Last Updated on 09/07/2016 by Chris Gampat
Sigma is getting into the cinema lens business; it was announced today that the Japanese lens manufacturer will be introducing a new line of cinema lenses designed specifically for high-resolution capture on today’s modern high res digital sensors, with Sigma boasting the lenses ready for high quality 6K and 8K video capture.
In total the Sigma Cine Lens line is launching with 8 lenses total; two Super 35 T/2 zooms, a full frame compatible 24-35mm, and 5 FF compatible T/1.5 primes. Sigma is launching these lenses initially for Canon’s EF mount, as well as Sony’s E-Mount, with PL mount compatible versions coming at a later – as of now unannounced – time.
Announced Sigma Cine Lenses
- 18-35mm T/2 – S35 Zoom
- 50-100mm T/2 – S35 Zoom
- 24-35mm T/2.2 – FF Zoom
- 20mm T/1.5 – FF Prime
- 24mm T/1.5 – FF Prime
- 35mm T/1.5 – FF Prime
- 50mm T/1.5 – FF Prime
- 85mm T/1.5 – FF Prime
In addition to their impressive fast apertures, each of Sigma’s Cine Lenses will be weather sealed and feature luminous paint marking to make it easier to read the lenses in low light situations. The Cine Lenses will also all feature a standardized 82mm front filter size. So far the pricing has not yet been announced, but Sigma says that the first of these Cine offerings will start to be available towards the end of 2016 and into early 2017.
The interesting thing to note here is that Sigma says these lenses were developed specifically for Cinema use – but these all appear to be lenses already seen in their still photography lines – like the Art series for example. It would seem unlikely that they developed 8 brand new optical designs and released them all at once – so our interpretation of this is that the optical formula’s are probably essentially the same as those found in their still image counterparts (maybe tweaked to achieve those impressive T-Stop numbers), but that the rest of the lens design was developed specifically with a Cinema use in mind. We have reached out for clarification on this point, and will update this once we get sufficient clarification from Sigma.
More clear pricing and availability on a lens by lens basis will be made public at a later date. More information can be found over on Sigma’s new mini-site for the Cine Lens line here.