Titans of the night
Titans of the night
A long-awaited moment has come true. As the lover of the night sky, a fast lens is an essential part of my equipment. Since I took my first shot at night I was constantly looking for the best performance. The market offers tremendous options for the astrophotography lovers. Different focal length, aperture and properties and of course all on a different budget. Never easy to find the balance as photographers we all strive for the best.
Besides quality there is another key decision maker, the focal length.
– Should it be a versatile focal length for all around use?
– Should it be a dedicated lens for the night sky and only touch it when it’s time for it?
– If it’s a versatile lens, should we compromise on size and weight?
– Should we have a zoom lens and sacrifice few stops of light?
I went through all of these questions in the past years … or even more
Currently I’m using the Sony A7iii coupled with the Sony 24mm f1.4 GM lens for this purpose (it’s also a quite versatile lens so I’m happily using it in other situations as well. I thought I’m done for now and there is no need keeping my eyes open (what an odd idea :D)
Since Sigma released the 35 mm F1. 2 Art lens, I had more sleepless nights then before…knowing that I have used the Sigma 35mm f1.4 Art lens and loved it a lot. Also loved the 35mm focal length for all around purposes. For astrophotography it has only a few downsides, that is why I have switched to the 24mm GM. Sometimes still missing the benefits of the 35mm field of view and depth of field.
As the lens was released 6 years ago, it wasn’t planned for the night sky. The corners were quite mushy and full of aberrations. You can see a few examples with the Sigma 35mm f1.4 Art lens. The first image required 64 individual images to stitch the final panorama.
This test was purely about the night performance. I was looking for this comparison since the 35mm f1.2 Art was on the market but haven’t found anything specific. I decided to make it myself and hope to help other photographers out there facing with the same challenge.
As the Sony 24 GM lens outperforms every other lens for astrophotography I had to know how the Sigma beast performs. I’ve tested sharpness, chromatic aberration and astigmatism. I also wanted to see the benefits of each focal length as not every photographer wants to use a lens only for astrophotography.
I had the lens for a week for testing. The main focus was the night performance, however I tested it for all around purposes as well.
In a nutshell: the Sigma 35mm f1.2 Art has a beautiful rendering wide open. Tack sharp at 1.2 already, focuses as a native Sony lens and has an excellent hit rate. The bokeh is nice and creamy, cannot really say anything bad about it.
It will make hard times for the Sigma 35mm f1.4 art owners whether to upgrade or not 😉
Back to the darker waters…I was extremely lucky as just passed new moon and a clear night appeared on the horizon. I have used again the forecast I mentioned in the other blog. I did not have time for proper daytime planning and location mapping, however it can save the day. About planning there is a short video what I use and how to use it.
I had to travel 2,5 hours to the location and had to hurry as I still wanted to catch the sunset. Luckily I made it and also had the chance to seek for the potential spots for shooting. I ended up with 3 locations, relatively close to each other.
1. Abandoned lookout tower
2. Little lake with a lonely tree (was good for sunset, but for the Milky way the tree was useless)
3. An iconic lonely tree on the top of a small hill
Sounds nice, isn’t it?
Before I dig into the details of the test, enjoy a few pictures I took just before sunset.
The tree looks fantastic from this side of the lake. I was planning to create the Milky way arch over the tree. It remained only a plan as from the other side the tree became insignificant.
Let’s jump now into the test. The first location was the lookout tower. Started shooting early here, so the Milky way was in rising phase. As I wanted to demonstrate the difference between the focal length, at this spot I shoot 1 row with each lenses (otherwise I would take another row with the Sigma for my liking). Here is the exif and let’s have a look at the images side by side.
Left: Sony 24mm f1.4 GM
@f1.4 / iso1600 / 13 sec / 8 images in 1 row
Right: Sigma 35mm f1.2 Art
@f1.2 / iso1000 / 13 sec / 14 images in 1 row
Few conclusions after pixel peeping both images considering I was standing on the same spot and only changed lenses between shots:
- there is a tremendous difference between field of view (as I even cropped the final image of the 24mm lens)
- both lenses are extremely sharp and the corners are fantastic too
- aberrations were handled very well on both lenses (in fact the Sony had a little more CA in the corners)
- the Sony 24mm GM vignettes a little heavier (easy to fix in post)
- 13 seconds a bit to much for the 35mm focal length (the sweet spot would be 10 sec)
- for my liking the Sigma lens would require another row not to have narrow feeling (this case it would mean 28 images against 8 images)
- the Sigma lens performed superior and not lagging behind the Sony lens at all
Now we jump in time and I teleport you to the last location. As the time was against us, we ran up to the small hill (then a 5 minutes fight for breathing) as the Milky way up high. Here I’ve tried to change my position to end up with similar field of view. I wanted to demonstrate how is the “Milky way – foreground ratio” depending on the focal length. Here is the exif and the images side by side.
Left: Sony 24mm f1.4 GM
@f1.4 / iso1600 / 13 sec / 3 images (landscape orientation, vertical panorama)
Right: Sigma 35mm f1.2 Art
@f1.2 / iso1000 / 10 sec / 5 images (landscape orientation, vertical panorama)
As I changed my position the tree has approximately the same emphasis on both images. What is my perception on top I have mentioned already:
- considering I was shooting on fixed white balance, the Sony renders the images in cooler temperature and Sigma warmer (easy to change in post)
- the stars are pinpointed on the Sigma lens at 10 seconds (my assumption was correct)
- center and corner sharpness are both fantastic
- Confident to say, when comparing these lenses, we can execute quality and performance as a decision factor
Last but not least we move back in time for the second spot. It needed a 30 minutes walk from the car. Here I realised quickly that the tree will not be the main subject so I composed the shot a little differently. The Milky way was already higher, so I had to take multiple rows with each lenses. Here is the exif and the images side by side.
Left: Sigma 35mm f1.2 Art
@f1.2 / iso1600 / 10 sec / 36 images in 3 rows (3×12)
Right: Sony 24mm f1.4 GM
@f1.4 / iso1600 / 13 sec / 18 images in 2 rows (2×9)
Here again I was standing on the same spot and only changed lenses between shots. Which one you like more, depends on your taste.
A few remark:
- both lenses are still exceptional in every term, just by looking at the end results it would be difficult to choose one of them
- manual focusing at night with a 1.2 or 1.4 lens is fun, as you can easily see the stars
- during the stitching process PtGui had some difficulties with the Sigma images (it was at horizon level, I believe I could have take few more shots to ease my life)
- 10 seconds is the sweet spot for the 35 mm focal length, with the Sigma it would be even possible to go down to 8 sec
I’ll show you how my setup looks when shooting panoramas - Manfrotto BeFree GT Xpro Carbon
- Andoer leveling base
- Sirui L-20S 2 dimension panoramic head
- Haoge nodal slide
- Sirui L-bracket
As my closing thoughts after an exhausting but beautiful night.
- I’m totally impressed with the Sigma 35mm f1.2 performance as this lens was not planned for this purpose, however handles all the challenges the night sky produces extremely well
- For the Sigma 35mm f1.4 art owners the “big brother” would offer significant quality advantage
- The difference in night performance between the Sony 24mm f1.4 GM and the Sigma 35mm f1.2 Art is negligible
- The decision maker could be
- your purposes
- your focal length preferences
- size and weight preferences
- how often you deal with panoramas
I hope you found this comparison helpful and will help you to overcome this challenge if you are in the purchasing process 😉
Finally, if you would like to see and listen this test, you will find this video valuable.
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