Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

Name: Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM
Brand: Sigma
Rating: 8.0 (48 reviews)

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Lens Review
Specifications

30mm	$418 average price

Lab Test Results

Blur
Chromatic Aberration
Vignetting
Geometric Distortion

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Buy the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

(From Sigma lens literature) This large aperture 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens is designed to match the APS-C size image sensors of digital SLR cameras. Two SLD glass elements are especially effective in the compensation of magnification chromatic aberration.

Glass mold aspherical lens at rear group of lens reduces color aberration and provides high-quality image results. From 40cm (15.7 inches) minimum focusing distance to infinity, this lens creates very sharp images with high contrast.

The HSM models provide quiet high-speed auto-focus shooting, as well as full-time manual focus. Large Maximum Aperture of f/1.4 can perform superbly in a great range of applications, including snapshots, portraiture, indoor shooting and landscape photography.

Test Notes

In the 35mm film world, a "normal" focal length (that is, one which is neither wide angle nor telephoto) has always been considered to be 50mm. Actually though, the true definition of "normal" holds that the focal length should equal the length of the frame's diagonal, which would put "normal" at something closer to 43mm. With the mass move to sub-frame digital SLRs, a "normal" lens should now be something closer to 30mm, so there's a need for fast (large aperture), high-quality 30mm lenses to fill the same role as did the 50mm optics of yore.

It's just this consideration that prompted Sigma to develop the 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM lens that's the subject of this test report. This is a high-quality lens (hence the "EX" in Sigma's designation) meant to provide a "normal" field of view on a sub-frame camera. On cameras with a 1.6x crop factor (the lower end of Canon's DSLR line) it translates to a 35mm equivalent focal length of 48mm, on a 1.5x camera (Nikon, Pentax, and Sony models) it's the equivalent of a 45mm optic, and on a 4/3 camera (Olympus and Panasonic), it has the same field of view as a 60mm lens on a 35mm film camera. All that being a long way of saying "normal".

This isn't meant to be a throwaway cheapie like the plastic fantastic 50mm lenses found at the bottom of most camera company's lines, but rather a high-quality, fast lens suited for critical shooting or low light photography. (Note though, that I didn't say low light and critical shooting.) To all appearances, Sigma succeeded in their goals for it, as the lens conveys a sense of quality and solid construction. Despite only covering an APS-C sized image area (you can't use it on a full-frame or 35mm camera), it's a hefty hunk of glass, structural plastic, and metal, and its manual focus ring has a particularly solid feel to it. (Almost a bit too much so, it's much stiffer than we're accustomed to.) In autofocus mode, it seemed middling fast on our Canon 20D test body, but definitely not as fast as some other lenses we've tested.

Optically, the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM performs quite well, albeit not quite up to the level we'd been expecting. That said though, it does deliver very good performance and build quality at a very affordable price: No other lens currently on the market really delivers the bang for the buck that this one does at its price point. (More on this later.) Wide open, it has the softness in the corners that you'd expect, while its center sharpness is good (if not excellent.) As you stop down, more of the frame gets sharper: At f/2 there's a modest-sized sweet spot in the center of the frame, and the worst of the softness in the corners has been mitigated. This trend continues to f/2.8 and f/4, although the corners never get quite as sharp as the center (although they get pretty darn close at f/8. Diffraction limiting starts to set in at about f/11, but even at f/16, the overall image is still reasonably crisp.

Shading (light falloff in the corners of the frame, more commonly known as "vignetting") is moderate (about a half a stop) wide open, and decreases in a more or less straight line until hitting a minimum of 0.13 EV at f/8 and beyond. Chromatic aberration is relatively low at larger apertures but maximum CA increases gradually from f/2.8 to f/8. The good news is that the average CA holds more or less constant, indicating that the increase happens only around the edges. Geometric distortion is moderate for a lens of this type, at 0.5% barrel.

Overall, this lens compares very favorably with competing manufacturer lenses we've tested as of this writing, which at this point means Canon lenses (in late September, 2006). Against the Canon 35mmm f/1.4L, the Sigma isn't quite as sharp, and the Canon has lower vignetting and barrel distortion, but the Sigma actually has slightly less chromatic aberration at large apertures. And of course, the Sigma is almost a third the price of the Canon. Compared to the Canon 35mm f/2, the Canon wins across the board, beating the Sigma on sharpness, vignetting, distortion, and chromatic aberration. The Canon 35mm f/2 is also about $180 cheaper at retail, but is of course a full f-stop slower (a real consideration for night, indoor, and street photography, or any application where you want to really drop out the background with very shallow depth of field) and much more cheaply constructed, with a very plasticky feel. Canon also makes 28mm lenses in both f/2.8 and f/1.8 flavors. The Canon 28mm f/1.8 sells for about the same price as the Sigma 30mm f/1.4, but is softer wide open and has much higher chromatic aberration across the board, although its distortion and vignetting are both lower.

We haven't yet tested the Nikon 35mm f/2 nor either of Nikon's 28mm lenses (a f/2.8 and f/1.4, so can't make a direct comparison there. Readers do rate the Nikkor 35mm f/2 very highly though, so we particularly hope to test that lens soon. The 28mm f/2.8 Nikkor seems to be less well thought of, but both of these Nikon lenses are a bit cheaper than the Sigma 30mm f/1.4. The Nikkor 28mm f/1.4 is another matter: It gets high to very high marks on optical quality and construction, but sells in the vicinity of $2500.

All in all, Sigma seems to have done exactly what they set out to do with this lens, namely provide a fast, high-quality "normal" lens for DSLRs with APS-C sized sensors. It's well built, delivers good results optically, and is a (reasonably) affordable lens to own. If you're a Canon owner and really don't need either the build quality or fast f/1.4 maximum aperture of this lens, you could save yourself some money by going with the excellent Canon 35mm f/2. If you do need f/1.4 though, this lens from Sigma is a great option.