Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 DG DN for L-Mount

Product Information

Both the Sigma and Tamron f2.8 zooms are designed not only as lighter and more affordable alternatives to 24-70mm f2.8 models, but also as step-ups from budget kit zooms like Sony’s own FE 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 which costs roughly half their price but suffers from a dimmer and variable aperture that’s two whole stops slower at the long-end. Okay let’s see what the new Sigma’s all about.

Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 DG DN Contemporary Lens Review Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 DG DN Contemporary Lens Review

Shooting wide-open at F2.8 (which you'll quite likely want to spend much of your time doing if you've bought this lens for its bright maximum aperture), sharpness is very acceptable in the center of the frame at 28mm and remains pretty good even once you zoom in to the 70mm telephoto.Moving into the corners shows the lens is roughly maintaining a good degree of detail, although with the aperture wide-open there’s a little softness in the extreme corner plus some darkening due to vignetting. As before, closing the aperture gradually improves the quality, brightening the corners and boosting the detail. If you’re a pixel-peeper with a high-res body, it’s definitely worth shooting detailed views at f5.6 or f8 rather than wide-open. With the lens set to its maximum aperture of f/2.8, there is some obvious light fall-off in the corners at both ends of the zoom range. Stopping-down to f/5.6 virtually eliminates this. When it comes to distortion, we need to discuss the Leica L-mount and Sony E-mount versions of the lens separately. That's because if you're an L-mount shooter, distortion is corrected automatically in both JPEG and Raw files, but if you're shooting Raw on the E mount variant on a Sony body and using Adobe software, there's (currently) no correction applied for distortion. Distortion isn't an issue for the L-mount version thanks to automatic correction, but Sony E-mount variants show some barrel distortion at wide-angle and prominent pincushion at telephoto.

Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 DG DN Review - DustinAbbott.net Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 DG DN Review - DustinAbbott.net

I used the Panasonic S1 and had the Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 set at the 31mm focal length. This was taken at f8 and 160 ISO around the WTC area in Manhattan. Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 DG DN Contemporary Lens Bokeh:

Introduction

Vignetting is not a concern for the Sigma 28-70mm F2.8. It's only really noticeable at telephoto, and even there is minor and easily corrected. Bokeh Lastly, the 28-70mm also comes with a petal shaped lens hood. In addition to flare protection, this is great to have when you want a bit more protection for your front element. The new lens features just one lightweight focusing element, which keeps the AF unit small. This, along with a quiet and fast stepping motor, makes for responsive and near-silent autofocus performance. Thanks to Leica and Sigma's participation, L-mount owners already have access to a good number of prime lenses, in addition to those that Panasonic has brought to market. In terms of image quality, the 28-70mm f2.8 also delivers the goods. In fact, Sigma says that this zoom offers the same optical performance as the 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN Art lens, which as we know, is designed to be their best, and for pro use. That’s pretty impressive considering how much smaller this lens is as well.