I got a new lens!
Ugh, it's so bright!
All right, we're gonna need two things to make this video:
we're gonna need a second camera, and we're gonna need
to make some adjustments to the lighting.
Let’s get Undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He’s crazy ♪
[uptempo music]
♪
...All right, that is better. What's happening, Donk Squad?
I'm Gerald Undone, and today we are talking about
the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 for Micro Four Thirds like the GH5.
So this is a much faster lens, which means that it has
a larger aperture, which means that it lets more light in,
which means that it's much brighter.
So I've got a light set up now that I can control
with a remote and tone the power way down.
I'm only running it at, like, 18% power now, because the other
light I had was fixed bulbs and it's just one strength,
and I wanted to run this lens at f/1.4,
its widest aperture, in order to really
test it out, test it wide open.
There’s only so many things you can do
with a camera when you’re recording video.
You can change the ISO, you can change the aperture.
But if you want to shoot something wide open,
because you want to test it wide open,
then you can really only lower the ISO,
and right now I'm shooting with HLG--
that's the profile on my GH5-- and that means
that the lowest that I can set the ISO is 400.
So I can't make it any darker by lowering the ISO
from there, and you don't want to mess with the shutter speed
too much, because generally with video you want
to aim somewhere around 180 degree shutter angle.
So for you photogs, for 23.98fps,
that's about 1/50 shutter speed.
So unless I'm gonna put a neutral density filter on,
I can't really make it much darker, so that's why I had
to change the lighting, but luckily this is
a controlled light environment,
so I can change it if I want to.
But if we were outside, we would have to use
an ND filter, which I'm gonna talk a little
bit about an ND filter a little
bit later on in this video.
But anyway, faster lens.
Now, I'm not trying to say that brighter is a bad thing.
Quite the opposite. Brighter is a great problem to have,
because sometimes you're gonna be shooting in
areas where you can't control the lighting as much,
or you’re not gonna get as much lighting.
Think, I don't know, a wedding photographer.
And in that case, the faster
glass that you have, you're gonna get
a lot more advantage out of that, because you can just
open up that aperture and get a lot more light in,
and be able to take much more advantage of the scene
than if you try to get everybody to stop while you set
up your studio lights. Sometimes that’s not a thing, right?
So brighter is better, definitely.
That's a huge advantage. All right, so I’m not much
of a professional lens reviewer, but I’m just
gonna give you sort of my first impressions.
I've used a lot of lenses, but
I don't have advanced testing
techniques or anything like that,
so I’ll just tell you my first impressions
and we’ll go from there. So as far as build
quality goes, I think it feels really, really good.
It's dust- and splash-proof, it has a lens hood included.
It's made by Sigma, so that means it comes
with a seven-year warranty.
My first impression of the image
quality is that it's very sharp,
and I don't notice any sort of
issues in the corners, resolution power compared
to the workhorse lens that I've been using now,
which is the 12-35mm f/2.8 from Panasonic.
But when adjusting exposure to compensate
between the two lenses, I can say that the Sigma lens
came in around two full stops brighter than the 12-35mm f/2.8.
When I set the 12-35mm f/2.8 at about 1600 ISO,
I can achieve a pretty much equal exposure at 400 ISO
with the Sigma 16mm f/1.4.
So that's huge. Now, the Sigma doesn’t have
image stabilization, it’s not built into the lens.
Now, the body, obviously, of the GH5,
it has in-body image stabilization.
But when you use that 12-35mm f/2.8
from Panasonic-- the II-- you can activate
Dual IS, the image stabilisation in the lens
and the image stabilisation in the body, they work together
and they communicate, and you get
this super awesome Dual IS.
Now, I did a couple rough image stabilization checks.
They're really just sort of me walking around and looking
at things, and I could notice at this focal length
that the Sigma was a little bit shakier, just a little bit.
But not a big deal. I think it’s because it’s 16mm.
So for full-frame users, that's a 32mm equivalent.
That's still pretty wide, and the wider
you shoot, the more stable it will appear.
