Photo Plus - UK (2019-09)

The Canon Magazine 97

SIGMA 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art

FEATURES

Sharpness is exceptional throughout the entire focus range, right down to the
shortest setting that delivers full 1.0x macro magnification

Shooting at 0.3x magnification, there’s relatively little extension of the inner barrel
and sharpness remains excellent even when shooting at f/16

f/11, 1.0x magnification

f/16, 0.3x magnification

VERDICT Optically, this is a fabulous lens that delivers incredibly sharp close-ups with immense fine detail, complete with ultra-precise focusing. The only real drawback is that, with an extending inner barrel, the full 1.0x macro working distance is quite short at 6cm.

FEATURES BUILD & HANDLING IMAGE QUALITY VALUE OVERALL

Levels of sharpness are spectacular throughout most of the aperture range, at all focus distances.

SHARPNESS 2500

2500

1500

1000

500

C

e

n

tr

e

E

d

g

e

f/4

f/2.8

f/8

f/5.6

f/16

f/11

f/22

2000

-6 –5 –4 -3 -2 -1 0 123

There’s almost no colour fringing visible in images, even at the corners.

Macro lenses tend to have low distortion but it’s practically zero in the new Sigma.

DISTORTION

0.09

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

FRINGING (AT EDGE)

f/5.6 f/8

f/16

f/11

f/22

f/4

f/2.8

distances. Sigma claims that this is to enable the best performance at every shooting distance.

Performance Contrast and centre-sharpness are ace between f/2.8 and f/11, and there’s little drop-off towards the edges of the frame. Due to diffraction, there’s a fall-off in sharpness at narrow apertures, but no worse than competing macros. Colour fringing is entirely negligible and the lens is practically free of distortion. The lack of stabilization may be frustrating for general shooting but it would be of limited value for extreme close-ups anyway.

01 With an extending inner barrel, the minimum working distance is just 6cm even without the hood fitted.

02 The front element is deeply recessed within the inner barrel.

03 The extending inner barrel has a focus distance scale and magnification factors printed on it.

04 Electronically coupled, the ‘fly-by-wire’ manual focus ring enables extremely fine adjustments.

05 A three-position autofocus limiter switch can lock out either the long or short end of the range.

06 A weather-seal ring is fitted to the brass mounting plate.

07 The design omits an optical image stabilizer.

focusing works with precision. This is due to the focus ring being electronically coupled, to enable ¶Á\E\ZLUH·PDQXDOIRFXVLQJZLWK small increments of adjustment. The optical design incorporates two top-grade FLD (‘Fluorite’ Low Dispersion) elements and two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements, along with one high refractive index element. Two aspherical elements are also incorporated, with the aim of enhancing resolution at very close focus settings. A similarity with the 70mm older lens, and a notable difference from the 105mm, is the lack of internal focusing. As a result, the inner barrel extends at shorter focus

Photo Plus - UK (2019-09)

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