Does anyone use the Sigma 35 MM F1.2 DG DN ART L Mount with a Leica SL2 ?

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On 3/27/2022 at 6:46 PM, Planetwide said:

It's a beast of a lens, but totally worth carrying. I go out with it and my SL 75mm Summicron, they make a great low light combo.

I just received mine today. I paid $780 for a brand-new, open box lens including express shipping from Japan to the US. This is clearly a statement piece that could have been easier to sell for Leica at $9k than for Sigma (without the brand halo) at $1.5k MSRP.

The quality of this lens is amazing, rendering close to what I am seeing from my Zeiss Otus lenses. I would put it above the overall performance of the 21, 28, 35, and 50mm M Summiluxes, but below the Noctilux 75mm.

Autofocus is not amazing, but workable. Interestingly the SL2-S eye detect doesn't seem to be optimized for f/1.2, perhaps because Leica doesn't have a SL lens of that speed 🙂 i.e. as a result the AF frames the face, not the eye, which can be insufficient at f/1.2 - so it's back to MF or 'spray and pray' take multiple pictures with continuous AF.

Other impressions: Sharpness is very high. Rendering tuned for medium contrast. Impression of 'depth' (3D pop?) is exemplary. Bokeh is very good. Barrel distortion is visibly present but fully correctible. Low propensity for CA, good resistance for adjacent strong light sources.

 

Net/net: As a regular member of the "1kg lens club" (Noctilux 75, Summilux 90, Leica SL zooms, ...) I simply have no excuse not to take this lens out as much as possible. It is absolutely amazing and great, the bees knees, the cat's meow. I like it because of its look [of the images, not the lens itself] even more than for any of the technicalities. You would buy this perhaps following a similar set of criteria that would lead you to buy the SL-Summilux 50mm vs. the APO.

Very highly recommended esp. at current going rate (if you are OK with the weight).

FWIW - I had an earlier version of the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 and hated that one with a passion. Historically maybe used it for 30 pictures. So not a Sigma fan boy by default here ...

 

P.S.: I am kicking myself for not buying the lens immediately on day 1 with my SL2-S. No excuse for my stupidity. I was simply not generally interested in Sigma lenses and would not have thought them capable of producing a lens of this calibre. Even now, without the 'so what' pricing, I might not have pounced. Despite some indicators of alleged greatness, e.g. Roger Cicala's MTF measurements showing better performance than the Nocti 75 (expirically I am not quite seeing that in the real world, though): https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/09/mtf-tests-of-the-sigma-35mm-f1-2-dg-art/

Edited July 30, 2022 by mzbe

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This lens passes my 'does it make you shoot more?' test - below is a picture of a German prototype astro-mech droid -

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SL2-S, Sigma 35mm F1.2 DG DN Art, f/1.2

[da_eltsch]

Am 31.7.2022 um 00:51 schrieb mzbe:

This lens passes my 'does it make you shoot more?' test - below is a picture of a German prototype astro-mech droid -

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SL2-S, Sigma 35mm F1.2 DG DN Art, f/1.2

"Flotte Lotte" ... just an exceptional name for the android 🙂 
(... actually I am about to hit the buy button for the 1.2)