Sigma 35mm Art Lens Vs Sigma 30mm 14 Art

The Sigma 35mm Art is renowned for its sharpness and the Sigma Fine art series lenses are supposed to exist some of the best on the marketplace.  I purchased this lens dorsum in 2015, hoping information technology would make an first-class lens for Galaxy photography, with its f/one.4 aperture.  On my 2022 roadtrip, I was able to capture some stunning Galaxy photos with the Sigma!

Great Sand Dunes The Milky Way, as seen from Great Sand Dunes National Park

Oddly plenty, I never got around to testing the Sigma's operation until my recent trip to Cherry Springs.  I wanted to meet only how bad the coma really was.  For these tests I set the camera to an 8 second exposure, following the 300 Rule for abrupt stars.  I changed the aperture from f/1.four, f/ane.eight, f/2, f/two.viii in each subsequent photo.

I was really surprised to see how well the lens performed at f/ii.8 compared to the other aperture values.  Information technology's almost like a completely unlike lens!  The slideshow below shows each discontinuity value.  Detect how the vignette disappears at f/2.8.  Mobile users can click here to see the gallery.  (Desktop users tin can utilize the Correct and Left pointer keys to quickly swap between images)

The vignette can be easily corrected by stopping down.  Alternatively, y'all can utilize the built-in Lens Correction Profile in Adobe Photographic camera RAW to remove the vignette.  After applying the profile corrections, each prototype looked virtually identical.

Coma

Coma is always a major business concern for any lens at night.  Instead of having pin-point precipitous stars, they appear to grow wings.  This tin can usually be fixed by stopping-down.  Personally, if I have a lens that can open up upward to f/1.4, I desire to use it there!  More calorie-free is e'er better when photographing at night.  The slideshow beneath shows 2 blackout examples.  One was a very heavy crop to the right corner of the image.  The other was a heavy crop most the heart.  Click here to visit the Blackout Gallery.

At f/1.four the coma is pretty bad.  Even in the center of the image, the stars are showroom some coma distortion.  Information technology took until f/2.8 for the coma to disappear entirely.  Another thing you lot'll notice is how much noisier the image becomes as the lens is stopped down.  Every bit the aperture changes from f/1.4 to f/2.8, there is a loss of four times the corporeality of lite!!  Now you tin can see why I desire to use this lens at f/i.4 as much as possible!

Click here to see the coma on the Nikon fourteen-24mm, Tamron 15-30mm, and Rokinon 14mm.

35mm vs Wide Angle

If you're planning to do nightscapes, with the Milky way above and mural below, a 35mm lens may exist besides narrow.  In my experience, the 35mm focal length is just wide plenty to capture the core of the Milky Way with a sliver of foreground.  I normally apply a xiv-24mm lens for my nightscape photos.  Not only does a wider lens permit me to apply a much longer shutter speed, I can almost always contain an interesting foreground and sky in one paradigm.  With the 35mm focal length, you volition likely demand to create panoramas.  This tin ultimately lead to a much higher quality paradigm, only it'due south a lot more difficult.

Your Depth of Field with the Sigma 35mm Fine art volition also be a business concern.  At 14mm I can focus on the stars, and know that my foreground volition likely all the same be sharp, even at f/2.viii!  The wider the lens, the more depth of field you volition have.  At 35mm yous will likely demand to focus stack if you want to get a dainty foreground in.  Combine this with having to practise a panorama, and you're in for a nightmare!

If y'all plan to buy this lens, I would recommend looking into a star tracker.  You tin then utilize the lens at f/two.8 and employ a much longer shutter speed, without star trails.  If you align the star tracker precisely, you could probably shoot up to 3 minutes without star trails!  This would event in about noise-gratuitous images, with a lot more particular and color!  Then, you can employ your Milky Manner photo and blend information technology with a foreground image in Photoshop.  You lot can sentinel my blending tutorial on Youtube, which covers this process in-depth.

For the prototype below, I focused on the stars.  Every bit y'all tin can run across, the Joshua Tree's were slightly out of focus, even though they were at to the lowest degree ten feet abroad from the camera.  If I had been using a 14mm lens, I literally could have been 1-two feet away from the tree and still had precipitous stars and a sharp tree!

Last Thoughts

The Sigma 35mm Art tin can capture an boggling amount of light when opened up to f/i.four.  This volition allow you to capture tons of item in the Galaxy and substantially reduce the corporeality of grain.  However, the coma functioning is pretty bad when the lens is wide-open.  Therefore, if I am using my star tracker, I'll actually utilize f/iv.  At f/4 the stars are finally mostly free of coma and distortion.

When using this lens, there are a couple different routes yous could get.  Set up the photographic camera to f/2.8 and take multiple photos (20+).  This process is chosen Photo Stacking and will remove the grain from the photo.  I recommend using Sequator, a free stacking software, to practise this.  This method will allow for sharp stars, no vignette, and a grain-gratis image!  Click here to watch my Sequator video.

Alternatively, you can purchase a star tracker and gear up the camera to f/4.  The star tracker volition move the photographic camera at the same speed equally Earth's rotation, allowing you to take much longer photos without star trails.  If you lot set it up correctly, you lot can shoot a unmarried exposure for well over 2 minutes without any mistiness in the stars!  Of course, you lot would and so need to blend a static foreground photo with the tracked sky photo.  This would give yous a sharp foreground and noise-gratis, incredibly detailed sky. Click here to learn more about Star Trackers.

Ultimately, the Sigma 35mm Art is a expert lens, merely it has flaws.  One major flaw I didn't discuss in this postal service is the auto-focus performance.  I lost about 90% of the photos from a portrait shoot considering the camera was front-focusing considerably, leaving the model blurry.  Obviously this isn't a concern for nightscapes, only information technology'due south worth mentioning.

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Source: https://www.peterzelinka.com/blog/2017/6/sigma-35mm-art--astrophotography

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