The new Sigma 20mm f/1.4 ART lens will ship in November for $999 only! That’s 5 times less expensive than the Otus 28mm f/1.4. Of course there is a huge difference between 28mm and 20mm and I expect the Otus to be a tiny fraction better. You can already preorder the lens here:
Nikon F mount version at BHphoto and Adorama.
Canon EF mount version at BHphoto and Adorama.
Sigma writes:
With a focal length of 20mm and F1.4 aperture, this lens delivers outstanding large-aperture brightness and bokeh, delivering unprecedented visual experiences.
To offer an ultra-wide-angle 20mm focal length and F1.4 brightness at wide-open aperture, this lens incorporates a large double aspherical lens 59mm in diameter. Lenses of this type had been considered extremely difficult to manufacture, but SIGMA took on the challenge to realize an F1.4 ultra-wide-angle lens that fulfills the strict performance requirements of the SIGMA Art line. Moreover, SIGMA’s advanced optical design minimizes distortion, transverse chromatic aberration, sagittal coma flare, and the reduction of brightness toward the edges of the image. Delivering top performance even at wide-open aperture, this lens can be considered the culmination of SIGMA’s Art line.
Full details here: http://www.sigma-global.com/en/lenses/cas/product/art/a_20_14/
67 Responses
Great news, instead of spending thousands on the Leica 21mm Summilux, that doesn’t work well anyway on Sony cameras !
Thanks to Sony’s latest A-Mount work no a-amount avaiable… nice!
It will mostly come after a few months. All the other Sigma Art series lenses are available in A mount and even Pentax mount.
Like the 24mm 1.4 Art or 120-300mm F2,8 Sports? 🙂
I am not so sure about that anymore…
The 120-300mm sports I am pretty sure it will never come but the 24mm f1.4 might.
haha why would anyone release lenses for a dead system? Makes no sense.
This is so sad! But never give up the hope…
Looking forward to sample shots, in particular the edges for astrophotography (coma).
I have Sigma 50, 35, 24-105 on a99 along with a7rII with 55, 35/1.4, 18-105G.
The Sigma/a99 is far more comfortable. Better balance. Better grip.
a7rII grip is too close to lens mount. FE35/1.4 has hard ridge protruding right where knuckles land. That lens bites the knuckles and is larger than Sigma even with adapter. Had to tape down the aperture to A to prevent it from moving. Tiny cam hard to hold, control. A chore to use.
Sigma sharper, good bokeh. Sony sweetest bokeh, sharp enough. Sigma stiff focus ring. Sony stinky fly-wire impossible to critical manual focus.
a99 smart LCD shuts off EVF when pulled out. a7RII dumb LCD requires camera ten inches away from chest before EVF turns off. The click doesn’t register with EVF. Use long neck strap.
All Sigma ART would be available for AMount if Sony would promote the system better. Perhaps that’s why they let it die. Short term profit is EMount, until others catch up. Won’t be long.
Only the smallest of companies ever give actual information on the actual specification of the lenses anymore…
Not to knock this Sigma in any way – I welcome what will surely be a fine lens – but I would expect the Otus to be more than “a tiny fraction better”.
Indeed, especially if the SIgma 24mm Art is anything to go by. The Otus lenses are zero compromise lenses – pretty much perfection. The Sigma 24mm is anything but.
The Otus is a 28 mm lens, it’s a lot easier to design a 28 mm lens than 20 mm one
Only in Canon, Nikon and Sigma mount….
why buy the loxia 21mm when theres this? shame we’ll need an adapter
Because the Loxia is a fraction of the weight and size and isn’t made by Sigma (known for poor QC, poor resale value)?
…and bigger pockets too!
hehe, a quick photoshop of them next to each other, to scale. The sigma gets even bigger with the adapter though, but it’s also f/1.4 instead of f/2.8.
!! is that to scale? lol i can see why then
It is yeah 🙂 Plus the Sigma gets bigger with the adapter. If it’s amazing for astrophotography though, I’ll get it myself, as there the size doesn’t really matter much (I wouldn’t be carrying it around all day).
The size. The Loxia seems to be a wonderful lens! Just the price is way off.
i didn’t think they would be that off in terms of size until i saw that picture below (if it’s to scale) i was thinking strictly price and performance, but yeah i can see why one would go for the loxia if the size is that much of a difference lol
No question, in price/performance, Sigma puts any other brand to shame these days.
cause its big as F**K
– Loxia is smaller
– Loxia will be sharper
– At these wide angles 3D pop >>>>> bokeh so Loxia wins.
