Sigma 18-250 mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM review - Vignetting

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Sigma 18-250 mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM

12 April 2011

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

In the case of lenses with a wide focal lengths range the vignetting makes itself felt the most at both ends. Such a situation can be observed in the case of the Sigma 8-250 mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM and the thumbnails below show it very well.

Sigma 18-250 mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM - Vignetting

For a difficult combination of the wide angle and the maximum relative aperture the brightness loss in the frame corners reaches a significant value of 38% (-1.37 EV). How the Sigma compares here with its competitors? It fares very much alike. The Tamron 18-270 mm VC had a result exactly the same here; that of the Nikon 18-200 mm was also similar. The Tamron 18-250 mm fared a bit better, showing values at the level of 33%.

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When we stop down the aperture to f/4.0 the light fall-off in the corners will be slightly lower, amounting to 32% (-1.12 EV). Only by stopping down to f/5.6 we can make the problems less visible because the vignetting is 19% (-0.61% EV) there. Unfortunately any further stopping down has little effect. By f/8.0 and f/11 the vignetting remains 18%.

With the increase of the focal length the vignetting problems decrease very swiftly. Near 30 mm focal length and at the maximum relative aperture (f/4.0) this aberration reaches 20% (-0.65 EV) and it becomes almost imperceptible by f/5.6 where it gets to 12% (-0.37 EV).

At 50 mm the performance is even slightly better. At the maximum relative aperture the vignetting is 18% (-0.58 EV) and it decreases to 13% by f/5.6. By f/8.0 it is completely invisible, amounting to just 8%.

Any further increase of focal lengths makes the vignetting problems increase too. Near 100 mm focal length and by f/5.6 the brightness loss in the frame corners reaches the level of 27% (-0.91 EV). Fortunately by f/8.0 this aberration disappears almost completely (11%). At 180 mm focal length the situation is very much alike – at the maximum aperture (f/6.3) the vignetting is 28% (-0.96 EV) and it decreases to 15% by f/8.0. By f/11 it already becomes imperceptible (7%).

At the maximum focal length the level of this aberration is even higher. By f/6.3 the vignetting reaches 30% (-1.05 EV) and it decreases to 15% by f/8.0. Applying f/11 makes the level of this aberration drop to a quite negligible value of 7%.