Reviews of Sigma 16mm F/14 Dc Dn Contemporary Lens for Sony 3

Sigma's approach to mirrorless lenses (DN) has come in 2 distinct phases. Sigma showtime released a series of iii budget primes with moderately wide apertures (19mm, 30mm, and 60mm f/ii.8 DN lenses). I've tested all of these, and they are actually surprisingly expert trivial optics, with nice color, quiet focus, extremely meaty size, and a bargain cost. Though they look nothing like the other ART serial lenses, they were, ironically, badged as ART lenses. In 2016 Sigma launched a new mirrorless lens, the Sigma 30mm f/1.iv DN DC. Though it shared a lot of design elements with the SLR Art series primes (like trunk style and materials), along with the broad maximum aperture that ART primes are famous for, information technology was, ironically, badged a "Gimmicky" lens. As a upshot, Sigma's approach to mirrorless branding is a little like Alice's "Through the Looking Glass", where everything ends up somewhat upside down. The Sigma 16mm f/i.iv DN lens certainly looks very much like an ART lens!

Internal conversations with Sigma insiders reveals that the popularity of Sony's Eastward mount (and its development to the more premium a6xxx series) caught Sigma a little by surprise, and this second moving ridge of lenses (and their more than premium nature) makes for a improve match with Sony's ain development. Having owned and used the 30mm f/i.4 DN lens, I was excited for the release of the new Sigma 16mm f/1.iv DC DN Contemporary as a reasonably priced, premium broad angle pick. If you own Micro 4/3rds or Sony APS-C E-mount, the 16mm DN should be a serious interest to you.

Thank you to my friends over at Sigma Canada for the loaner of the review copy of the lens.

The Contemporary designation plain comes because the lens relies on electronic correction (through the embedded profile) to correct for some things like distortion and vignette rather than the correction coming solely through the lens optics (which Fine art lenses are supposed to do). Fair enough, though I've seen very few perfectly corrected lenses in my day, and I don't recall any of them existence Art lenses (Otus, perchance!).

So don't be put off past the Gimmicky designation; the 16mm DN is a serious performer!

Prefer to watch your reviews? I've got yous covered! See my full video review here!

Sigma 16mm DN Build Quality

As previously noted, the physical design of the 16mm DN is instantly familiar to those who have used either the 30mm f/1.4 DN Contemporary or a lens similar the 35mm f/1.4 or 50mm f/one.four Art lenses. If you were familiar with the 30mm DN lens, it will seem a little big; if you were familiar with the 35/50mm lenses, information technology volition seem quite small. This is, past a good margin, the largest lens in the DN series, but it is however a relatively compact lens past normal standards. To exist fair, however, this is also the almost farthermost lens in the serial, equally all previous lenses have been very "safe" focal ranges (from 28mm – 90mm full frame equivalent). The 30mm lens has a total frame equivalent focal range (on a Sony 1.5x crop factor) of 45mm, and has a relatively simple optical formula of 9 elements in 7 groups. The 16mm lens corresponds to a classic wide angle of 24mm, and with an extremely large maximum aperture to boot. That added engineering claiming is shown in the complexity of the optical formula, which is sixteen elements in 13 groups (about twice as complex)!

This video breaks down the build and handling of the 16mm DN.

The 16mm DN is iii.63" long (92.3mm) and a fairly narrow 2.84" (72.2mm) in diameter. This is virtually ¾" (19mm) longer than the 30mm, but just most 7mm larger in girth. Filter size in an extremely common 67mm. The lens weighs fourteen.29 oz (405g). The lens even so balances fine on the Sony a6500 body that I used to test it on, though information technology is definitely up in weight from the 30mm, which weighed in at 265g.

The lens body is Sigma's attractive, modern blend of black on black only given character through a variety of textures, including fine ribs at diverse points. While all Sigma lenses use a lot of the same materials (a mixture of metals and their "thermal composites", aka high end engineered plastics), some Sigma lenses take a slightly more than premium experience to them. This is such a lens, and nada about the lens feels cheap.

