Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Lens Review

Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Performance

Even at f/1.4, sharpness in the centre portion of the frame is excellent, although as you might expect at such a fast maximum aperture, sharpness towards the edges of the frame falls away to just below good levels. This is still very good performance for a lens of this type.

Stopping the lens down improves sharpness across the frame with clarity towards the edges of the frame reaching very good levels by f/2. Peak sharpness across the frame is achieved at apertures between f/4 and f/5.6 where the clarity achieved in the centre is outstanding, and sharpness is excellent towards the edges of the frame.

Resolution at 35mm

How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Canon EOS 5D using Imatest.

Chromatic aberrations are extremely well controlled, barely exceeding 0.25 pixel widths at any aperture. This extremely low level of CA should pose no issues, even in large prints, or harsh crops from the edges of the frame.

Chromatic aberration at 35mm

How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc. to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Canon EOS 5D using Imatest.

As you may expect from a lens with a fast f/1.4 maximum aperture, falloff of illumination is quite pronounced. At f/1.4 the corners are 2.83 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination isn't achieved until the lens is stopped down to f/4 or beyond.

Barrel distortion can be quite common on wide aperture lenses like this one. This lens only displays 0.688% barrel distortion, which should pose few issues in normal use. If absolutely straight lines are paramount, then you'll be glad to hear that the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame, which should make applying corrections in image editing software fairly straightforward.

A petal-shaped hood is supplied as standard with the lens, which does a good job of protecting the front element from extraneous light that may cause unwanted flare and loss of contrast. During testing there were no issues with flare and contrast holds up well, even when shooting into the light.

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