News

DxOMark: Sigma’s New 50mm f1.4 Art Lens Doesn’t Best Zeiss Otus

Chris Gampat
No Comments
04/17/2014
2 Mins read
Screen Shot 2014-04-16 at 8.51.07 AM

Last Updated on 11/05/2015 by DigitalMGMT

Screen Shot 2014-04-16 at 8.51.07 AM

DxOMark is announcing their Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art lens findings today. According to what they did in the lab, the company concludes that the lens is outperformed by the 55mm f1.4 Zeiss Otus lens only in terms of light transmission, distortion control, and vignetting control. Otherwise, they’re basically exactly spot on when it comes to sharpness numbers. The even more fascinating news is that they both wipe the floor with Canon’s f1.2 L offering–and hopefully will dispel the myth that someone should only go for all L glass when building their Canon kit.

The company didn’t test the lens on the Nikon D800E and we figure that this is mostly because the units going around right now are Canon mount.

More findings are after the jump.

Screen Shot 2014-04-16 at 8.58.02 AM

Considering an upgrade from your current 50mm f1.4 Sigma lens? Well, DxOMark believes that is sharper, has less distortion and suffers from less chromatic aberration. We’re inclined to agree, but when stopped down it’s tough to tell the differences between the two. Have a look for yourself in our comparison against the 50mm f1.4 version 1. I’m probably not going to upgrade mine, but I also barely use my 50mm over my 35mm f1.4 Art lens.

So if you’re going for the absolute best in image quality then it looks like you’ll need to reach for the Zeiss Otus lens. Indeed, we gave it our highest rating during our review period. We also liked the bokeh from the Zeiss better, though turning the focusing ring manually may throw off your focusing.

Be sure to also check out our first sample images, a full Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art lens review, and comparison posts against the 35mm f1.4 and 50mm f1.4 version 1.

50mm f1.4 50mm f1.4 L 55mm 55mm f1.4 Otus art lens canon comparison dxomark otus sigma zeiss
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.