Đánh giá lens sigma 50 f1.4 art năm 2024

Sigma’s Art lenses seem to have accumulated a growing fan list — and now those devotees can finally feast on a mirrorless f1.4 nifty fifty. The Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art brings a wide aperture and a new magnet-based autofocus motor. Yet what’s most attractive about the new 50mm is perhaps the price. At $849, it’s about $450 less than Sony’s G Master and more than $1,200 less than the Panasonic 50mm f1.4 S Pro.

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Ideally, that lower price would deliver a lens that is perhaps less technically superior but in a way that builds character, not noticeable flaws. But while there’s a bit of character here, other photographers will be more bothered by the colored fringing and edge distortion.

Table of Contents

The Big Picture

The Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art has a lot going for it — it’s an affordable but bright prime lens that’s still fully weather sealed. The autofocus is snappy. The bright aperture delivers beautifully blurred backgrounds while most subjects remain sharp. The lens is also significantly cheaper than similar options from Sony and Panasonic.

But a close look at the images reveals some quirks. The edges are both soft, and a bit bent from pincushion distortion. Chromatic aberration can discolor high-contrast areas. In certain types of shoots, photographers may notice some focus breathing. The lens also lacks stabilization and weighs more than the comparable Sony but less than Panasonic’s rendition. Colors can also occasionally skew green.

The question is — are those quirks worth embracing for the lower price point? For some photographers, yes. But others may be better saving up for the higher price optics. I’m giving the Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art four out of five stars. Want one? Check them out at Amazon.

Pros

• Full weather-sealing
• Quick and quiet autofocus
• Dedicated aperture ring
• Beautiful bokeh
• Sharp centers
• Character-building flare
• Much more affordable than first-party lenses

Cons

• No stabilization
• Some noticeable chromatic aberration in specific scenarios
• Pincushion distortion and softening are visible at the edges
• Focus breathing crops in on close subjects

Gear Used

I paired the E-Mount variation Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art with the Sony a1. The lens and camera body were a temporary loan generously provided by LensRentals.

Innovations

The Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art overhauls the outdated 2014 DSLR lens with several significant changes. It’s the first mirrorless Art series lens to gain what Sigma calls the High-response Linear Actuator or HLA autofocus. This focusing system is driven with magnets rather than gears, which improves speed and lowers noise. The new lens also has weather-sealing throughout the barrel — while that was uncommon in 2014, that’s now consistent with Sigma’s mirrorless Art optics.

Ergonomics

The Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art is a 1.5-pound lens about 4.4 inches long. That makes it slightly larger and heavier than Sony’s comparable G Master lens but lighter than the Panasonic S Pro. It’s not terribly heavy. With internal focusing, the lens’ physical length doesn’t change while shooting.

The first thing that I noticed about this lens is the aperture ring. Adjusting the aperture on the lens feels intrinsically right, so I love that this lens is equipped with that capability. Next to the aperture ring is a declick switch. Above that is an autofocus lock button, topped by the auto-to-manual focus switch. This switch is white when in autofocus, so it’s easy to quickly see the lens’s mode. A lock switch on the other side of the lens prevents the aperture ring from being bumped out of auto mode.

The focus ring takes up the rest of the lens, which makes it a good-sized, grippy ring.

The front of the lens has a minimal bit of plastic around the edge. The Art lens accommodates 72mm circular filters.

Build Quality

Sigma’s Contemporary line only uses weather-sealing at the mount, but the high-end Art line tends to seal the entire barrel. Along with seals at the mount, the Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art also has seals around the different moving parts around the barrel and around the button and switches and a repellent coating at the front.

I used this lens at Niagara Falls, where it became covered in freezing mist. After testing, the lens didn’t have any issues, and I didn’t spot anything inside the lens or on the camera sensor.

Focusing

Nifty fifties are known as portrait favorites. The Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art had no issues keeping up while photographing a toddler. In other words, the lens will keep up with even wiggly portrait subjects.

I also turned this lens on my dog during a game of fetch. Unlike the toddler portraits, there were some occasional misses. Still, the lens did a good job of keeping up with the action with only sporadic misses.

I noticed the most significant slowdowns were low light, low contrast subjects. That’s pretty typical and even something we noted on the pricier Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master lens. However, turning the exposure preview off nearly doubled the speed when shooting in low light or intentional underexposure. Autofocusing in the dark still takes slightly longer than in well-lit scenarios, but turning the exposure preview off makes the speed workable.

The lens can focus as close as 1.5 feet from the front of the lens — Sony’s G Master can focus a little closer.

The lens does have some noticeable focus breathing. When focusing on close subjects, the focal length appears to be cropped compared to subjects farther away.

Ease of Use

The Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art lacks stabilization. It’s not necessary for portraits, but there were a handful of scenarios when photographing night scenes in that I wished for a stabilization system in the lens and the in-body type on the a1.

The controls on the lens itself have a nice balance between plenty of options for pros and simplicity for newer users. There’s a lock to prevent the aperture ring from getting bumped off of auto mode. (Though, buying an f1.4 lens and putting it in auto is questionable at best.)

Image Quality

The image quality coming from the Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art is a bit mixed. On the one hand, images have beautiful bokeh and light-gathering capabilities and a bit of flare for character. But, on the other hand, the corners are a bit soft, and there’s both chromatic aberration and pincushion distortion. For the price, the image quality is good. But the photos aren’t going to line up with those of the Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master or the Panasonic 50mm f1.4 S Pro on level ground.

Bokeh

As a middle focal length with an f1.4, plenty of creamy goodness can be had here. The background falls away quickly when shooting wide open, mainly when working with close subjects.

Points of light are blurred into smooth, edgeless bokeh balls. These lights are rounded at the center of the frame but cat-eye towards the edge, which can occasionally give the bokeh a more swirly feel.

Color Rendition

While the bokeh from this Sigma Art lens is lovely, the colors left a bit to be desired. Chromatic aberration was noticeable on backlit thin structures such as tree branches, giving the branches a purple tone even when not viewing the image at 100 percent.

While colors weren’t overly saturated, they did have a tendency to skew a bit green and a bit warm. I did a bit of color editing to correct skin tones in post.

Lens Character

The Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art has a bit of pincushion distortion, bending lines placed on the edge of the frame in. With most subjects, it’s not noticeable, but any lines placed toward the edge of the frame will have a slight bend to them.

Lens flare, thankfully, isn’t too sterile. Directing the lens at the sun without a hood will produce soft blooms of light with colorful ghosting spots.

Sharpness

Subjects at the center are sharp wide open, but that sharpness does drop off. The corners weren’t sharp until f2, so the lens does need to be stopped down a bit for sharp subjects on the edge of the frame.

Extra Image Samples

From day one, The Phoblographer has been huge on transparency with our audience. Nothing from this review is sponsored. Further, lots of folks will post reviews and show lots of editing in the photos. The problem then becomes that anyone and everyone can do the same thing. They’re not showing what the lens can do. So we have a section in our Extra Image Samples area to show edited and unedited photos. From this, you can make a decision for yourself.

Unedited

Edited

Who Should Buy It?

Buy the Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG DN Art if you want a bright, well-built nifty fifty for an affordable price. It’s a sturdy lens that focuses quick and delivers beautiful background bokeh. If you are bothered by chromatic aberration, pincushion distortion, or the lack of stabilization, wait and save up for the Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master on E-Mount or the Panasonic 50mm f1.4 S Pro on L-Mount.