New Sigma 16-28mm f2.8 Contemporary (L mount and E mount)

[BTM_Pix]

Sigma are certainly holding up their end of the bargain for the L mount alliance in creating a great set of compact size/price lens options.

At €899 it is about 65% of the price of the slightly longer reaching Panasonic's 16-35mm but at f2.8 versus f4 of the Panasonic it is also a fair bit faster.

 

 

[IronFilm]

But will the autofocus performance on the Panasonic S5 be just as good with the Sigma lens as the Panasonic 16-35mm f4?

[Andrew Reid]

Meanwhile Canon's version is 2500 euros!

Any 16mm F2.8 zoom is going to take some serious glass, so these are not easy to make. I think it shows how much is going into the pockets of shareholders at the publicly listed companies vs private though.

Sigma can do this kind of lens for 1600 euros less than a corporation.

And they are making less of them too.

Which means the profit margins at Canon / Sony / etc. are absolutely enormous and we're being seriously ripped off.

[newfoundmass]

Sigma feels like a throwback in many ways, at least when it comes to business. I don't even feel like their prices are strictly to undercut the competition, because if that was their sole intention they could easily charge more and still be significantly cheaper than Sony, Canon, Panasonic, etc. I don't generally like to give corporations the benefit of the doubt, in fact I feel like doing so well inevitably result in being proven wrong, but it really doesn't feel like their sole goal is to make as much money as possible, no matter what. 

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I hate that most of the reviews are on Sony bodies. That doesn't really tell me much about two of the biggest things I want to know when making a purchase: how well does it play with Panasonic's IBIS (are the corner wobbles really bad?) and their AF in video. The only L-mount reviews I've found were people using it on Sigma cameras, unfortunately. 

[Andrew Reid]

I'd have thought it would perform very similarly to Panasonic's L mount lenses when mounted on the S5 or similar.

The AF system and IBIS are more a function of the camera than the lens!

[newfoundmass]

Very true, though I was curious if the wider angle might help! 

[Andrew Reid]

Wide angle is always pretty bad for IBIS. Better off switching to a lens with OIS at 24mm or wider or just turning it off.

Wide angle shots don't need a ton of stabilisation.

AF is probably better at 16mm than 28mm. Less work for the camera to do as there's a much deeper DOF going on.

[FHDcrew]

1 hour ago, newfoundmass said:

I hate that most of the reviews are on Sony bodies. That doesn't really tell me much about two of the biggest things I want to know when making a purchase: how well does it play with Panasonic's IBIS (are the corner wobbles really bad?) and their AF in video. The only L-mount reviews I've found were people using it on Sigma cameras, unfortunately. 

Yes that is the situation on YouTube. Sony and Canon are good at marketing. Way more of the “big time” YouTubers talk about, and hype up, Sony or canon gear. It’s to the point where if you are on a different system, like a Nikon Z9 or a Sigma FP L, you almost get a little lost because there just isn’t so much *mostly* helpful content on these cameras. I ran into that problem with my Nikon Z6, have had to figure out a lot of stuff through trial and error. For example there are oodles of “how to grade S-Log 3 S-CINETONE LUT PACK” videos, but can hardly find videos on good exposure practices for Nikon N-Log, for example. I had to play around with that myself. I suppose that makes me more disciplined, but still. 
 

Then there is the whole “I will teach you how to be a professional colorist just like me. Easy solution. Sell all your lighting gear and buy my S-LOG PROGRADE MATTI LUT PACK!!  USE PROMO CODE squarespace22 TO GET 2.3% off!”  And then they don’t even teach FUNDAMENTAL grading principles. It’s like they want to hide the info from the users so they will just buy the lut packs and purchase Sony gear through there Amazon Affiliate Link!!

Sorry for the little mini rant…

[Al Dolega]

21 hours ago, IronFilm said:

But will the autofocus performance on the Panasonic S5 be just as good with the Sigma lens as the Panasonic 16-35mm f4?

Equally important to me is the manual focus performance- is it compatible with linear mode and can you set the focus throw? I love my 16-35 f4's focus clutch and it handles so nicely in manual mode.

[IronFilm]

2 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

Sigma feels like a throwback in many ways, at least when it comes to business. I don't even feel like their prices are strictly to undercut the competition, because if that was their sole intention they could easily charge more and still be significantly cheaper than Sony, Canon, Panasonic, etc. I don't generally like to give corporations the benefit of the doubt, in fact I feel like doing so well inevitably result in being proven wrong, but it really doesn't feel like their sole goal is to make as much money as possible, no matter what. 

When you look at their prices of some lenses at launch (when demand is high) vs a few years later, then it does seem they've got a fair bit of profit margin there still for themselves 🙂

[newfoundmass]

28 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

When you look at their prices of some lenses at launch (when demand is high) vs a few years later, then it does seem they've got a fair bit of profit margin there still for themselves 🙂

That's common for pretty much everything though in the camera industry. They could in all honestly charge an extra $300 for this lense and it'd still be a bargain compared to every other option that isn't Tamron. It just feels like they go beyond trying to undercut others, that they genuinely just want to give their customers the best value. 

[BTM_Pix]

Some examples with the Sigma FP-L

 

[TomTheDP]

6 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Some examples with the Sigma FP-L

I don't know if that was shot in RAW or h264 but the colors looked amazing.

[BTM_Pix]

18 minutes ago, TomTheDP said:

I don't know if that was shot in RAW or h264 but the colors looked amazing.

Yeah, it doesn't state which but with it being from Sigma then I would guess RAW but here is some from it on the regular Fp that is shot in h264.

 

[Emanuel]

Lovely! :- )

[amweber21]

19 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

I don't know if that was shot in RAW or h264 but the colors looked amazing.

I'd actually say that's the .MOV. My fp L clips similarly in the highlights. In raw it holds much better.

It's the fantastic color profiles they have in the camera!