Sigma 14-24mm F/2.8 DG DN Art Lens Hands On Review

In this video, photographer, Christopher Frost, takes a look at the new (and truly amazing) full-frame Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 DG DN Art lens for Sony E mount and Sigma/Leica and Panasonic L mount.

The new 14-24mm f/2.8 DG DN Art is a very impressive optical engineering feet for Sigma. The lens is well built (metal and some plastic/rubber), has 18 Elements in 13 Groups with 11 aperture blades, weather sealing, a min focus distance of 28cm/11″ and a rear Gel Filter option (no option for screw-type filters in the front due to the large oval front element although 3’rd party options might be coming) and a weight of 795 g or 28.04 oz. It also has a build-in nonremovable hood and a special lens cover.

The lens is super sharp wide open across the frame even on a 42MP camera like the A7RII and even on a crop camera it appears to be very sharp (although you will need to close down a bit for the corners to be perfect – not that this focal length makes much sense on an APS-C body at this price).

There is very little flare with this lens (surprising) and a lot of barrel distortion (which is corrected in-camera or in post) and a nice render of out of focus backgrounds. Close up sharpness is good although you might want to stop down to f/4 for a perfect shot (mind you it has a min magnification ratio of 1:7.3 so this isn’t a macro lens by any means).

This lens seems to be significantly sharper than the Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 16-35mm f/4 ZA OSS which is slower and cost about the same (the Sony – FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM is much more expensive and probably not as sharp in the corners as well although it does support filters).

As for pricing, the Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 DG DN Art is not an inexpensive 3’rd party lens, but for the price and if you are willing to live without filters (at least for the moment) it is a fantastic lens that sells for around $1400 (E-mount, the L-mount can be found – here).

You can find many more previews and reviews on our Photography review section here on LensVid and you can find more of Frost’s videos here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.