There are no switches nor any distance markers on the lens due it it having a stepping motor with a "focus by wire" manual focus ring (with such lenses there is no physical coupling to the elements, which renders a standard altitude window impossible). Zeiss has created a solution to this on its loftier stop Batis line by adding a small OLED brandish that electronically simulates a distance window (among other things.). The manual focus ring is nice and wide on the lens, and moves much like nigh "focus by wire" systems – smoothly just without a lot of tactile feel.

One nice touch that I've seen on some of the Art series lenses and that is included on the 16mm DN lens is a rubberized transition zone on the included lens hood right where you would grip the lens hood to loosen or tighten it. Information technology's that kind of small attention to detail that impresses someone like me who sees a lot of lenses.

The lens has the now standard nine rounded aperture blades that I've seen on most all the Sigma lenses I've reviewed in the last 4-five years. I'll comment more than on the bokeh quality in a moment, simply Sigma does a skillful job of maintaining a circular shape fifty-fifty with the aperture closed downwardly a number of stops.

If you were planning to do some macro work with your wide angle lens, the 16mm DN is certainly not going to your starting time choice. Information technology can focus down to a relatively shut ix.84" (25cm), simply doesn't have much of a focal length to achieve magnification with. The byproduct is a rather poor 0.10x magnification (one:9.9 reproduction ratio). If you demand magnification from your wide angle lens, something like the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm f/2 lens might amend adapt your purpose.

I've saved some of the best news until last. The 16mm DN is the get-go Sigma mirrorless lens to include some moisture resistance, which I think very important on a lens that will likely be used for landscape work. It has a very pocket-size rubber gasket well-nigh the lens mountain and Sigma calls information technology "dust and splash-proof", which suggests some further sealing internally.

All in all there is a lot to similar and little to criticize here. It's a nicely made lens that has a premium look and feel to it.

I inadvertently put this to the test, every bit I was shooting a wedding in Portland, Oregon, and had the lens in a harness system.  I had grabbed the incorrect connector past accident, so I knew that I didn't accept as snug a fit in the holster that I had my Sony a6500 and the 16mm DN in (I was carrying it as a broad angle choice to supplement my total frame bodies that did the heavy lifting).  I was existence careful initially, simply while shooting a shot of the bridal party from across the foyer of the facility we were in, I was rushing downwardly the stairs for some other angle when it happened.  Thud!  I watched in frozen horror as the camera and lens bounced downwards the wooden rungs of the staircase…all the way down.  When I rescued it at the bottom, nevertheless, while the lens hood was knocked askew and had pushed the rubber of the focus ring back a bit, I was able to speedily straighten everything upward and ended up with no more than than a small scuff on the lens hood.  The lens focused fine, and when I tested information technology subsequently, connected to show adept centering.  That'south non the kind of testing I like to do…but the lens passed, with flying colors.  Here's the infamous staircase, shot with the lens…

Sigma 16mm DN Autofocus

I've previously reviewed the 19mm f/two.8 DN Fine art lens from Sigma, and, while the AF worked fine in a lot of situations, I discovered with utilize that I had some issues with the AF pulsing in and out some during video recording, particularly if at that place was whatever backlighting in the scene. This was in large part due to the fact that information technology was developed during the NEX days when Sony exclusively used a Contrast AF focus system in its mirrorless organization. Later on on, even so, Sony moved to a hybrid system that employs both Stage Detect and Contrast AF along with new features like Eye AF. Sony loves innovation, and my opinion is that they are much better at developing new engineering than they are at fully realizing (and servicing) existing tech. Sony is very much a forrard looking company, and that has both good and bad points. This is, I imagine, one of the challenges of developing for a Sony organisation – the target keeps moving. The adept news is that the newer DN lenses (sixteen and 30mm) have been developed with Sony's newer AF engineering science in mind.

