Sigma 30 mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM review - Distortion

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Sigma 30 mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM

18 August 2009

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Szymon Starczewski

6. Distortion

As everybody knows, distortion of the same optical construction mounted on different camera bodies will depend on the size of the detector. It’s no wonder, then, that the smallest distortion is expected with Olympus E-3, some higher with Canon 20D and the highest with all the other cameras having sensors of 1.5 factor.

For Sony A100, Pentax K10D and Nikon D200 the results are in perfect agreement. Every time we see a noticeable barrel distortion of values -2.10%, -2.12% and -2.13% respectively. The agreement is perfect as the measuring errors in the case of distortion usually equal 0.1%.

As we expected, Sigma on Canon 20D shows marginally lower distortion, as a measured by us result equals -1.91%. It’s no surprise that the result on E-3 is even smaller and equals -1.46%.

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In this category Sigma didn’t deserve much praise or reprimand. It’s worth to stress, though, that in a prime of this focal length, designed for small sensors, the level of this aberration should be smaller.