This Weekend I Bought a D700 Part 1 – Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art

Posted on June 20, 2013 by owencherry

That’s right, friends! I finally made the jump to full frame. I found a near mint D700 at Henrys with a grand total of 1100 actuations on it. I really had no choice, did I? To be honest it was a bit of a toss-up between the D700 and a new D600. Each have their advantages and disadvantages but in the end I went with the body with a more pro build, better AF system, reliable QC and an interface that I really like. In fact the interface is nearly identical to my D300s and after an hour setting the D700 up I can pick up either body and it will act identically. Plus the grip and batteries work on either.

Needless to say, all of my lenses have a new character to them. In the next few posts I’ll show some examples I took over the past 5 days with each of my FX lenses, plus some extras. Let’s start with the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art. This focal length combined on full is the main reason for making this whole decision… after getting a taste for a true 35mm on my N80 film body. The FOV is totally natural to me.

Here is a series of shots from f/1.4 to f/5.6 with a close subject. I challenge anybody to find a problem with the bokeh here. I find it glorious.

f/1.4

f/2

f/2.8

f/4

f/5.6

More examples:

A Quick Comparison of the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 and Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX on the D300s

Posted on June 20, 2013 by owencherry

As promised, here is a side-by-side comparison of the absolutely wonderful Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art and the well-respected Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX on a cropped sensor camera. What I found amazing is how close the two lenses are in sharpness. The bokeh, distortion, fringing, chromatic aberration and vignetting are clearly better in the Sigma but the Nikon really does hold its own.

Do I regret buying the Sigma? Absolutely not.

Below is cropped in from the above image.

The Nikon definitely shows more fringing in extreme contrast.

The Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art

Posted on May 26, 2013 by owencherry

Finally! Ever since I gave up shooting with Pentax and switched to Nikon I’ve yearned for a lens like the FA 31mm f/1.8 LTD. That Pentax lens was staggeringly good and I hadn’t found anything to match it in the F-mount system… until now with the Sigma 35mm f/1.4.

I’ll start this post with a reminder that I shoot with DX bodies (at least for the time being) so the field of view (FOV) of this lens is more like 52.5mm, acting like standard prime. I’m not going to dwell on technical details in this review. Other sites do a far better job than I’m willing to do, with analyses down to the pixel level and direct comparisons to other lenses (here and here, for example).

Here is my current fast prime lineup, all cover FX lenses in case I ever decide to go that route. From left to right: Sigma 35mm f/1.4, Sigma 50mm f/1.4, Nikon AF-S 60mm f/2.8G Micro, Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.8G. This is a great combination for FX, and pretty good for DX. A wider prime would still be needed but for now the 17-55mm f/2.8 fills that roll.

Being an f/1.4 lens, I’ve naturally focussed mostly on the wide aperture capabilities. I’m amazed at how sharp it is at wide open. Not only is it sharp but the contrast is quite high, making the in-focus subject pop. Stopping down does sharpen the image even further but really, I find the lens sharp enough at all apertures. It even shines on the D7000, a body I’ve found extremely sensitive to most lenses. Here are a few wide-open examples from the D300s (first two) and D7000 (the next four):

The effect of shooting at f/1.4 is dramatic, even on a DX sensor. I demonstrate this below with a couple sets of images with a range of aperture settings. The first set of images has minimal post-processing, while the second has one of my ‘fade’ presets applied (click on the images for larger versions).

The bokeh is nice. It’s not the best but far, far from the worst. I have no complaints here.

I was, of course, expecting the Sigma 35 to be optically excellent but I am surprised at how accurately it focuses on both the D300s and D7000. The performance contrasts my other fast Sigma, the 50mm f/1.4 where I find the focus to be inconsistent, especially on the D7000. In single-point AF, I find that I am the weak link, not the lens-body pair.

Do I have any negative comments?

Well, it is heavy at only 100g lighter than the 17-55. That’s about it. I’m really looking forward to giving it a workout at my next wedding shoot. I’ll end this micro-review with some more photos.