Sigma says this, "The optical pattern and stepping motor deliver smooth autofocus during video shooting. The lens pattern fully accommodates the Fast Hybrid AF of Sony E-mount cameras for super-fast autofocus functionality. Using face recognition AF results in consequent autofocusing on faces, even as the subjects move." In other words, the 16mm DN supports all of Sony's new bells and whistles on their newer mirrorless bodies.

In practice, the Sigma 16mm f/1.iv DN has great autofocus. The AF is near instantaneous as I motility from minimum focus to infinity targets, locking on silently and confidently. And it is silent. Even I put the lens next to my ear the only thing I hear during focus is the focus confirmation beep. AF-C style produces no aural dissonance, either, and I got splendid face up tracing during video segments (something I apply these Sigma lenses for quite a bit). It's not always foolproof, but, and then again, I've yet to see anything on a Sony organization that quite matches the magic of Canon'southward DPAF for video servo AF face tracking. This lens does seem meliorate than average though.

I've used another third party wide bending lenses for Sony (the aforementioned Sigma 19mm and the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/two.8) and got a chip of pulsing with those lenses in certain situations (this was also truthful of several lenses I adjusted to the system), merely I've not seen any of that behavior from the 16mm DN, which locks on very confidently.

I've got nothing only good to say virtually the AF on this lens, which hasn't always been the case with Sigma lenses in the past!

Sigma 16mm DN Image Quality

The best way to get all the info is to watch this video:

Ane of my favorite things almost Sony is that they are non restrictive with third party lenses when it comes to in camera profiles. Third party lenses get the first party treatment for in camera corrections of things like baloney, vignette, etc…. Unlike Canon, however, they besides embed contour corrections into the RAW files. This is great in real earth use, but as a lens reviewer it can be a piffling hard to divorce lens performance from camera corrections. I have decided that what matters in my Sony reviews is to report on what you are going to see as the finish user, which is going to be the images afterwards correction.

It is interesting to note, for example, that at the moment when I click the shutter I tin run across the sides of the images being "stretched" as the lens profile is added. So, the 16mm DN is getting some in photographic camera aid, but the practiced news is that the end product is pretty fantabulous.

Earlier I break down the details of the lens operation, I practice want to raise one more point. The Sony a6500 I'm testing the lens on has an excellent sensor. Skillful color, great dynamic range, and a nicely detailed 24 MP sensor. In some situations I strongly prefer full frame image quality to APS-C, fifty-fifty from a good sensor like this one. One of those areas is when the ISO level goes up, as I find the "look" of the pixels to be more obvious on APS-C. A lens like this 16mm f/1.four certainly helps that trouble, though, as due to the broad maximum aperture, easy to handhold focal length, and, in the case of the a6500, an first-class IBIS organisation (In Body Paradigm Stabiization), in that location are very few situations where a high ISO level will be necessary. The lens' strong performance at broad apertures only seals that deal!

Resolution

The 16mm DN is a very strongly performing lens, with a lot of resolution bachelor fifty-fifty at broad apertures. In real world shooting I was very happy with the results, with a lot of good detail showing up at a pixel level. The sharpness is besides nicely fifty-fifty across the frame, with fairly practiced edge performance (important for landscape photographers). Wide open up (f/i.four) the center performance is stronger than the corners, just neither are the corners mushy, either. At that place is a bit of veiling (lower contrast) broad open that I traced to a fairly common problem with wide aperture lenses – some axial (or longitudinal) chromatic aberrations. Unlike lateral chromatic aberrations, which oftentimes appear near the edges of the frame as green and royal fringing on both the top and bottom of things similar, say, tree branches or other loftier dissimilarity subjects, centric CA (LoCA) occurs when not all colors focus every bit. It typically appears equally purple fringing before the aeroplane of focus and sometimes as well with some green fringing later on the plane of focus. Lateral CA is by and large unaffected by aperture, and will announced at almost aperture values. Centric CA is often "stock-still" past stopping the lens down to smaller apertures, as the depth of field increases and there is less variance between the focus of the colors.

