I tried making some usefull samples for the new Sigma 30mm EX DN lens that just came out here. I'm not good in reviewing as I'm no photography gearhead, so feel free to comment.

Testconditions: Sony NEX 3 (FW 0.4), tripod, JPEG Fine, ISO 200, center AF area, DRO-Off. Import and export in LR4, no PP applied, no sharpening on export.

I've made center, corner and CA samples on 100% crop. See below.

Centers




Corners




CA




Flare (clickable)

Flare was difficult to produce. No matter how I positioned the camera and lens towards the sun, this was the worst I could accomplish for now.



Links to full size images: f/2.8, f/3.2, f/3.5, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11

AF is pretty fast and very quiet. Your ears need to be very close to even hear the AF! I noticed that when you shake the lens, some element appears to be loose or floating. I think it's by design though.

It seems a very capable lens for the money (€189).

Mark

Excellent work Mark.
From what I see, best aperture is around 4-5.6

Thanks Doc and I agree for overal IQ, although corner sharpness seems to be best at f/8 and CA control from f/11.

Mark

Wow you put a lot of effort into that Mark, well done.
Greg

Thanks for all the effort that you put in to this Mark. Very interesting. The rattle in the lens is worrying though .

Well, it's not a exactly a rattle, but more the shifting of something inside the lens when you turn it upside down.

Mark

If you scan the manual, you may notice Sigma advising that rattling sound when the lens is powered off is quite normal.

Then about the quality of the 30mm/19mm EX DN Sigmas, everyone should have been expecting pretty good performance simply because these two are the same glass they use on their premium quality DP series 'compacts'.

As soon as I see them on the brick-and-mortar sale, I'm going to pick and buy quite few copies. But it seems that even a mail order can't fail for the time being as the rejects have not yet accumulated in the pipeline, and we're yet to see just a single real complaint...

That's my problem, never read manuals. Thanks.

Mike Kobal did some testing of his own on a Nex 7. See his website.

Mark

Good to know the rattle isn't a problem. Very nice to have another affordable lens on the virtual shelf

good test ! .

So far, Sigma looks like to have build very interesting prime lenses for the price. The 2.8 is a little bit of switch off for me for the moment, but I'm still interest because of the image quality vs price. I think buyer looking for old Manual focus in the range of F2.8 should really take importance to the two new Sigma lenses, because there is strong chance you will buy new stuff for less than on Ebay on old use lens for the same quality.

Regards,

Frank

Thanks Frank.

I took some shots of the lens mounted on the NEX 3, so you can see how the lens looks mounted on the camera. As you can see, it's nice and compact.





Mark

Looks very good on the Black Nex body

Pity they went for 46mm filter thread rather than 49mm. I would have thought it was easy enough to match the rest of the Nex line.

One would think so, yes. Sigma in their great wisdom decided otherwise however