I’ve shot the 35/1.4 Art side by side with the 35/2 Loxia. I’d pick the Loxia any day for IQ.
im thinking more in terms of astrophotography
but doesn’t the ‘3d pop’ come from the bokeh transition?
For me, 3D pop has 3 ingredients:
– bokeh
– contrast transition between in and out of focus (i.e. in focus areas have more contrast than out of focus areas)
– flat focus field + out of focus field bending backwards towards the edges to create 3D effect
As you can forget the bokeh from a 20mm lens, only the latter two remain, where Zeiss is king.
Thanks for your valuable conclusion about two unreleased lenses. Well done!
Meh, an intellectually unfair attack. I am not giving any conclusion, I am answering “why buy the loxia 21mm when theres this?”
And my reasons are valid:
1) is a fact.
2) have you seen the Loxia MTF?
3) is an educated guess.
OK, sorry for overreacting. But seriously, we don’t know if the Loxia is sharper, nor how the 3D POP or bokeh is. So, your guess sounds not that educated to me.
All we know for now, is a the different brand name, the size difference and some MTF charts, which are not comparable (there are no MTF curves for the Sigma at f2.8).
But maybe you are right and the brand name is sufficient for an educated guess.
We’ll see.
Why do you think Loxia is going to be sharper than the Sigma stopped down all the way to f/2.8? Many other Zeiss lenses (except Otus) are nothing to write home about, their 50/1.4 Planar for example is awfully blurry and not nearly in the same class as Sigma 50/1.4 Art.
http://slrgear.com/reviews/zproducts/zeiss50f14p/ff/1blur-t.gif
http://slrgear.com/reviews/zproducts/sigma50f14a/ff/1blur-t.gif
A lens with a bigger aperture will have more 3D pop… less depth of field.
Loxia is for Landscape, Sigma for the night. Quite obvious, no?
(Loxia less weight, no OSS, used stopped down anyway -> Landscape)
If it is as good as other art lenses, this is a buy of the century. I have never been so impatient to see image samples from any lens.
From no other lens? Which is correct grammatically?
The first one.
Apart from not taking a front filter, this is brilliant even if it doesn’t quite match the awesomeness of the 35/1.4.
Want!
DOA some say that the Nikon is the only one that should exist.
Admin, really, why do you continue to compare 20 and 28 focal lengths? Every mm on the wide end plays much more dramatic role than every 5 mm on the tele. And it is allways harder to build a wider lens. It is two different worlds or stay consistent and start comparing 35vs85, 135vs200 …
Moreover the 24mm f/1.4 ART is a closer match and readily available.
It is as if admin treats lenses as christmas gifts instead of tools… “if you can’t afford this new toy what about this completely different new toy???” Truly pathetic.
“DOA…” Sure. LMFAO
$900. WOW, even less than I expected.
Yes, Sigma lenses suffer from sample variation, as lenses from Zeiss and Leica do. Ming Thein’s Summilux journey is a good start to learn more about QC and sample variation:
http://blog.mingthein.com/2014/05/06/qc-and-sample-variations/
I’m sure Zeiss QC is a bit better than Sigma’s (it better should be), but in my experience the difference is not that huge anymore (compared to pre-Art times).
I think poor resale value is connected to mediocrity, not brand name. Sigma’s outstanding f1.4 Art lenses have no poor resale value. It’s easy to check ebay before making such statements.
No doubt the Milvus 21/2.8 is leaps and bounds better than the cheap Nikon and Sigma lenses.
Yes, especially its beautiful moustache distortion is pure perfection. No doubt Zeiss rules them all.
Yeah this is a carry over from long ago. Their QC is MUCH better and actually quite high.
Tamron have just recently and they are partly owned by Sony. Thing is A-Mounters most of the time won’t buy them anyway.
Thanks for your thoughts. Sound a little bit harsh, but I appreciate first hand experience from someone who actual uses the lenses in the field.
Yep, fly-by-wire manual focus stinks. I also think, ergonomically, the Sigma Art lenses are top.
makes you wonder why sigma does not go for the 2.8 version of the 2 most uses lenses (24-70 and 70-200) maybe a truce with canon or nikon? portrait photographers are also claiming for the ART versions of the 85 and 135 …. those 4 lenses will give canikon such a hard time /// so whats next sigma? a fish eye ART?
the sigma art line is the only think I might switch back to a DSLR.
