SLRgear Review

March 24, 2016

by Andrew Alexander

Sigma released the 60mm ƒ/2.8 DN "Art" lens in 2013, as part of their "Art" line of lenses. With this lens, the mirrorless subset of Art line (at the time of writing) offers a 19mm lens, 30mm lens, and now the 60mm lens. The 60mm lens is available for mirrorless cameras only (as indicated by the "DN" specification) in either Micro Four-Thirds mount or Sony E-mount.

The lens provides a 120mm equivalent field of view on Micro Four-Thirds, or 90mm on the Sony E-mount: we were provided with the MFT lens to test on our Panasonic GX1 body. The Sigma 60mm ƒ/2.8 DN "Art" lens ships with a hood, accepts 46mm filters, and is available now for just over $200.

Sharpness

In a word: sharp. The lens isn't complicated, with just 8 elements in 6 groups, and the product is sharp images pretty much straight out of the gate at ƒ/2.8. According to our test results, it actually does get fractionally better at ƒ/4, but I can't imagine you'd see the difference unless you looked very closely indeed. It's sharp all the way through to the point where diffraction limiting starts to become present, at ƒ/11, but even then it's barely an issue. More noteworthy is the generalized softness that occurs at ƒ/16 and ƒ/22, which are best avoided if you can help it.

Chromatic Aberration

Chromatic aberration is extremely well-controlled on this lens. The only place you'll notice it is wide open at ƒ/2.8, and where CA is visible, it shows up in the extreme corners only in areas of high contrast, as magenta fringing.

Shading (''Vignetting'')

There is little to worry about for corner shading with this lens: at ƒ/2.8, the extreme corners are a quarter-stop darker than the center. At any other focal length, however, it is negligible.

Distortion

There's almost no distortion to speak of when using the Sigma 60mm ƒ/2.8 DN. There is some very slight pincushion distortion visible, but it's barely noticeable, and if you truly need your straight lines to be straight, it's uncomplicated distortion which is easily correctable in post-processing.

Autofocus Operation

The Sigma 60mm ƒ/2.8 DN "Art" lens isn't particularly fast to focus, taking about a second to slew from close-focus to infinity; it's not particularly slow, either. Attached 46mm filters won't rotate, making life that little bit easier for polarizer users. It uses a linear AF motor, which is quiet in operation.

Macro

With a maximum magnification of just 0.14x, and a minimum close-focusing distance of 55cm (around nineteen inches), this isn't the lens you want to go to for your macro needs.

Build Quality and Handling

Sigma's taken an interesting approach with this lens: its design is about as basic as it comes, featuring a glossy finish (in black or silver) with absolutely no external controls: there is no distance scale, no depth of field indicator, no switches or buttons. The only control feature is the focusing ring, which is essentially the main body of the lens.

The texture of the focusing ring will be an acquired taste: rather than having a segmented texture for extra grip, the ring is smooth metal, cold to the touch, but otherwise fine for manually focusing. As with most mirrorless lenses the focusing action is not mechanical, so the ring will turn forever in either direction without letting you know you have reached closest-focus or infinity.

The lens ships with the LH520-03 hood, a bayonet-mounted round hood that can be reversed for storage on the lens. The hood is 7/8" long.

Alternatives

Olympus 60mm ƒ/2.8 M.Zuiko Digital ED ~$550

Olympus' 60mm is built for macro use, and is substantially more expensive, but you get a lot of features for the premium price. Macro shooters will enjoy a four-point focus limiter, a magnification scale, and an excellent manual focus ring. Optically, the lenses are very similar. The Olympus version also offers a dust- and splash-proof construction.

Sony E 50mm ƒ/1.8 OSS ~$300

It's not exactly the same focal length, but the Sony 50mm offers a significantly faster maximum aperture, for not a whole lot more money. Optically, the Sigma is slightly better than the Sony, but stopped down to ƒ/4, either lens is fantastic.

Panasonic 42.5mm f/1.7 ASPH POWER OIS LUMIX G ~$350

Not quite the same focal length, but it's the longest lens Panasonic offers in a prime. It's small, light, and affordable, as well as sharp. The aperture is quite a bit brighter on this lens, but you don't get as much reach.

Conclusion

Sigma has rounded out its Art lineup with an excellent telephoto lens in the 60mm ƒ/2.8. For the money, you really can't beat the performance, and given that there aren't a lot of options in this category, Sigma has once again forged ahead into new territory and produced a winner.

Product Photos

Sample Photos

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.