Anyone use the Sigma 16mm F1.4 ?

R2D2 wrote:

Rock and Rollei wrote:

R2D2 wrote:

cr3shooter wrote:

Like others have said, the 16/1.4 is way too heavy and bulky for me to carry, especially since it's a focal length I don't use particularly often. I can manage with the wide end of the 15-45 kit lens.

I wish lens makers would stop trying to out-do each other with large, heavy f1.4 efforts and make more pancakes and small, light f2 or f2.8 primes.

And my desire is just the opposite. I’d love a fast 22mm f/1.4 to pair with my 16, 32, and 56mm f/1.4 lenses! These guys really kick butt!

R2

There's the Viltrox 23mm f1.4, decent AF, respectable IQ and very nice handling.

Yeah, I’ve debated that one since it came out. However I’ve been looking for outstanding AF for shooting action, and maximum sharpness so I can push the ISOs (without turning everything to mush).

R2

I agree, I keep thinking about the Viltrox 23mm f1.4 to get another stop advantage from the Canon 22mm f2, but its image quality from reviews has kept me from buying it.

I do extremely low-light railroad videos with the M6ii, and lately have been shooting them with a fast prime wide-angle on an M6ii and a fast telephoto on a second M6ii.

For the telephoto, I've been using the manual-focus Rokinon 135mm f2 lens with the Viltrox 0.71x speed booster for an amazing 100mm f1.4 lens. That turns out to be a sharp combination, even at f1.4, yields great sharp low-light video. I'd prefer an autofocus lens of course as trains are a moving subject, but have been making do.

For the wider-angle lens for the videos I've been experimenting with the Canon 32mm f1.4 and the Siggy 16mm f1.4. Both are fantastic, and have low flare --- so when the brilliant train headlight shines into the camera lens as the train approaches in very dark lighting, it doesn't blow out the image too badly.

Here's a video made with the 32mm f1.4 in extremely low lighting:

https://youtu.be/yyrfjTEjAdw

Here's a video made with the Siggy 16 in extremely low lighting:

https://youtu.be/dKUfDphOrWg

I believe both videos show some of the highest quality (low noise, nice color and contrast) night railroad video out there. Much of it is so good it almost looks like it was shot in daylight even though the light conditions were so dark you could not see much with your unaided vision! The train crossing the Cass St Bridge in the Siggy 16 video is a very, very dark location yet the train still shows detail.

I did this by shooting at 4k, stabilizing and processing the video in post (Adobe Premiere Pro), shooting with standard high ISO de-noise turned on, and downsampling to 1080p to recover the sharpness and reduce noise. All other night train videos I've been able to find on youtube have nowhere near the image quality.

With the Canon 32, I have to stand back a bit from the tracks and can't really pan while the train is passing (so I don't crop the train's top or bottom) unless I'm at a bit of a distance, which is not always possible. So I often end up shooting the train coming at me but let it go out of the frame as it gets too big.

With the Siggy 16, a much wider lens, I can easily pan and get the train passing without cutting it off, but the lens is so wide that the train is very small in the frame until it gets close to me, so my usable video of the train tends to me much shorter time length.

The 22mm focal length would be the sweet spot, so I shot a similar video Monday night with the Canon 22mm f2 in similar night conditions. As with day and night videos I've shot previously with the 22mm lens, the field of view is 'just right' for trains --- however the lens optically appears to have much stronger flare than the Canon 32 or Siggy 16, is less sharp, and the loss of a stop of light is enough to leave me with a 'washed-out' looking video that can't be corrected in post.

I didn't make a video from the 22mm footage, but here's a still frame of a train in similar lighting to the other videos taken with the 22mm at 1/60s (shutter speed used for the videos). Even DxO with Deep prime and contrast maxed out, sharpness way 'up' could not bring up the details of the train with the image downsized to 1080p size, it has that high-ISO washed-out, muddy look I don't want. The lens has too much flare and not enough contrast to handle this scene, in this low light. An f1.4 lens would have only needed 1 stop ISO push in post instead of the 2 this shot needed - I know this would have been a usable shot with the Canon 32 or Siggy 16.

CSX I046 intermodal train leaving Tampa at Orient Rd, Canon M6ii, Canon EF-M 22mm f2, f2, 1/60s, shot at ISO 3200, pushed to ISO 12,800 in post

From the reviews, I think the Viltrox would give me similar results to the Canon 22mm, with enough flare and color fringing to make it unusable for the night train videos I create, and not enough sharpness across the frame to get clean results.