A Beautiful Lens
Sigma is truly a company with great taste. Everything they’ve made in the mirrorless era has been refined and elegant. Especially this 45mm F2.8 DG DN—even within the I series (let’s loosely place it there), its level of refinement is unmatched, to the point that after losing one, I went and bought a second.
The E-mount version has a clean, neat rear, without the small step that the L-mount version has to adapt to the mount diameter.
When it first came out, the I series didn’t exist yet. Later, lenses in this style all fell under the I series.
The front element, neatly arranged aperture blades, and dark lettering complement each other well.
The newer batch seems to have switched to Sigma’s new serif font and new cardboard packaging—I haven’t seen what that looks like yet.
Beautiful Cats
Sigma says that with this lens, they deliberately under-corrected spherical aberration, making the transition from in-focus to out-of-focus smoother at medium to close distances while enhancing the three-dimensionality of the subject. At infinity, the spherical aberration is well controlled, balancing resolution and sharpness.
This interview is also quite interesting and worth a read.
The 45mm field of view, gentle yet restrained bokeh, and refined appearance make it an excellent choice as an everyday carry lens. While clearing out my hard drive, I found some cat photos taken with this lens, which work perfectly as examples.
The MacBook Pro Notch
The MacBook Pro notch appeared in the last example photo, so let me share a recent observation while I’m at it.
The MacBook Pro uses a MiniLED display, which is already prone to uniformity issues at the edges. The notch’s complex shape exacerbates this problem. If you look carefully at a solid colour (like a browser’s title bar), you may notice a purple tint in the area below the notch.
This is very subtle—the image above has been stretched to make it more noticeable. But once you notice the issue, it becomes easier and more frequent to spot the colour shift.
One last gripe: how does Lightroom keep getting more buggy and slower?
