I’ve been wanting this lens for a very long time, ever since I bought my Sony ZV-E10, which at the time of writing is just over a year ago. I couldn’t ever justify the price, £359.99 on amazon, specially as my setup was doing just fine.
Cut to a few weeks ago, I was filming an overhead shot with the ZV-E10 and the camera fell off the mount (my fault obviously), hit the table directly on the Sony 16–50mm kit lens, essentially damaging it beyond repair.
Needing a new lens immediately, I purchased the one lens that I felt the Sony ZV-E10 deserved.
The Sigma 16mm F1.4 Lens, is probably one of the most talked about lens when it comes to Sony cameras. But I want to know if all the hype that it get’s is worth it?
Weighing in at 405g, this lens is actually more weighty than it looks, but that’s not a bad thing and it shouldn’t affect your ability to get any shot you want, but it does weigh more than the ZV-E10 and my other lenses (Sony 55–210mm zoom lens and the Neewer 35mm F1.7 manual lens).
It has a sturdy solid feeling in the hand, there’s nothing about the black look mixed with those ribbed textures or the metal and high end plastic mixture feel of this lens that doesn’t say it’s of high premium quality with that modern twist and sleek finish. If you’re familiar with other Sigma lenses than you’ll be getting much of the same with this one.
The manual focus is controlled by this large rubberised ribbed section, which rotates around the lens infinitely and smoothly, without giving you that stepped feedback or tactile feel that you get with some other lenses, but nevertheless, just like it’s weight, isn’t going to affect your control of the camera.
Because this is a prime lens, with a fixed focal length of 24mm when on a E-Mount or APS-C camera, which makes it a 35mm equivalent because of the cropped sensor, the lens does not extend during focusing or zooming, like this lens does, which provides its benefits when taking pictures or videos in certain conditions and definitely makes controlling gimbals a lot easier.
And as it’s a wide angle lens, you’re going to get a much wider field of view compared to the kit lens, but depending on which mounted version of this lens you get for your camera brand, each one across the different mounts has a varied wide angle range.
One of this lens’ star qualities that makes it both stand out from the competition and gives it a great value to performance ratio, is it’s ability to create that desired by many, background blur. To facilitate this, there is a 9 blade rounded diaphragm which gives a maximum aperture size of F1.4 all the way down to a minimum of F16, meaning that you’re going to get really good low light picture quality, with reduced flare and ghosting in bright light along with that nice bokeh. As there’s no aperture ring on the lens itself, changing the aperture is a on camera function only.
With the aperture wide open at F1.4, you’re going to be able to get some intimate shallow depth of fields shots and when you shack loads of photos together in post, get equally amazing shots.
This lens provides really fast and smooth autofocus at distances at and beyond it’s minimum focus distance of 25cm all the way to infinity, and does so very quietly and most instantly thanks to its optical and motor design. It utilises the normal fast hybrid autofocus that you expect from Sony cameras and their native lenses giving you a seamless performance whether your subject is still or moving.
I used to like the picture quality that I got out of the kit lens, yes it could have looked better, a bit sharper but for the average photographer, this would be more than enough, that was until I took photos and videos with this lens.
For everyday shooting, you’ll be impressed with the shots and the quality that you get, as it will give you images with a great level of detail shown in the main areas of the pictures across all available resolutions. At it’s max aperture of F1.4 you’ll really notice the difference between the centre and the extreme corners but if you dial the aperture down a little, then you’ll find that sweet spot.
But this is definitely a lens that is more than capable of producing impressively sharp detailed images, just like in these examples.
Video quality wise, compared to the kit lens that I was using before, I can see the difference between the sharpness and focus separation between the two lenses.
If you’re a vlogger, then this lens is ideal, because it’s wide enough to vlog handheld, which is going to help you create visually better looking content where the detail is sharp and the autofocus is going to be close to quick and silent.
There’s no built in lens optical stabilisation, like on some lenses like the kit lens, but you can use the camera’s own active stabilisation, but remember this will crop in to your frame a little more, or if you use applications like catalyst browse, where you can usually iron those shots out in post or you can use a gimbal.
This lens was built to compliment mirrorless cameras and you can see why. Made from quality materials, finished to a high standard and it even looks like a Sony lens, taking advantage of the technologies of your camera and utilising them to create potential masterpieces, this versatile lens should cater for most of your requirements. Some people may consider this lens to be a bit big, compared to other lens that are close to its specs but you’ll probably not find one that matches its price.
What you’re getting from this lens is it’s durability, it’s features, with the F1.4 aperture, for use in low light conditions and getting that background blur, it’s fast accurate autofocus, sharpness and it’s ability to produce detailed images and videos.
It’s straightforward and easy to use for those point and shoot technical shots that are going to produce impressive, detailed images in mostly all situations.
With just using this lens, I can see why there’s the hype around it from people and creators who have APS-C cameras like this one, as it can offer high quality resolution at the wide-open aperture and throughout the aperture range, the design of the lens allowing that smooth, quick and silent autofocus during video shooting, and the best part about this lens, is the price, something that most entry level users can at least strive for and it is certainly a great accessory to invest in, particularly if you’re taking and sharing high quality photos and videos.
Check out my video review on this lens