Interesting how Sigma is able to beat $ony/zei$$ in both price and optical quality and even size (just compare their 35/1.4, 94mm-long 13-element $900 Sigma vs 112mm-long 12-element $1600 $sony/zei$$), even on wides despite having to design for longer flange distance.
http://slrgear.com/reviews/zproducts/sony35f14ze/1blur-t.gif
http://slrgear.com/reviews/zproducts/sigma35f14a/ff/1blur-t.gif
In sharpness,yes but not in rendering and bokeh though.
Ahh, we are back to the rendering. Lovely.
Do you have a link to any side by side comparison (bokeh, “rendering”) between the two lenses? I would be very interested.
I have both. The Siggy is a bit sharper than the FE… but the FE is sharp enough, and the bokeh is absolutely incredible. Uncanny actually.
I prefer the Sigma for smaller size and better manual focus feel. I can coax extra bokeh with PS technique. And Siggy bokeh is still very nice indeed, so it doesn’t need a lot of work.
The FE is a chore to use with fly-wire focus. MF is near impossible because slow critical turning doesn’t make any changes. Sony really needs to mature the algorithms used for fly-wire. User should have all sorts of options for MF tactile feel. Anything but the way it is.
Oddly, the Minolta 35/1.4 G is surprisingly close to both Sig and FE. I know the charts don’t relate that, but the performance is much better than math tests reveal. The Mino has a soul and bites exactly where it needs to at half the size and weight of the others… which makes it best fit for EMount by far.
Sigma’s 85mm is pretty new and pretty good, and competition’s (at least Nikon’s) 85/1.8 and 85/1.4 are already very good and reasonably priced too. Would be hard to penetrate that market.
100/1.4 would be something else though.
Its not very difficult to use an existing design and simply slap a new mount to replace the older one. That is why Sony offers a mount conversion service.
Once the initial excitement dies down and they have excess inventory they can easily repurpose a few of the Canon and Nikon versions for Pentax and Sony.
Look at the picture of the lens on Sigma website, very likely that it doesn’t take filter 🙁
I’m thinking one thing when I saw this and it’s capturing borealis real time with new A7SII. Originally I was just going to rent the 24mm 1.4 Rokinon, since that is the most logical choice. But now? Attach a metabones speedbooster EF to E mount to that and you get like .9 or 1. and an extra 4mm in width. My trip to Lofoten is 19th so that is cutting it way too close.
I probably didnt understand right, but are you saying that you would get more light with speed booster on a full frame? Because you wouldn`t, nor the extra 4mm in width. The only way to get a larger image circle on a ff sensor is to put some optical adapter and medium format lens.
I am sorry if I figured this out wrong, I have only used a speedbooster on a Sony a6000 a couple years ago. I remember with my Canon Lenses at the time it brought in more light and gave me one more f stop, than what my lens was rated for. What I am saying is, if I used a speedbooster on the new A7SII, wouldn’t it make the new Sigma 20mm 1.4 EF, one stop faster? Or does the speedbooster not bring in more light on full frame Sony cameras? I really thought it did, but maybe not and I am wrong. Regardless, it will definitely be 4mm wider than the Rokinon 24mm 1.4 I am planning on renting for this trip, with or without the speedbooster.
Oh, yes, 20mm will for sure be 4mm wider than 24 lol 🙂 But no, you will not get neither more light nor wider focal length with speed booster on full frame. It is designed for APS-C sensors, so on the FF sensor, you would only get APS-C sized image. Same as if you attached APS-C lens on a FF sensor.
You are very wrong mate. You WILL get more light but obviously just on the cropped part that will be like an APS-C size since the speed booster is supposed to work with the APS-C sensor not FF.
Now, the IQ is likely going to suffer specially on corners, not sure since when I tested it I was not able to sit the adapter correctly in my A7ii but I could surely see the extra stop of light vs no adapter.
A few other guys have done a similar test with same results.
No. You would get more light on the cropped area, you cant get more light overall. You cant get larger f stop or wider focal length. It is actually pretty simple physics to understand.
Do you have one..did you try it? No, then shutup cause I did. Pathetic trolls are people like you speaking without actually knowing or trying themselves.
And I DID NOT recommend it so do not put words in my mouth. I sold mine and did not think of even trying it seriously since the IQ suffers anyway so it was just a test for fun before selling it.
Grow up 😉
Ok, i will try this only once. Do whatever you want with it. Speed booster is designed to concentrate light from ff lens onto apsc crop area. Every bit of light and wide focal length you get with speed booster is negated by cropped area it is using, thank you Newton, you cannot make something out of nothing, same goes to light.
Great lens just announced for A- and FE mounts, not.