« Review and Recommendation: Fujifilm GFX100RF (Part 2) | Main | World Photograph Production Will Surpass Two Trillion for the First Time in 2025 »

Tuesday, 17 June 2025

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

The rage for giant maximum aperture, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the need to let in more light. Instead, a certain type of photographer relishes the ability to have almost the whole image out of focus due to limited depth of field. If that's what you like, great, go for it, and pay the price for heavy expensive glass, both in dollars and in back strain. Incidentally, this esthetic may have had a partial boost from a certain photo writer who introduced "bokeh" to America.

Somewhat interesting but I rather like my HD Pentax-DA 20-40mm F2.8-4 Limited DC WR more. 2.8 x 2.7 in & 10 oz on my K3. A little shorter range, a little slower but SO much smaller and easier to handle and the optical quality is exquisite.

Perhaps if I used a camera with one of those mounts I'd be more interested or if I didn't have such great glass for very usable cameras that changing isn't a temptation (no GAS? Who would have thought!) but in my world, that Limited lens does the job perfectly.

In my limited (and not necessarily reliable) experience, the "ART" in ART lenses is a euphemism for "creates images with abundant and pleasing bokeh," hence the fast apertures of pretty much all ART lenses.

"Years ago, Pentax prototyped a lens with an exceedingly narrow range"

Wasn't it something like a 5-10 mm range for that lens? (Just going from memory.)

Found it: https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2648/3801880226_5a61fa551c_b.jpg

https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/dcw/docs/747/104/p20.jpg

A friend has the SL3; I prefer the ergonomics, menus and on/off switch of my SL2, which still has outstanding IQ and a healthy 47 MP. (They’re selling mint used for near $2k these days.) I now solely use it with the SL 24-90 zoom, the best zoom workhorse I’ve ever owned, covering 6 prime equivalents with no practical sacrifice in my prints. It serves as a complement to my more compact M system, typically using a 35mm or 50mm prime. The new SL 28-70 f/2.8 compact zoom, a more elegant design than the Sigma equivalent, has some appeal for a lighter, walk-around, weather sealed option. And not too expensive, by Leica standards.

I’ll bet this lens is “yummy”, too. I have been so impressed with Sigma’s lenses for the past few years! Literally moment before reading this post I received Sigma’s 28-70 f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary lens. (It’s Sigma’s lighter and MUCH less expensive version of Leica’s recently-announced Vario-Elmarit 28-70 f/2.8. Many say the Leica is actually Sigma’s lens.) I am immediately impressed by just how light this thing is! Upon receipt I almost thought the box was empty….really. This lens looks like it’s very much in the same spirit - a light, fast 24-ish - 60-ish frame for APS-C!

Yeah, yummy. Sigma is on quite a remarkable tear!

I am not in the target market for this lens, but in general, the older I get the less impressed I become with fast-aperture, large, heavy lenses -- big zooms least of all -- unless it is a telephoto that allows me to get closer to birds and wildlife. But that's for a very specific use. For everything else, smaller and lighter is preferable.

I'm mostly a prime lens guy, but lately I have been using a zoom for my photographing of all the protests happening, including last weekend's "No Kings" event, which was my fifth protest. Initially, I used a wide-angle prime, which quickly became a limitation. Next I used a two lens kit (adding a short tele), offering more flexibility, but when I got home I found that during a lens change some dust got on my sensor.

So I broke out my Fujifilm XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4, and was rewarded with hundreds of great shots this Saturday. This Sigma looks great on paper, but it would not have been as effective for me this weekend because of the odd long end measurement. At 40mm, you'd be at a long normal range, and I shot way too many 55mm (84mm-e) portraits this weekend to accept a lens that doesn't go that long. I also shot most of my images somewhere between f/4 to f/8. Even 55mm at f/4 gave me great quality and just enough separation for the subject to pop. So I wouldn't need that fast aperture in a zoom, and I can switch to a prime with a faster f-stop if really needed.

My history with do-it-all zooms included the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 for my APS-C D300s. That lens was a bazooka, long, thick and heavy. It was (and is) optically great, but it is not a casual walking around lens. I found that sometimes a slower "less capable" lens could be more productive because you can actually carry it and get photos.

Speaking of the Bild show, that's chutzpah for you. Bild is Yiddish for picture.

The f1.8 is, as Nigel in the movie "This Is Spinal Tap" would say, taking it to eleven.

"the ƒ/1.8 maximum aperture of this lens is just that tiny bit faster. "

Kind of like Spinal Tap: "It goes to 11!"

(You can see _This is Spinal Tap_ on the big screen near you, since it is a Fathom Event)

As is Bild German for Picture.

Just got myself a very clean Zuiko 28-48/4.0 for my OM-2n. That was my dream lens, when i bought my first SLR (an OM 20) in 1995, but I had to settle for a Soligor 28-56/3.5-4.5 due to cost. 35 wasn’really wide enough for me.

In 2025, that Zuiko cost me all of 40 USD :-)

Mike, I have the same dream - a Leica SL and a couple of sigmas. I can’t stretch to a new SL3, but nearly grabbed an ex-demo SL2. I fear what would become of my otherwise excellent M43 system.

I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t have a need, a project, to use it on. In some ways I think resisting the urge has become my new project.