The lens does not really suffer with any green fringing later on the aeroplane of focus, simply at that place is definitely some majestic fringing that shows up before the plane of focus. This centric CA does rob a little of the wide open contrast (which may or may non be a bad thing depending on your subject and/or shooting mode). Fortunately, in this case, the solution is easy. Stopping down to f/2 or smaller substantially eliminates the issues, and, as a result, there is a big deviation between f/i.4 and f/ii ( every bit y'all can see in the sample beneath).

If you want to eliminate some CA at f/1.4, you need to use something like Adobe'south eyedropper tool to select the colour and and then eliminate information technology.

The corner sharper increases slowly as you lot stop the lens down, and the optimal discontinuity for landscapes seems to be around f/v.vi where the centre and edge performance are most closely aligned.

Here's a breakdown of the resolution in a controlled exam at adequately close range:

F/one.4: Left, Heart, Right

F/2: Left, Heart, Right

F/ii.8: Left, Center, Right

F/four: Left, Center, Right

f/5.vi: Left, Center, Right

When I shot a similar scene on the a6500/Sigma 16mm and then the new a7RIII/Sony Fe 24-105mm f/4 G OSS lens (at f/5.six) and so downsampled the a7RIII image to equivalent resolution with the a6500 (which favors the a7RIII effect), I found that the Sigma 16mm DN still delivered the better image. Less vignette along the edges, amend sharpness near the edges, and slightly more contrast.  This is a very precipitous lens, with few competitors in the Sony system.

Speaking of the a7RIII, the 16mm DN can be mounted on a Sony full frame East mount camera, where it will automatically trigger Sony'due south APS-C mode (on the a7RII/a7RIII this is still a quite robust 18MP). You take the pick of manually turning APS-C mode off, but there is little to proceeds by doing so. The total frame image circle isn't even close to being covered, and you will demand to essentially crop to the regular APS-C crop cistron to eliminate the black area where the epitome circle isn't covered past the lens.

Save yourself some trouble and just shoot with the lens in APS-C mode.  There aren't really whatever benefits from doing otherwise.

Still, I like the lens on the a7RIII as a reasonably sized, sharp prime in APS-C fashion and too as a cracking video option in Super 35 mode.  Yous go to take advantage of that great sensor and nonetheless get a squeamish eighteen MP of resolution.

Color Rendition

My review of this lens coincided with one of the worse stretches of weather that I've faced.  Farthermost common cold temperatures punctuated every at present and so by blizzard-like storms.  Not exactly the prime time of year to get bang-up color.  I've done my best, but please realize that this lens is capable of delivering better color than what my review photos might suggest.

It's important for a landscape lens to deliver a good color performance. Almost lenses evangelize a fairly good color functioning, with a few outliers. I've seen some mod lenses with a scrap of a color cast/bias to them or that deliver somewhat apartment colors, and there are some other lenses (usually with Zeiss attached to them) that accept a extraordinarily beautiful color rendition that is both vivid and accurate. The 16m DN seems to autumn into by and large the commonly good category. Images look very good coming out of the lens, just neither was I wowed in any particular way. Colour accuracy seemed to be quite proficient, and saturation seemed virtually neutral (significant you can dial in what you want either via in photographic camera profiles or in post processing). There are certainly no odd colour casts, nor practise images look flat and unsaturated. I retrieve Sigma delivered what they needed to here.

I should notation here that the lens is piece of cake to add together filters to at a very common 67mm size, which certainly adds to the value as a landscape lens. I like to add together ND filters for allowing for longer shutter speeds, and in some situations a circular polarizer can reduce reflections, add together contrast, and deepen color saturation. The focal length is not so wide that you should go also many weird "polarizing" effects in blueish skies. All of the focus takes identify internally, and nothing rotates at the front end, which makes using a polarizer more simple.

