I’ve got a lot of things to talk about today, so this video
is gonna be a combination of a lens review, a vlog,
and a channel update, and it’s gonna be coming at you fast!
Let’s get Undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He’s crazy ♪
What is happening, everybody? I’m Gerald Undone,
and today I’m gonna get my greasy paws
on a new Sony mount lens from Sigma.
As I’m sure many of you are aware, Sigma announced a few
months ago that they’re gonna be bringing the entire Art Lens
lineup, plus a few other ones, to the Sony E-mount.
And this is great news, and I was really excited
about this because I haven’t been exactly happy with
the offerings currently available on the platform
in the wider focal lengths, especially in the 35mm space.
Now, I pre-ordered the 35mm months ago, and not only
do I not have one yet, but there’s not even
really a firm ETA on when I’m gonna get one.
So I called the usual suspects:
Henry’s, Vistek, B&H Photo,
and they don’t really have much in the way of stock.
So this is where Camera Canada comes in.
Now, for those of you that don’t know,
I live in London, Ontario, which is just a little bit
southwest of Toronto, and in town here we have another
player in the camera gear game, and they have a store located
in town here called Forest City Image Centre, and that is the
main physical, retail location for the Camera Canada website.
I approached these guys a little bit earlier on
about doing a collaborative effort for social media,
and although we haven’t worked out the details on that yet,
Antony, the owner of Camera Canada, did have a consolation
prize for me today: the 50mm Art Sigma Sony E-mount.
He knew that I wanted the 35mm, but that model may not be
available until later July now, but he was kind enough
to let me borrow the 50mm to test it out.
So let’s head downtown now and pick that... juicy unit up.
[laid-back electronic music]
♪
Alright, so let’s talk about the lens.
For those of you that came here for a lens review but then hung
out for the little vlog-let, I appreciate your patience.
Well... should I really be appreciating your patience?
-I mean-- -Are you not entertained?!
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
Anyway, I’m not gonna bore you with too much technical
nonsense about the lens. Most people that care about
gear know two things already: one that Sigma makes Art lenses
that are super fast and are pretty much unmatched
for quality at their price point.
And two: what a 50mm lens looks like.
It’s a pretty basic focal length.
Most people I know have used a 50mm at some point,
and it’s a pretty natural feel to kind of like
what your eyes would see when you’re looking at, like,
sort of a straight-ahead medium distance.
50mm kinda replicates that, so it feels pretty natural
when you look through it. Instead, let’s talk about
how it stacks up to other 50mm lenses, whether or not
it’s worth the money, and how well the new Sony mount
from Sigma integrates with the new Sony cameras.
To do this, I’m gonna get my lovely assistant Julie
to help me in just a moment, but first, let’s just talk
about the sort of physical properties of the lens.
As you guys probably already know,
Sigma makes big lenses, and this one is no different.
It is heavy, it is large. To give you a little
comparison, this is Sony’s 85mm 1.8--
so not quite as fast, but it’s an 85mm 1.8--
and this is the 1.4 50mm, and it’s huge.
It weighs probably twice as much.
It’s pretty solid construction, though, lots of metal.
And the focusing ring, which is big and easy to grab,
has subtle stops in it, so you can have a little bit
more accurate focusing than you would be used
to with your typical focus-by-wire lenses.
The only control on the lens is a single
AF/MF switch, which feels strong and tactile.
Accessory-wise, as you saw in the unboxing,
it comes with a sizable lens hood and a pretty stiff
and sturdy zippered lens bag to carry it in.
Now let’s jump into a focusing test, because I think
what a lot of people want to know about this is how good
the Eye AF and autofocus speed is gonna be because people
have been using adapters to put the Art lenses on their Sonys,
but now if we’re gonna be using a native one, how’s the Eye AF
gonna perform, how’s the autofocus speed gonna perform?
Let’s take a look at that now. So this next part
of the test, we’re gonna be testing the AF speed and the
Eye AF to see if it is working as well as we would expect,
if it’s fast, if it’s as fast as a Sony lens, etc.
Basically, we just want to press the “Eye AF” button
and have it go because the super-fast autofocus, which is
what they were supposed to have added with the Sony mounts--
‘cause when you used the adapters, you don’t get
the, like, ultra-fast autofocus or any of that stuff--
so now we should get all those functions,
so just we want to see how fast is “crazy fast”?
