Sigma 14mm F2.8 EX Aspherical A-mount lens review by simima
 simima#252 date: Nov-30-2005 | |
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| sharpness: 4 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 4 flare control: 4 overall: 4.4 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I have experience with this lens |
| compared to: | KonicaMinolta 11-18/4.5-5.6 DT |
| price paid: | missing |
| positive: | f2.8 Build quality Sharpness from f4 |
| negative: | Sunhood Must be used carefully w/ regard to flares |
| comment: | One of the fastest wideangles currently available, it is perfect for low-light situations (such as indoor). From f4, the lens is pretty sharp. AF performs very well - fast and accurate. In the corners, the lens performs considerably better than the KM 11-18 from f4.5, and at f2.8 (not available with the KM 11-18), it is still good and - my oppinion - as good as the KM 11-18 at f4.5. It's a wideangle... and thus prone to flare. The sunhood is rather useless, especially when using on a 1.5x crop camera, the hood could be bigger. However, used correctly (shade the lens with your hand, e.g.), flares can be avoided. More important, the lens produces only flares from light sources off the image circle - at least when using a DSLR (I don't know about FF). Light sources IN the image are reprocuded remarkably well and with no flares. Be careful when using remote flash, as then flares can result which aren't visible before shooting (I recommend to use a strobe burst from the flash to verify if flares produce). I personally have constructed a bigger sunhood. The front element protrudes significantly - thus no front filters can be used (but gelatins in the rear). I don't use filters on that lens... ;) Ratings: Sharpness=4: I think for such an open wideangle it performs very well, but of course can't compete with other, longer lenses. That's the price of a wideopen ultrawide. Color=5: Neutral. Build=5-: Built like a tank (makes it rather heavy, too). Sunhood could be better. Distortion=4: I think one can hardly give a 5 for a wideangle. Distortions are as expected for a rectangular wideanlge - in the corners, this can look rather funny. Flare control=4: Lenses with such protruding elements are of course exposed to that problem. I like that almost all flares can easily be avoided by shading the lens from off the image. It would be a desperate situation if in-image light sources would produce flares - which isn't the case at all. I like this lens a lot - with KM mount, it has no competitors (but in the Canon and Nikon camps). I might even sell my KM 11-18... ;) The German magazine ColorFoto has recently rated the Sigma 14mm lens slightly higher than the pricier Canon 14mm/2.8 L. |
; 10MPrating summary
- total reviews: 14
- sharpness: 4.11
- color: 4.36
- build: 4.79
- distortion: 3.93
- flare control: 2.79
- overall: 3.99