Sigma 40mm F1.4 DG HSM Art For SONY SE Fit Black 332965

Product Information

Price: The lens currently sells for 1200 EUR (incl. 19% VAT) / 1400 USD. The Sony ZA is the most expensive lens in this trio at 1500 EUR/USD with the Zeiss Batis in between at 1300 EUR/USD. [0] As an E-mount user I prefer the 35mm 1.2 Art, but this 40mm lens features better correction of longitudinal CA and even better coma correction.

The Sigma 14mm features a powerful linear focusing motor. It’s silent and snappy. Sigma 14mm f/1.4 Art: Image Quality The ALC-SH168's rather rigid plastic build absorbs some impact and adds a layer of physical protection to the camera and lens.The only issue the Sigma really has is in terms of lens breathing. When I first tested the Sigma 14mm, lens breathing seemed well controlled, with the edges of the frames shifting only slightly while focusing from minimum distance to infinity. However, upon closer inspection of the files, I noticed strange lens breathing in the center of the frame. This is quite rare and unfortunately very distracting when pulling focus from one distance to another. I’d still absolutely use this lens for video applications, but I would avoid long focus pulls. Nocturnal Performance That’s Lights Out

Further improvements are not as abrupt, with about 1.5 stops of shading deep in the corners at f/5.6 and just under a stop in the f/16 corners. Lateral chromatic aberration is even better controlled in the DN lens compared with its forebear, which was already very good. As such, there’s virtually no color fringing to be seen towards the edges and corners of the frame. Axial chromatic aberration is also minimal, so there’s very little fringing around high-contrast edges in scenes that fall just in front of or behind the plane of focus. Resistance to ghosting and flare is again impressive. Bokeh is lusciously soft and dreamy. We noticed some ‘onion ring’ effect with the DG lens in defocused lights and bright spots but this is much more minimal in the DN lens. Optics: The lens is a pretty complex design with 16 elements (including 6 special dispersion elements and one aspherical element) in 12 groups. That makes 24 glass/air surfaces where reflections can cause problems. There’s fluorine coating on the front to repel water, dust, and dirt and should make for easier cleaning. The Sony ZA has 12 elements in 8 groups, the Zeiss Batis has 9 elements in 8 groups. [+] The edge of the frame is equally impressive, if not more. Instead of describing every result in detail we focused on the performance at the maximum relative aperture. In that case on the edge of the APS-C/DX sensor the lens exceeds 44 lpmm and on the very demanding edge of full frame it reached almost 43 lpmm. Such performance means just one thing: with a very sensible angle of view, amounting to 57 degrees, the tested Sigma doesn’t have to be stopped down at all to achieve sensational sharpness across the frame.However, as I mentioned in the beginning of this review, wide-aperture 50mm lenses historically did not deliver great image quality at their widest apertures.

These figures are slightly better compared to other recent big f/1.4 lenses which usually show around 3.0 EV vignetting at maximum aperture. Sigma 40mm 1.4 ArtFind the focus breathing example later in this review to see the full variation from a minimum focus distance to infinity focus distance adjustment.

Having a 50mm focal length and f/1.4 aperture available opens many artistic opportunities, including those found in nature.

Impression

This is a huge boon for astrophotographers who want even detail clear across the frame. I will say there is a healthy amount of vignetting to be corrected but I was very pleased with the f/1.4 performance. Obviously when the aperture is stopped down image quality only improves: the vignetting goes away and sharpness only gets better. This is a very sharp lens. This lens delivers tons of detail across the frame. Perhaps the best thing I can say about the autofocus on this lens is that it works about how you would expect. It’s not going to break any records for speed, but it’s reliable, predictable, and effective. Handling The Sigma 40mm 1.4 Art has a very high element count (16) and lenses with a high number of elements rarely fare well in this category.