Sigma A 35 mm f/1.4 DG DN – first impressions
4. Summary
Please Support UsIf you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free. |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
As we were dealing with a pre-production specimen our conclusions aren't especially binding; still you can be sure that, like in a case of the f/1.2 model presented earlier, you get an excellent lens that will guarantee you a comfortable performance even in unfavourable weather conditions. Its build quality, sealing, and special coatings are beyond reproach; we also were rather pleased with the efficiency of its different mechanisms. We think that, mechanically, the new Sigma was comparable to the much more expensive Sony 1.4/35 GM we tested not so long ago.
Looking at sample shots you can notice a significant difference between image quality by f/1.4 and f/2.0. Does it mean the lens has some sharpness issues at the maximum relative aperture? We don't think so. It's more connected to the fact that the performance by f/2.0 seems to be simply outstanding. Apart from that, image quality improves very quickly on stopping down and it concerns not only sharpness but also vignetting. We are very curious how the final version of this lens will fare in our tests.
It's true that the autofocus performance leaves a bit to be desired – we were quite satisfied with its accuracy, during our outdoor session the lens always hit where we wanted to, but when it comes to its fastness, we see some room for improvement - after all you deal here with a lens with classic journalistic parameters. Still we hope that the final version of the Sigma A 35 mm f/1.4 DG DN will fare noticeably better; what's more, you will be able to fine-tune its performance by personalization of the lens with the help of the USB Dock.