Flare Resistance, Chromatic Aberrations, Bokeh, and Baloney

One area of strength for the lens is in the flare resistance (a key metric for a broad angle lens!). I was delighted to find that when I put fifty-fifty harsh sun in the frame the image quality held up almost perfectly, and that was true at a multifariousness of aperture values. A nice bonus is that the nine bladed discontinuity produces very nice sun bursts/sunstars with the lens stopped downward, which I really appreciate in a wide bending lens. I dearest shooting backlit scenes and adding that sunburst effect equally a finishing detail.

I did notice some regal fringing in certain high contrast scenes at wide apertures. The nature of this is covered in the resolution section above. Information technology is essentially merely an consequence at f/ane.four.

While a wide angle lens like this is hardly going to make backgrounds disappear, a broad aperture on a lens similar this does have the benefit of giving y'all a more 3 dimensional look to some of your images. If you compose with your subject having some altitude to the groundwork, it volition definitely stand up out. The quality of the bokeh in these situations is really quite good, though I did notice in an epitome with Christmas lights in the background that at that place were some concentric rings (commonly called "onion bokeh") in the bokeh circles. These are virtually never going to be large enough with this kind focal length to be noticeable, however, so I wouldn't be too concerned. I just noticed them at a pixel level test of the image. In most situations I found the quality of the bokeh to be fairly squeamish, as this shot of pillars on a staircase shows.

Gauging distortion of the raw lens itself is a little difficult considering of Sony's profile zipper (in camera correction), but I can come across on the screen or in the viewfinder before the transformation takes place (in a divide 2d) that there is some noticeable barrel distortion. But past the time the image stretches out and is massaged into shape past the end outcome is not bad, with simply a balmy amount of barrel distortion remaining. You tin can purposefully see the baloney by turning off the profile correction, which shows that the lens definitely has some moderate barrel distortion. In this case, notwithstanding, the automatic correction volition be there in both your JPEG images and through the embedded profile in RAW files.

I see no reason why this lens couldn't exist a friend to, say, a realtor who needed to shoot interiors for a list. Certainly for landscape type work or full general purpose shootings the lens will piece of work merely fine afterward the contour corrections are applied.

The same is true of vignette, that, while it certainly exists if you go digging for it, arrives already corrected for in both RAW and JPEG images.  I had to go excavation to discover the vignette to demonstrate here.

I recommend that you take a look at the image galleries here to see more images that I took during the review.

Coma Operation

Comatic aberrations are something I try to test and await for with whatever wide angle options that might potentially be used for astrophotograpy (stars) or like purposes. The wide maximum aperture of this lens only heightens a lot of people'southward expectations for using this lens for astro piece of work.  Unfortunately this has never been a big Sigma strength in the many Sigma lenses that I've tested. They aren't the worse performers in this metric, but neither are they near the top, either. The aforementioned truth applies here. While I didn't get an amazing astro night during my review period (this time of twelvemonth brings either overcast conditions or biting cold conditions, often with a bright moon), I did get one extremely common cold (-32 C) night were I was able to go out (briefly) and shoot stars (brrrrr….).

Showtime the bad – there'south definitely some coma. Star points are fairly crisp in the center of the frame, just nearly the edges they stretch a chip and grow wings. They look a piddling similar mosquitoes. Stopping downward to f/two does assistance a bit, but doesn't eliminate the upshot.

A secondary issue is more about the nature of mirrorless. Mirrorless lenses (unless they are manual focus), rely on a focus past wire organisation. This means that when you plough the focus ring it sends input to the focus motor, which then moves the elements to focus. It isn't quite as precise equally straight manual focus, though, every bit thus makes focusing on the stars a little more challenging. At that place is no standard distance window, and what I saw with the in camera feedback was that authentic focus for stars arrived nowhere close to "infinity".  Autofocus is rarely going to work in that kind of setting, either, so you volition accept to practice focusing. I found information technology more challenging than I'k accustomed to on DSLRs.

