Arrived today and unboxed, had a good old play. The weather is poor so can't do anything until really the weekend I guess but I have a wedding on the 22nd so that will be the real test.
Let's get the bad points out of the way first:
- The box is no longer black! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! It also doesn't feel as tough as previous Sigma boxes.
- The delivery note said it was a "gift lens" and marked at $17
, though it is DHL so I wasn't worried about it being manhandled badly
Phew, that took a while
The lens feels solid, it has lots of metal inside by the feel of it and on the outside the focus ring is metal as is the polished ring above the mounting plate, feels good indeed and unlike any other Sigma lens in this range. Definitely amped if this is the direction for all their new lenses!
The hood now has a ring of rubber where the mount/inscription is, it has a different texture to hoods of previous lenses, more matte.
It doesn't weigh that much less than the 85 1.4 even though it's thinner but slightly taller (same height with hoods attached).
Not quite sure what the 012 means, number 12 in production?
Sorry my samples right now will be standard stuff, the weather is rubbish and nothing is happening until at least the weekend
The below are untouched, just imported in LR then exported to jpg. The contrast is really impressive I found.
In the 1-2 hours I've been playing I've learnt that there is some purple and green fringing at 1.4, not tested where it stops fringing yet but on the 85mm the fringes stop at around 1.6-2.0 depending on the level of over exposure in those highlight areas but again, a mouse wheel up in the purple/green slider in the calibration tab in LR and it's completely sorted.
The sharpness is very good, probably a bit better than the 85mm I have in fact which also needed no microadjust.
I'll get better samples over the next few days, weather permitting!
For the £535 I paid for it, I'm chuffed with what I'm seeing!