So let’s go do that now.
OK, so, to do this, I’ve got Julie,
my lovely assistant, here. She’s gonna press
the “Eye AF” button because I don’t really know how else
to do this. So Julie, go ahead and give us an Eye AF!
All right, now I’m gonna assume that it worked,
so now I will get out of the shot.
Julie, just makes it focus on the background.
-OK? -[Julie] Yup.
Eye AF. Background.
Eye AF! Background.
Eye AF.
Did it work? Did it work good, work well? Was it fast?
-Was it ultra-fast? -[Julie] Yeah.
Now we’re gonna test the accuracy and the quality
of both the autofocus and the lens, and to do this,
I’m gonna have Julie walk around
and take some photos of me making this video.
♪
Now, Julie’s a professional photographer, so she should
have a pretty good sense of what this lens is like,
and how it works compared to some of the other lenses...
-that she’s used... -[click]
♪
...in this lineup, and how well this one
focuses and compares to the other one.
And we’re also gonna do a corner test to see
if the sharpness and the resolving power is even
throughout the frame, or if it’s, you know,
only good in the center, and the corners are kinda weak.
So Julie’s gonna take a photo of the tool wall...
♪
...and that should hopefully give us an understanding
of whether or not it’s gonna resolve well throughout
the whole frame. All right, so now we’re gonna talk about
the price and the value equation, so I think we are
done with you, Julie. Thank you so much for your help.
♪
So, price-wise, this one’s coming in at $950 USD on B&H.
Now, if we compare that to Sony’s 50mm,
their, like, “nifty fifty” version,
which is $250 USD, obviously it’s quite a bit more.
But you can’t really compare those lenses that easily.
I do think the nifty fifty is OK, but it’s a 1.8,
its image quality isn’t the greatest, and its build
quality isn’t the greatest, it’s supposed to be
an economy lens. But if we compare it more to the lenses
that I would say it’s more in competition with because this
is the Art Lens. This is Sigma’s, like, high-end,
so we need to compare it to other high-ends.
The Sonnar-- the ZEISS Sonnar one,
that’s the 55mm that Sony has-- it’s $1000.
So that one’s $50 more, and it too is a 1.8,
not a 1.4, so it’s a little bit slower.
And then the more expensive one-- the 1.4 that they do have
from Sony ZEISS-- is the Planar, which is,
like, $1500 USD. So you’re spending 50% more to get
an equivalent lens from the Sony and ZEISS.
Now, I don’t have any side-by-sides to show
you right now, but usually, I find it to be pretty hard
to negotiate spending another $500 or $600
more to get 2% potentially better image quality.
I’ve been finding that with most of these case,
the Sigma Art lenses are so much “almost as good”
as the top-of-the-line lens for, you know, 50% less,
that it doesn’t really make sense to spend the full
dollar amount, and I think that’s true here.
I think value-wise, to come in cheaper than
any of the premium ones and be better than most
of the premium ones, it’s kind of a no-brainer
in the value front if you want to spend that money.
If you don’t, then I would just probably
get that little nifty fifty-one. But if you’re
looking for something super fast at the best value,
it’s almost always gonna be the Sigma Art lenses
and the fact that now they’ve mounted them for Sony...
it’s a no-brainer. All right, that’s it.
Overall, I think the lens is great.
It is a bit big, heavy, bulky, all those things,
but that’s what you get with a Sigma Art Lens.
If you’re trying to, like, go super low-weight
or whatever, then it might not be the lens for you.
But if you’re OK with a bit of heft,
you can’t really get better image quality for the dollar.
I’ll put links for the lens in the description,
including one for Camera Canada, so for my Canadian
friends that want to support a proudly Canadian
and local business, go ahead and check them out,
and just check out their whole storefront.
And if you’re in the area, stop by and check out
Forest City Image Centre Downtown London.
They have a really great team that seemed to go out of
their way to help and provide service for whoever they can.
Hell, the fact that I’m holding the 55mm lens
now is proof of that. They didn’t have to let me
borrow that for this video. So they are excellent,
and I recommend that you check them out.
All right, that’s gonna be it for me. I hope you found
this video entertaining, or at least helpful.
And if you did, make sure you drop it the old thumbs-up.
But if you did not find this video helpful or entertaining,
feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright! I’m done.
♪