Sigma 20mm F 1.4 Art Lens
As of this afternoon, the first full review of the new Sigma 20mm 1.4 has been published over on www.lenstip.com You can read the full review here: Lenstip 20mm 1.4 Sigma review
From a quick read I have determined the following:
- The resolution of this lens can be expected to be superior to pretty much all other 20mm fast lenses out there, including the recent Nikon 20mm 1.8. It seems that the center resolution even at F1.4 is excellent and by F3.5 to F4.0 the corners are very sharp also.
- There might be some issues with Chromatic aberrations, but hopefully the LR lens profile when available will correct for this. The build quality is as expected, excellent as with all the Sigma Art glass
- Coma, sadly it seems that this lens falls a bit short with coma corrections. Per the testing at Lenstip, there are pretty harsh coma issues from F1.4 till F 2.0. From their examples, it appears to me that these coma issues are as bad as with the 24mm 1.4 Sigma Art lens. However the example shown at F2.0 looks pretty good to me as there are butterfly wings showing, but nothing like what the Nikon 20mm F 1.8 shows at F 2.0 or even F 2.5. I had hoped that this new lens, which Sigma states “is specifically designed to remove coma” would fare a bit better. In daylight work, the coma aberrations may not show up, but anyone wanting to use this lens at night for astro-photography will be a bit disappointed as the quest has always been to get a wide that will work at F 1.4 without coma.
- Build quality appears to be as with all the Art line of lenses, excellent.
Sigma top view of 20mm F 1.4 Art lens
My main need for a fast wide, is night photography, where the difference between F 2.8 and F 1.4 is huge and can allow for a vastly different quality image as you can shoot short exposures of the Milky Way and other starscapes without having to be at a grossly high iso setting like ISO 12800. There was no mention of the bokeh wide open, and again I am hoping to see something better than Sigma was able to provide for the 24mm F 1.4 which to my eyes has a very disruptive bokeh on landscapes, not as much on macro work.
The new Sigma Art 20mm 1.4 already has one strike against it with the fact that it has a fixed hood, and curved outer element which eliminates the ability to use standard filters. Hopefully Lee or another company will come out with an adapter for this lens to use the SW-150 filter setup or something similar.
I have one of the new 20mm 1.4’s on order, hopefully it will ship sometime mid November, but I am not expecting it until December.
Sigma 20mm F1.4 Art Lens dual Views
I’m love this lens!!
Dear reviewer,
I’ve read your review about the Sigma 20mm 1.4. It seems the prefect lens for astrophotography however your review suggests that Sigma could have done better regarding coma. Couly you please insert some astrophotos of the coma? Possibly at each f-stop till 2.8.
Thank you!
Since the Sigma 20mm 1.4 Art is apparently the sharpest 20mm lens in the center, wouldn’t it be possible to get the utmost quality astrophotography images by shooting panoramas where only the center part of each exposure is used in the final stitched panorama? The exposures could be taken at f1.4, with the ISO set low, at 800 or 1600. This would seem to be particularly effective when using a high resolution camera like the Canon 5DSR.
Hello Steve:
Yes, that would be possible, but would require a bit of work in post. The 20mm 1.4 coma is a bit less than the 24mm, by 1.8 which is where I tend to use mine. The bigger issue is the DOF, which at 1.8 is very shallow, so for my shooting in Arkansas, I tend to need to bracket for focus as I like to work in landscape elements.
It’s a great lens and well worth the investment for sure.
Paul Caldwell
The coma on this lens is not bad at all, nothing severe about it. It is fairly minor and actually somewhat better than the Nikon 20 mm f/1.8, see my comparison with test shots:
https://jmlobert.blogspot.com/2015/11/sigma-20mm-f14-wide-angle-lens-compared.html