Now, I think because the 12-35mm can go to 35mm-- which is
70mm-- if we were comparing this to some 70mm lens,
that I think having the stabilisation on the lens is
gonna make a big difference, ‘cause now you're getting
more into the telephoto aspect of it.
But at 16mm, 32mm full-frame,
it's not that much shakier, and it doesn't weigh that much more.
Some people complained about the weight that I read.
Compared to the 12-35, I would say
it only weighs just a little bit more, and we’re talking
small bodies, I don’t think it’s gonna throw off--
if you guys use cranes or some kind of 3-axis gimbals,
I don’t think it’s gonna change the game that much.
I think that it'll be fine.
So stabilization is really not much of an issue.
You know, it’d be great if it had lens
stabilization, but I don't really think it needs
it for this particular lens.
Now, the filter size is different,
and I didn't think of this until a bit of an afterthought,
but the 12-35mm is a 58mm thread.
So that means the diameter of a filter that you can buy,
what's the diameter of that to screw on?
A different thread size means you have
to buy different filters, usually.
So it's a 58mm. Now, the Sigma is a 67mm,
and what's unfortunate about this is I have a pretty
good variable neutral density filter for my 12-35mm.
I have a 58mm Hoya Variable ND.
Sometimes variable NDs get a bad rap.
I think the variable ND from Hoya is fantastic.
I don't find it impacts the colour very much at all.
I love how many-- I think it goes from one to nine
stops or something, there’s a great range on it.
It’s fantastic when you’re outside shooting
for what we were saying earlier.
What are you gonna do, you gonna tell
the sun to turn down? You can't.
Can’t adjust your shutter speed,
you want to shoot wide open,
and your ISO is already as far down as it goes?
You need to pop an ND on, and having that variable ND
so you can just dial it in is a great feature.
But I thought, “damn it, these NDs,
they cost quite a bit of money,” and to
not be able to use anything on the lens was
gonna be a pretty big bummer.
But I thought, while I was at the camera store,
I would try out a step-down ring.
So the way that step rings work is you're able
to screw on another thread onto your lens
that changes the size of the socket thread.
So a step-up ring, for instance, you would screw
a 67mm ring onto your lens, and then it would have a larger
opening for maybe a 77mm, so then you could
screw in a 77mm filter.
This is usually the way that it's done,
because it's much easier to shoot a smaller lens
through a bigger filter, because it doesn't cause any
problems of things reaching into the lens.
Now, that was what I was worried about,
because I have a 58mm filter.
If I put that over top of a 67mm lens,
I’m sort of inside the lens.
I figured I would be able to see the filter,
or at least vignette into it.
But rather than just buy another filter,
I would give it a try, because-- step-down rings,
they're called, when you step down from a 67mm
to 58mm-- they're significantly cheaper.
For instance, I think the next size
for the variable ND filter,
you're looking at close to $200 Canadian.
A step-down ring is, like, $10.
So if you can get a step-down ring to make both
your lenses work-- you have a $200 filter
for both lenses with only spending $10
rather than spending $200 twice. So I gave it a try.
I put the 67-58mm step-down ring on the lens,
and then put the variable ND filter on it,
I thought “let's see how bad the vignetting is,
let's see how much of a black circle it creates.”
And I am ecstatic to say... none.
My guess as to why does this happen because
I was so expecting there to be a vignette,
is I think maybe because Sigma makes this lens for
both APS-C cameras for Sony-- so they make the 1.5x crop,
and they also make the 2.0 Micro Four Thirds crop here--
maybe the outer ring isn't being used on this camera.
Maybe if I put that filter on a Sony
1.5x we would see the vignette,
but because with the GH5,
it's cropping down to 2x crop, we're not
even using the outside circle, so we can't see it.
And if that’s the case, I don’t care,
I’m happy, because it's not affecting my shots
at all no matter how I adjust things.
There's no vignette, there's no shadows creeping in, and to
prove it, give me a second and I'll throw it on so you can see.
Get a good look at the shot here.
I'm gonna screw this onto the lens now.
