So I made some further observations after the first review yesterday. I also got a message telling me that other and more detailed shots are needed to see. So here we go. Below you will find the corner and center crops from shots I took today in the morning. The shots were made handheld and the ISO was limited to 100. First the center shots of a street scene using apertures 2.8, 4 and 8
As you can see, the center gets sharper at f/4 to soften up at f/8. Next you will see the details in the upper right corner. As you can notice there is a slight purple fringing which gets softer when the lens is stepped down. 
Strangely enough the shot at f/4 is not sharp. I think the branch has moved in the wind, but the wall looks sharper.You can find the full SOOC shots here. As a conclusion I have to say, that for me the lens is very fine wide open. I haven’t considered if I prefer f/8 or f/16 for my night cityscapes. What still is strange to me is that the lens falls in to a resting position when turned off with a hearable soft *tock*. What I have not tested by now is the fact, that the lens seems to take long to “boot” – the Iris is closed and opens wide only to get stepped into positions. I will save this for the next blog entry. If you have questions you can also leave a comment. @Edit20120420: A reader mentioned that he thinks the blurriness at f/4 in the corner could be due to the exhaust of the truck you see. This sounds reasonable as everything is a little bit blurry in that corner.
Tag Archives: review
Quick review of the Sigma 30mm 1:2.8 EX DN for Sony Nex E-Mount
When I first took it out of the packaging I thought it was broken. But the lens element is not fixed if the lens is not “on”, aperture is closed.
Size is smaller than the 18-55 kit lens, I would say it is as if someone cut the kit lens between zoom and focus ring. Build quality is high and solid plastics. It feels good and I like the smooth focus ring. I tried some shots, could not find any odd things. I doscovered some very soft magenta streaks in very high dynamic regions when pixelpeeping. Concerning the quality I would say that this is a no-brainer for Euro 199,-.
For those of you who like pixelpeeping I have some testshots in f/2.8, f/4 and f/8 at my ge.tt acount, for all the others: A wallpaper in Full-HD.
Lessons learned with my first manual lens on DSLR
I recently bought a manual lens on ebay. I saw some pictures taken with a manual lens on flickr and got curious. Some minutes and EUR 88,- later (USD 125,-) I was the owner of a Revuenon 55mm f1.4, an adapter for the M42 screw mount to EF and a lens hood.
The first impression was heavy. This glass is built like a tank. Metal everywhere. Great! And the aperture is 1.4 so it is fast. The DOF is shallow. So the first tests were on how the glass reacts to bad lighting and how to operate the little gem.
So the first thing I learned: Take your time.
In some light conditions it is fairly easy to focus with the view finder, but especially if you are close to the object it is better to us the liveview. The DOF is so shallow that it can be the trickiest part of the whole procedure to focus.
Once I knew the signature of my glass I took it for a walk. And I had fun!
Feet of steel will show you, that the DOF is shallow! Recognize the small strip of sharpness on the ground. Small details like this can be useful when focusing by hand. Continue Reading →
