Sigma 14mm f/1.8 Art – My Thoughts

The Sigma 14mm f/1.8 Art lens was just announced last week and for me, I’m in shock and awe over this lens!

There were a few other announcements, such as the 135mm f/1.8 and another lens I can’t even remember at the moment… I could Google it now but I will leave it out as the point I’m making the only lens which I’m really interested in is the new 14mm f/1.8 Art!

I decided to write up a quick blog post for my predictions on this lens and to share my pure excitement!

I watched this video from Jared Polin and he was confused about the 14mm f/1.8 and discussed how he can’t see how much Bokeh you will get from this lens. He CLEARLY is not an Astrophotographer!

I have spent long late nights with my friend Ismail (@aladdin_sane82) doing Astrophotography and have discussed what we want to improve our photos.

We’ve discussed wider, faster glass, and cleaner ISO’s etc.

We’ve played with the idea about purchasing these new lenses such as the Irix 15mm f/2.4 and I did actually purchase the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 for my astro work. We both already did own the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 which is still a monster of a lens for this type of work and I still do love it very much!

However, when we have to hit ISO3200 and sometimes ISO6400 to get our shots, we have craved wider glass to obtain a longer shutter speed due to the ‘500 Rule’, or a wider aperture to suck up more light.

We’ve had a few lenses that had considered and discussed, but nothing really excited us until this Sigma 14mm f/1.8 was annouced!

At f/1.8 we are obtaining 1.3 stops more light! So that will take us down from ISO3200, down to ISO1250. Personally it’s a habit of mine, but I only work within full stop increments from the Base ISO, so I would take it down to ISO1600 and bring down in post if needed.

But the point is, ISO1600 on most modern day cameras is very clean, even on the APS-C sized sensor. So I am very excited about this prospect of obtaining cleaner files to work with.

Lower ISO’s will allow better tonal and dynamic range as well as having the less noise.

The Sigma Art line have generally been very sharp! I own the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art and Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art. Both lenses blow my mind with how sharp they are. They have tonnes of contrast and with the amazing sharpness at f/1.4, the images do really pop! (Side note, focusing is a little bit unreliable, but I will save the details for their full reviews)

So bearing all that in mind… I am extremely excited for this Sigma 14mm f/1.8 Art Lens.

My predictions however…

I do suspect the lens will be expensive. I can’t say how much the lens is worth without testing it, but I suspect Sigma will take a punt with this lens and price it up above £1,200. I wouldn’t be surprised if it touched £1,500. Or is this Sony lens pricing conditioning me to such expensive glass????

My friend Ismail has predicted £800, I really do hope he’s right!

With regards to the lens itself, I suspect it will be very sharp corner to corner even wide open. But I do suspect it will vignette heavily and won’t really clear up fully until f/4.

Distortion I suspect to be relatively bad, but with Lens correction profiles, I don’t see this as a major issue, but it will be an issue nonetheless.

I am making my move to Sony camera systems, so I may need to look into purchasing the Sigma MC-11, or I might just keep one Nikon body behind for this lens!