This lens is what I call my ‘Professional Lens’.
What does that mean? Does that mean I photograph with amateur lenses as well? No, not at all, but this is the lens I chose when I want to have the most professional result.
I have owned this lens for a year and a half now, and taken 21k photos with it. This is my long term review on this lens from a professional photographer’s perspective.
So let me explain why I call this my professional lens.
What I do
I do a lot of different types of photography. From wedding photography to couples and family shoots, to events, corporate gigs and even some product photography and real estate photography.
But I’d say what I do the most are portraits. And usually, for those photo shoots, my trusty Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 ZA Distagon or my Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8 ZA Sonnar would be my go tos. That would depend on the amount of people I’m photographing, the environment and my general mood that day.
Sample Photos
So these shoots would have been shot with the Sony Zeiss 35mm 1.4 ZA:
Example 1
Example 2 - three of them are taken with the 70-180mm
These were taken with the Sony Zeiss 55mm 1.8 ZA:
Example 1 - the forest shots
Example 2 - the outdoor shots
And these were taken with the Sigma 24-70mm 2.8 Dg DN Art:
Example 1
Example 2
These lenses are some of my favourites ever, and I love the way they render. They really do have that 3D look to them, that I don’t see from all fast primes in these focal lengths (especially the Sigma primes often look flat and boring to me), and I do love Sony Zeiss swirly bokeh and strong character.
But, this character isn’t always appropriate. For weddings and couple shoots yes! But for corporate headshots, less so.
Sigma 24-70mm 2.8 DG DN Art Characteristics
So I use this Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 DG DN lens for all my corporate gigs and occasions where I need a clean, realistic depiction of the subject I’m photographing. And that’s the fantastic thing about this lens. For me, it will never blow me away with the way it renders, but it is so consistent and unsurprising (that’s a compliment). With my other lenses, in tough conditions, the characterful bokeh becomes, let’s say, a little too characterful at times. Or the 55mm suffers more from flaring which isn’t always pleasant. No such thing here with the Sigma 24-70mm DG DN. It’s always sharp, from close focus to infinity. It always handles the background well. It handles flaring really well. It’s good in all focal lengths, with no massively noticeable drop off to either end. And the AF is the best of any lens I own.
In daylight, the autofocus is on par with the 35mm, 55mm, and the Tamron 70-180mm. But in difficult and dark lighting conditions, it absolutely obliterates the 35mm & 55mm. I have yet to use the 70-180mm indoors.
The close focus ability is also fantastic. While not being a true macro, it can focus close enough for my needs and has prevented me from needing to buy a dedicated macro lens for product photography or for close ups of wedding rings etc. I really appreciate this feature a lot!
I also appreciate:
• the fantastic quality of the lens hood and that the hood can only be removed by pressing a release button
• the build quality in general
• and the price!
Close focus
It’s not just handy for product photography, but for babies too!
What would I like to change?
I would love for all of my lenses to have aperture rings! I currently have five lenses with a Sony FE mount and only two of my lenses have an aperture ring. I know all (or most?) of the GM lenses do have them but it would be nice if all Sony FE mount lenses had them. I would also gladly lose the ‘AFL’ button. I have no clue how this button is supposed to be of any use to me. I’d love for it to have a use but there’s no practical purpose I can think of.
My only niggle with the image quality otherwise is the vignetting wide open at 24mm. I don’t mind vignetting at all, my 35mm has tons of it but the vignetting here is very difficult to correct. It doesn’t penetrate the image much, only really in the far corners, but it is very abrupt. There’s not a lot of transition area. It looks like the image circle of the lens is just not big enough at this extreme.
Vignetting
Here is a great example of the vignetting at 24mm, wide open, uncorrected in Lightroom.
Then there is the Lightroom lens profile. It tends to over-correct for vignetting, leaving me with brighter corners. I need to then manually adjust the photos by eye, if I want to get rid of the vignette.
Talking about the focal length in general. 24-70mm is a very popular, and by now, a traditional focal length. Coming from Fujifilm though with it’s 16-55mm f2.8 (eq. 24-82.5mm) lens, or looking at Tamron’s 35-150mm f2.0-2.8 lens, or Canon’s 28-70mm f2.0, I wonder if this limitation of it’s focal range and aperture is really reflective of the current technology available. The Canon is hugely expensive but the Tamron is actually really affordable (the Samyang version even more so), so I wonder also if an improvement in this regard would really warrant a huge price increase.
But I would love it if they increased the focal length to 85mm or 100mm even, and if they increased the aperture on the wide end to f2.0, I could see myself leaving the Sony Zeiss 35mm at home for certain shoots.
The extended focal length, while retaining f2.8 and the great image quality would be the most interesting to me.
So, would I recommend this lens?
If you’re doing corporate work, yes! This lens, in combination with any of the A7 Sony cameras will deliver a high-end result that your clients will love. From corporate events to headshots to product photography to corporate environmental photos, this lens will do it all! Predictable, albeit, a little sterile and boring.
However, if you just need a zoom lens for weddings or non-corporate events, like club photography or concert photography, I would probably just grab one of the more compact f2.8 lenses like the Sigma 28-70mm or the Tamron 28-75mm. They’re cheaper, lighter and would fit in a bit better with my primes in regards to the look of the images.
