Welcome to my Galleries of Photos.
Testing Sigma 12-24mm
F4.5-5.6 Full Frame Lens on Nikon D700
THE WIDEST LENS
AVAILABLE TODAY
Full Frame 12mm F11
Center
Corner
Some Vignetting - but Corner
holds up well.
Full Frame 12mm F4.5
Center
Corner
Much more Vignetting - some
loss of sharpness in Corner - but pleased not worse.
Compare Centers
F11 on the Left - F4.5 on the Right
While F11 is good, F4.5 is not
too bad.
Compare Corners
F11 on the Left - F4.5 on the Right
F11 hold up well, while F4.5
still has reasonable detail but for Vignetting.
BRICK TEST
Full Frame 12mm F11
Center
Corner
Some Vignetting - but Corner
holds up well.
Full Frame 12mm F4.5
Center
Corner
More Vignetting - some loss of
sharpness and colour in Corner - detail surprisingly good considering wide
open F4.5
Compare Centers
F11 on the Top - F4.5 on the Bottom
Detail at F4.5 is good compared
to F11 - a slight loss.
Compare Corners
F11 on the Top - F4.5 on the Bottom
Vignetting and colour down at
F4.5 - but retains a lot of detail compared to F11. Very Pleased!
BRIEF COMMENTS:
This lens has been reported as having variable samples.
So I am confident and pleased at the results above that this is most
certainly a very good sample. I took a gamble when I bought it for a
cheaper than average price with little chance of return. The above shots
were taken less than 30 minutes after the lens was delivered.
Compare the above to this reviewed (and still
reasonably well received) and it becomes apparent that my sample is a good
deal better. Yes, I am very pleased.
www.dphotojournal.com/sigma-12-24mm-f45-56-ex-dg-hsm - See for
yourself that my sample is better than the review sample.
Yes, vignetting is the main problem with this lens, but
not an insurmountable one. Much more important was consistency of detail
and no great increase in softness at lower F-stops, even the corners do
better than expected. Re vignetting, it is only fair to recognise this is
the widest rectilinear lens available, period!
Len distortion is amazingly low. I suspect they hay
have traded some vignetting again lower distortion. There is no great
barrel distortion even at 12mm, it is outstanding! I will check,
but I am fairly sure that my Nikkor 17-35mm F2.8 (Full-Frame) has more
barrel distortion at 17mm that the Sigma has at 12mm. Yes, the Sigma may
be a bit softer than the Nikkor, not as sharp. but the Sigma can do things
that the Nikkor cannot. Limitations can be worked on in PhotoShop.
Also it is not as fast as my Nikkor 17-35mm (F2.8
versus F4.5 at best), but with the D700 you can safely increase the ISO
equivalent to +2 stops and get good low light performance. The vignetting
at F4.5 is not always a big problem under those circumstances.
I also have the Nikkor 16mm Fisheye with 180º
view, which is F2.8 fast. With Fish-Hemi software can give good result
too, vignetting is better but corner resolution is not absolute either.
It's early days yet, but I am really looking forward to
having fun with this Sigma lens. It is not without faults, but its pros
greatly outweighs its cons. It will give perspectives I rave for.
For those who want to explore ultra-ultra-wide (UUW)
lenses, it's all about getting in close and personal and making use of
depth of field (DOF). You can often set it to F8 or F11 in Aperture
priority, set the lens so that infinity is always in focus but back off
enough to get max DOF - it should read 0.7 Metre. Lucky you if you have
the Nikon D700, set ISO to suit lighting condition, use common sense. If
you set ISO so that you never go below 1/30th of a second, you can be sure
of sharp pics 90+% of the time.
Now everything from 400mm to infinity will be in focus
no matter what. Go out take advantage of that - and yes, get real close.
Have fun!
Joe Rasmussen
See this
532Kb Panorama Montage using this lens.
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