So... the image is gonna be a little bit darker.
That's to give you an idea of how the ND filter works.
You can see it’s darker now, so
you’d be blocking out some sun.
And here's a piece of paper so you can see in the corners--
try to ignore any shadows and brightness on the paper, but
just basically as you can see, there's no black circle.
You can't see the filter inside.
And I did not crop this shot at all.
This over here is just shadow, that's just shadow
from the way the light’s hitting the paper.
But there is no vignetting at all!
So for those of you that have some Panny lenses already--
58mm, maybe the 12-35mm, for instance-- and maybe
you got a bunch of filters for them and you're like,
“this is great, this guy's talking about this lens,
but what am I gonna do with all my filters?”
Get the 58-67mm step-down ring and I think you'll be fine.
So that's awesome, that increases
the value of the lens if you already have those filters.
I was pretty happy about that. OK, so another thing
that I noticed that I want to talk about
was the way that it focuses.
Obviously everybody knows that continuous autofocus
for the GH5 is, like, the bane of a GH5 owner’s existence, but
I had some interesting results with the continuous autofocus--
well, with autofocus in general, but it was more so with tracking
with the Sigma over the Panasonic lenses.
So here's my observations:
firstly, I think the Panasonic lens
initiated focus a little bit faster,
but what I've been noticing about the Panasonic lens
is that once it goes to focus,
it kind of does this weird in-and-out thing.
It'll focus, like, 90%... and then defocus,
and then focus the last 10%.
So it kind of has a blurry-sharp,
blurry-sharp effect on it.
Where the Sigma, albeit maybe a little bit slower
than that initial focus, it doesn't do the double thing.
It just is a little bit slower going
from blurry... sharp, and then stops, done.
The idea that it doesn't kind of double-hunt
or double-focus is great, because if you're recording
video while it's doing that, for the continuous
aspect of it, you'd like to see it just
focus in on something and then be done with it.
You don't want to see it going to focus in on something,
then defocus and focus again.
That really breaks the effect.
I really like that, and I would consider
that an upgrade, even if it is
a fraction slower. As far as controlled focus,
like when you tell it to focus-- I have this set up on
manual focus, for instance, so if I click on
the back wall here like that...
it's fast. So now I'm out of focus,
and now I’m gonna put it on my face.
I mean, it's as fast as anything else.
So I'll just put it on the back wall again...
to the wall... and then back to me now.
So what's that, 3/4 of a second, a full second?
I mean, that's as fast as you're gonna need it.
If you're taking photos, just like, snap it, right?
And for video, that's way faster than you’re ever really gonna
need it, ‘cause you’re just setting up your shot.
Obviously, continuous autofocus isn't something you can
rely on that much in GH5 in the first place,
but I do think the Sigma makes it maybe a little bit
better, you know? And then the value is great.
It comes in less expensive than-- I would say
the closest equivalent would be Olympus's 17mm f/1.8,
and that's usually around $650 CAD.
This lens comes in around $550 CAD,
the Sigma, and it's faster, it's a f/1.4 instead of f/1.8,
so it's like two-thirds of a stop faster.
The build quality is great, it comes with a hood,
not all Olympus' usually come with a hood.
It’s dust-proof, splash-proof.
You get a seven-year warranty. It's $550 CAD...
I think it's actually $579.95 retail right now.
I've got links in the description for all this
stuff, for the lens, for the variable ND that I use,
for the new light, all that stuff is in the description.
And I recently switched over to start using Kit now, so you can
see all my regular, all-the-time gear if you click on that Kit
link below in the description, but I'll put specific
links for the individual products we talked about here.
But I think the value on this lens is outstanding,
so if you're planning on getting one, use my links below,
because they’re affiliate links, so anything that you buy from
Amazon or whatever through those links, or through my Kit links,
they go to support this channel, and I’d really appreciate it.
Anyway guys, thank you so much for watching.
I hope this video was useful.
If it is, make sure you give it a like.
And if you didn't think it was useful,
go ahead and hit the dislike button twice.
Alright! I'm done.
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