Now for the good. Because the star points occupy so niggling space in a wide angle frame like this, this isn't overly obvious unless you are looking at a pixel level. The even better news is that the lens sucks in a LOT of light, making it very easy to shoot stars at lower ISO levels and faster shutter speeds, which means a cleaner result and also less risk of move in the stars.

I don't consider this lens a peak choice for astro, but I made a few images with it that night that I like a lot, so won't hesitate to apply it in that fashion in the future.

A Good Video Option

If you are a videographer or vlogger, this lens should definitely exist of involvement to you. This is a neat focal length, in either Super 35 (full APS-C frame – 24mm total frame equivalent) or 30P crop mode (where it frames a niggling tighter – probably closer to a 30mm full frame equivalent via a roughly one.8x ingather factor), and volition give you lot quality footage with not bad detail and quality autofocus. The footage is noticeably sharper than average, and I fully look this lens to be a favorite with videographers.

The lens focuses smoothly and quietly during AF-C mode, and I found face tracking to be ameliorate than typical for the Sigma DN series, with no noticeable "glitches" where my face was lost. The upside of a focal length this wide when used from a gimbal or something similar is that the depth of field is going to be quite deep at well-nigh apertures, meaning that the focus shifts are going to be minimal anyhow. It's wide enough to be a great vlogging lens without being too wide.

I like having the two framing options from this lens, as both perspectives are highly useful from a storytelling perspective.

Conclusion

The Sigma 16mm f/ane.iv DC DN Contemporary provides something unique to the Sony Eastward Mount lineup and is an attractive lineup even on the M43 side of things. Information technology has a build quality that puts information technology upwards near the luxury end of the class of lenses available for Sony E Mount (particularly the APS-C lenses), and a price that is only moderate at $449 USD. The premium competitors (Zeiss Touit or Sony Zeiss options) are mostly double in price, and the similarly priced or less expensive options lack the feature set of the 16mm. I suspect this volition be a fairly popular lens, as information technology seems like a great option for videographers with polish, tranquillity focus that takes advantage of the a6500 or similar camera's strengths as a video platform. That's a great focal length, and is very useful in either Super 35 or crop for the classic framing options it gives. For stills, the autofocus is quick and authentic, and the image quality is definitely at the top of the heap. Information technology'due south larger than any of Sigma's other DN series lenses, but still a very manageable size on my Sony a6500. All in all, I'g pleased enough with the lens that I purchased my own copy at the cease of my review, and that is really the highest praise I could requite it. It's difficult to argue with the value of the lens, which checks most of the boxes that a landscape lens should.  If this were an Art serial lens designed for DLSRs, it would be a thousand dollar lens, so at less than half that it definitely earns an easy recommendation.

Pros:

• Quality build with some weather sealing
• Quick, quiet, and accurate autofocus
• Supports all Sony focus technologies, including Eye AF
• Good sharpness at f/1.4, infrequent sharpness and contrast from f/2 and beyond
• Very strong flare resistance
• No lateral CA, and little to no axial CA after f/two
• Skilful price to performance ratio
• Largest in class maximum aperture adds to versatility

Cons:

• Some axial CA at f/1.four reduces dissimilarity
• Coma performance not exceptional
• Minor amounts of distortion remain after correction

Gear Used:

Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DN Contemporary | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
Sony a6500: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon U.k. | Ebay
Sony a7R Three Camera: B&H Photograph | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon Great britain  | Ebay
Adobe Photoshop Creative Deject 1-Year Subscription
Conflicting Skin Exposure X2 (Use Code "dustinabbott" to get ten% annihilation and everything)

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Source: https://dustinabbott.net/2018/01/sigma-16mm-f-1-4-dc-dn-contemporary-review/

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