Sigma 14mm F1.8 DG HSM Art pre-production sample gallery

Sigma did it again. Extreme aperture, extreme fov and still offering good to excellent corner sharpness - even full open. Complaining about distortion is childish. You can fix most distortion, but you can't fix soft corners or bad CA.

The fact most critics are complaining about the distortion, just shows how good the lens actually is.

Since this lens is being targeted toward astrophotography, why no night sky images?

The older discontinued ( approx. 6 yrs ago ) Sigma 14mm f/2.8 EX Asph HSM lens was a pretty decent performer. ( $4 to 500 on craigslist)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8450532@N04/30355903976/in/dateposted-public/

Distortion is controlled I guess, but photos look odd to me. I can't think of a reason I'd want this lens.

I think those samples look good. Sharpness seems good, distortion minimal (seriously, it's really wide, there's some barrel distortion, but it seems very acceptable and easy to fix), CA isn't a big problem (I can see it zoomed in, but man, it looks like it's maybe 5px wide, and that's on a 50MP sensor)...

I don't think I can afford to buy it right now, and my Tamton 15-30 does an excellent job. But if I had the money, I'd get it. I'd just wait to see how stars look first.

But 14mm f/1.8 is an extreme design. It performs really really well.

There seems to be quite a few new high quality, large aperture, wide angle lenses coming onto the market. Here is another with a couple of pictures.
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/59208794

I know its a 14 but distortion seems high.

Very underwhelming performance in regards to fringe and cloudy corners by rendering details with ghosting.

Also, for all you "Anti Aliasing Filters aren't necessary" you couldn't be more wrong. Several of these shots are just ruined by aliasing. look at those patterns in the grate in Image 10. I would be very mad if I came home with images like that!!

There are several posts about "severe distortions" with this lens. As an old school photographer I find it quite disconcerting that these posters quite clearly do not understand the nature of rectilinear projection, but think that the edge/corner elongation is caused by a flaw in lens design or manufacture, while it is a mathematical fact which can not be avoided. The wider the picture angle, the worse it gets, and nothing can be done about it if we want straight lines to be represented by straight lines in the picture.

Still these "experts" have the audacity to post these uninformed opinions (alternative facts?) of theirs, highlighting their ignorance.

I would like to see a picture of a star field at max aperture, shot fast enough to make sure trailing is not an issue, for every lens evaluated. If you want to learn where a lens is weak, this is one of the best ways to do so. Coma and chromatic aberration levels are immediately obvious, and comparisons between lenses (and apertures of the same lens) are very informative and easily understood.

IMO Sigma would have done better to produce a smaller aperture version up to Art standards, but weighing in at no more than about 600 gm and costing half as much.

Unlike goactive, I sold off my D300 and bought a D610, keeping the full frame lenses I had bought while still using film. I also bought the AF-S Nikkor 20mm f/1.8G ED as I mostly like to shoot landscapes very wide. Had a suitable shorter focal length lens been available, I probably would have bough that instead. Perhaps the Irix 15mm would have done.

I will be keeping my Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 EX DG HSM Mk I. Testing it on the D610 last week I found that it was even across the frame and was already performing close to its optimum even at full aperture. Mine is quite sharp and has negligible distortion. On the D300 it was only so-so.

The results look good but the size, weight and high price are off-putting, considering you will also need to pay for a caddy or daily exercises in the gym.

A lot of folks (like myself) are very interested in lenses like these for nightscape photography. Sure would be nice if you could include one or 2 tripod mounted star field shots of short enough exposure to not trail the stars so we could evaluate the coma of the lens in the corners.

Uh, too many distortions. And that is the problem with 3rd party lenses; nothing inside camera will react to the lens, and try to fix something that should have been sorted out in lens design.

Definitely an interesting lens,,, some of the samples look to be front-focused a bit,, maybe it's just me, maybe it's a copy-specific thing. I'll probably still buy this.

Honestly, sometimes Sigma does these "stunt" lenses just to do something unprecedented and tickle the imagination of the photography gearhead-set.

