some Full frame equivalent the problem with The full frame equivalent is it's going To be larger and heavier than what it Needs to be for your smaller sensor so I'm really delighted to see Sigma Returned developing these High-performing compact aps-c prime Lenses I'm Dustin Abbott and if we look In the description down below you can Find linkage to my full text review There's also an image gallery there if You'd like to check out some photos Buying links there if you'd like to Purchase one for yourself as always There's linkage there to follow myself Or Craig on social media to become a Patron or to get channel merchandise if You haven't already please like And Subscribe thanks for watching have a Great day and let the light in Foreign