Despite its limitations, I can see a few use cases for the Sigma 17-40 F1.8. This lens could be useful for a seasoned prime shooter, someone who is used to shooting at any of the popular prime focal lengths: 28mm, 35mm, or 50mm. The 17-40 would give them added flexibility without sacrificing speed or image quality. Alternatively, this lens would be a nice option for a disciplined beginner, someone who wants to learn to take photos in the normal focal lengths and doesn't want to become dependant on ultra-wide or telephoto photography. 25-60mm is the zone of interestingness where most great photos are taken. Why not carry a high quality fast lens that covers this range exclusively?

Having said all that, I'll also make the counter argument. I started in photography in the bad old days of APS when the only available lenses were film era lenses designed for full frame cameras. At the time (2003), my first ever high quality lens was the Canon 17-40 F4 L. That lens took great looking photos, and it quickly became my main lens, but the limited zoom range was always a frustration. I was constantly switching to my 50mm plastic fantastic or my sigma 70-200 lenses. When I stepped up to full frame and a 24-70 zoom, I felt liberated.

This lens makes me think of my fantasy Fujifilm lens: a 16mm – 32mm f2.8 (they’ll never make it, of course). It would need to be compact and I might have to settle for f4, which I could do. I’d want an aperture ring and “premium” performance, so I don’t imagine it would be cheap.
Would I like using this lens on my XT-4 more than I like using my X100 VI? I’ll never know…

I have the Pentax 24-35mm f/3.5 zoom. It is a lovely small lens, and covers (for me) the two focal lengths I most prefer. (My preference is not to use zoom lens, and if i do, it's one with a short zoom range.)

But my case is mostly theatre photography, where I can and do bring 4 cameras. The zoom issue is not optical quality or lack of f/2, but rather I work better when I choose a camera+lens that projects the view I want onto the sensor, rather than adjusting the camera view to match the image I want. (So for pacing I likely have one zoom, but tend not to use it.)

For twelve years I carried one or two tank-like Canon F-1s with 28- and 50 mm lenses. Having then grown tired of the weight and bulk, I went to a delightful Olympus OM-2 with the Zuiko 28-48 mm zoom lens. Not quite a pancake lens, but a short stack at most. The zoom ring had a short throw and I would instinctively set it to either extreme as I raised the camera to my eye. Eventually I did learn to shoot throughout the entire range, for better and worse.

Not for me, although I'm happy to see that the industry still feels encouraged enough to develop niche products for real cameras!

For me on APS-C it would be a pretty useful range. (I find 50mm to be both to short and too long. Yes, I’m definitely an outlier.)

On “full frame” it would be absolutely perfect.

An unusual zoom lens from Pentax that did go into production was the 24-35mm ƒ/3.5 Pentax-M. It had a fixed maximum ƒ/3.5, not variable like many later zoom lenses.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-M-24-35-mm-F3.5-Zoom-Lens.html

This lens is a mirrorless successor to their very popular 18-35/1.8 lens which was made for APS-C/DX crop DSLRs. Videographers loved that lens because of its speed and useful range for video. Panasonic makes a somewhat similar 10-25/1.7 and 25-50/1.7 lenses for micro 4/3, and both are very popular with videographers.

I also used the 18-35's bigger brother, the 50-100/1.8, on my Nikon D500 for my dance photos, and treated it as a flexible mid-tele prime: it was like a 135mm equivalent whose framing I could easily tweak on the fly. I think that's the best way to regard these 2x zooms: they're like a prime whose optical field of view you can adjust just a little bit to get the right framing, instead of a bag of primes like the wider-ranged zooms.

The Sigma reminds me of the Panasonic 10-25mm and 25-50mm ƒ/1.7 lenses for Micro Four Thirds. They carry Leica badges, for what that's worth. Both are big and expensive but reviewers seemed to think highly of them, despite the limited, 2x ranges. Constant apertures, too, and fast enough to be genuinely useful for MFT. I would love a fast MFT lens than gave me slighter wider than normal and extended to slightly longer. MFT lens support from the bigger manufacturers appears to be falling away. Oh well. If I used Canon RF, this Sigma zoom would be top of my list for a walk-around lens.

This lens will never be for me - too big, too heavy, and too expensive. And I will never need f1.8 at those focal lengths. In fact, these days my quest is for greater depth of focus, not less. I frequently set up my camera on a tripod, take multiple images of my subject (typically a flower) with slightly different points of focus and then focus-stack them.

It always used to be said that one reason for buying an f1.4 lens was because images taken with that lens stopped down to f2 or f2.8 were better than images taken with an f2 (or f2.8) lens at its maximum. I'm not sure that's as true these days - a number of slower lenses are now available, especially zooms, where the maximum aperture gives the best results. My Canon 100-400 f5.6-f8 would be one of them. Not as good as Canon's 200-500, certainly, but a quarter the price.

In response to Daniel, it’s not that he has the wrong lens on his camera, it’s that he’s in the wrong location at the wrong time for the lens :~)

For many years I've wished that someone would make a 1:1 macro lens with a very short zoom range, say 90-105mm. Just enough that you could tweak the framing a wildflower or something a without moving your tripod or having to carry a macro rail around.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Portals




Stats


Blog powered by Typepad
Member since 06/2007