Sometimes they shine, sometimes they have minor caveats, and sometimes major ones.

It seems that with the amount of coma they can't seem to keep out of their ultra-fast UWAs, these lenses are actually more niche than the already-niche wide-field astro application that people keep hoping Sigma can work some magic with.

Do these seem to be reasonable UWA primes? Sure. Are they ultra-fast, faster than anything before? Sure. Can you run them wide-open? Sure, there's probably enough DoF at this short FL for reasonable usage. Can you run them wide-open at night at point light sources like everyone wants to? Well...

Honestly, I think people would have been more pleased had this just been a coma-free 14mm f/2-something at Sigma's Global Vision build quality.

Well, Dan, that eye...

Fresh venue in this lens brings it well...

There's one subject we miss, maybe later.

These are very fine, many of them.

Beautiful images, very crisp and nice color, but once you tilt the camera everything gets so distorted, it's annoying.
Maybe when you buy this lens buy a stepladder at the same time so you can photograph taller things without having to deal with so much ga-boing!!!! from the wide angle.

I am not impressed at all. Lots of visible distortions and softness. And yes, I know it's a very wide angle lens.

I was hoping better than this. I would've got it for Astrophotography.

unimpressed and totally useless lens. at 1,8 corner are really soft...in addiction the distortion of faces and element at 14 is already heavy. apart some creative effect with shallow depth of field a perfect 14 2,8 with zero distortion, kind of laowa 12, would have been much interesting. luckily they not do in k1 mount but after watch the gallery is the less interesting lens sigma did.

I wish this pro-wide angle bias would end. I'd sell my soul to see a review of at least one super-telephoto lens for a change. Just who started this irrational super-wide-angle fad anyway?

My nikon 14-24 F2.8 is very curious about this one .. it felt threatened by the 20mm 1.4 ART I tried but that didn't last as it was sent back.

Waiting for starfield shots ....

A gallery of f/5.6 images isn't very helpful. Any non-crap lens should be able to produce sharp photos at f/5.6. We need lots of images at f/2.8 and faster, ESPECIALLY with detail in the corners. The images in this gallery with objects in the corner tend to have them very close to the camera, so it's difficult to tell whether the massive softness is due to lens aberrations or just focus limitations.

Come on, DPR, you can produce a more helpful sample gallery than this.

The single most important test for this lens, a field of stars at various apertures, wasn't included. That single scene tells you everything you need to know about a lens: corner sharpness, vignetting, astigmatism/coma, and field curvature!

<insert Michael Scott NOOOOO meme here>

The 1.8 shot that shows a corner even remotely in focus has *huge* coma. At first I hoped to god that it was just because it was the 5DsR's resolution making the "coma wings" larger, but even after cropping to 16:9 and scaling down to 4K, it is still BAD COMA.

Who the heck is this lens aimed at, if not astro shooters, Sigma? Cinema is really all there is left, and if Sigma was that dedicated to serving cinema shooters, then they would have started designing cine style lenses back when they decided that the 24 1.4 Art and 20 1.4 Art ought to have plenty of coma, too.

Bah-humbug. Rokinon 14 2.4 it is, I bet.

Very impressive.
Would love to see a night sky shot at f1.8 to check the coma.

Gosh, the corners look pretty sharp!

I just came here for the comments.

Shut up and take my money! Never thought that I'd like something this wide, but with 1.8 and AF, this looks exciting. There's no way this is below $1k.

I was hoping to see a night shot, made at f1.8, which would have shown how much coma the lens has.

Too bad.

:(

Samples <3 Dan Bracaglia <3 <3 Sigma 14/1.8 Art <3 <3 <3

Budget for Sigma lenses augmented.

Please shoot a (clear) night sky wide open for approx 30 seconds with this lens on a full frame sensor. I'd like to see how it renders point light sources (aka stars) towards the edges/corners of the frame.

I was excited with the announcement of the Sigma 24 f1.4, but then I saw a review which included a point light source in the corners & edges shot wide open & I was a bit disappointed. I'm hoping this 14mm performs better with such things than the 24 appears to.