Sigma announced four new lenses last week that have us drooling a bit. The new quartet of lenses include:
- Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art Lens
- Sigma 135mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art Lens
- Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 DO OS HSM Art Lens
- Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary Lens
Sigma continues its roll with these new offerings.
The ultra-wide/ultra-bright 14mm f/1.8 lens shares a large aspherical element with the Sigma 12-24mm f/4 Art lens. That wide-open f/1.8 aperture will surely be a boon to full frame astrophotographers, while it also finds a home in the bags of plenty landscape and architecture photographers.
We knew another 24-70mm f/2.8 lens would be coming at some point. This lens should challenge the best from Canon and Nikon. If history has shown us anything, it should also challenge the first-party non-OS lenses in price as well.
The new 100-400mm brings back a push-pull zoom design immediately beckons the question of whether it will be known as a “dust sucker” like Canon’s old 100-400mm zoom model. With a dimmer f/5-6.3 aperture range, it manages to be both smaller and lighter than the comparable Canon model. Whenever final pricing is announced, I suspect that it will be substantially cheaper as well.
Finally, the 135mm f/1.8 Art lens should be a hit for portraits. That f/1.8 aperture should turn backgrounds into butter as a longer portrait lens option.
All of the lenses are full frame compatible. Mount options include Canon, Nikon and Sigma. The also work with Sigma’s MC-11 Sony E-mount converter. Pricing and availability has yet to be announced. Although, you can find them all here at B&H Photo.
Did they mention Sony’s A Mount? The A99ii is a great camera but without proper support no mount will survive no matter how good the bodies are.
I am a massive fan of the A99ii but Sony has voluntarily crippled this camera, they could easily these issues in a firmware update but knowing Sony i am not holding my breath:
1 – No truly silent mode when it could easily have one. I know it’s fairly quiet anyway but totally silent shooting is vital for easily spooked wildlife or church photography with vicar’s that hates photographers!
2 – No 4D hybrid autofocus system on anything other than Sony lenses, I can understand why Sony has done this but their own lenses are so over priced that they are killing their own Mount.
3 – Like all SLT’s Sony has locked the aperture at F3.5 (or as close as the lens can get to this) if you want autofocus enabled. This is a totally mental decision by Sony when it’s the same sensor as A7Rii and this can focus just fine at any f-stop.