Sigma 30 mm f/2.8 EX DN review - Introduction

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Sigma 30 mm f/2.8 EX DN

29 March 2012

Szymon Starczewski

1. Introduction

In January 2012 the Sigma company presented two lenses designed for mirrorless cameras - the Sigma 19 mm f/2.8 EX DN and the Sigma 30 mm f/2.8 EX DN. If I have to be honest I admit I was very surprised by that launch. In the case of the Micro 4/3 system a small sensor allows you to construct equally small and fast lenses so quite significant Sigma devices with f/2.8 aperture didn’t fit there at all. In Fuji, Samsung and Sony mirrorless systems we deal with an APS-C sensor and in its case the f/2.8 fastness is nothing impressing. Samsung proved it perfectly well designing a 2/30 ‘pancake’ type lens for its system which is characterized by very good optical properties. In such light the launches of Sigma were a total puzzle to me.

The riddle was solved at the beginning of February 2012 when Sigma showed its new DP series compact cameras equipped with a Foveon sensor of the APS-C format. They are offered with 2.8/19 and 2.8/30 lenses. You can suspect Sigma wanted to hit two birds with one stone. As they’ve already produced lenses for their own compacts, ‘disconnecting’ them and equipping with other mounts was not such a big problem. The situation is not as simple as it seems at first glance, though. Although the basic parameters of mirrorless cameras’ lenses, offered in DP Sigma devices, are the same, they differ in other crucial aspects – e.g. the optical construction. It seems the Sigma optics constructors thought it would be easier to introduce some slight changes than to change the aperture or design an entirely new lens from scratch.

We would like to thank the Sigma ProCentrum company for borrowing the lens for testing purposes.

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