Sigma 8-16 mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM review - Vignetting

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Sigma 8-16 mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM

25 May 2010

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

Wide zooms even on small APS-C/DX sensors can have significant vignetting. The Nikkor 10-24 mm at almost all focal lengths and wide open showed the vignetting at the level of 40 %. The older Sigma 10-20 mm f/4-5.6 fared a bit better because in its case these values ranged from 32 to 35 %. The Canon EF-S 10-22 mm for a difficult combination of 10 mm and f/3.5 had 47% of light fall-off in the frame corners.

Let’s check how the new Sigma 8-16 mm will fare in this category.

Sigma 8-16 mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM - Vignetting

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We see the biggest amount of problems at the shortest focal length. At the maximum relative aperture the light fall-off in the frame corners amounts to as much as 50% (-2.01 EV). Unfortunately stopping down helps just a little and is quite unsatisfactory, a performance often met in such constructions. By f/5.6 the vignetting is still high and reaches 46%, by f/8.0 it decreases to 39%. On further stopping down we see very little change because by f/11 and slower relative apertures the vignetting remains at the level of about 35%.

Fortunately at longer focal lengths the situation is significantly better. At 12 mm and f/5.0 the brightness loss in the frame corners is 34% (-1.21 EV). By f/8.0 it decreases to the value of 27% and by f/11 to 24%. On further stopping down we don’t see any further decrease of this aberration’s level.

At the maximum focal length the situation is quite similar to what we saw in the middle of the focal range. By f/5.6 the vignetting amounts to 33% (-1.18 EV) and it decreases to 27% on stopping down by one EV stop. Further stopping down doesn’t influence the level of that aberration almost at all.