Welcome to a Battery Grip specialist
of the Canon Battery Grip
Sigma’s latest addition to its burgeoning fleet of Art lenses is just as dazzling as the first two incarnations. Riding the coattails of the beloved 35mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.4 primes comes yet another fixed lens success––24mm of wide-angle glory. This is the widest Art lens you’ll see in Sigma’s prime series, aimed at satisfying street photographers, landscape shooters, wedding soldiers, event documenters, and DSLR videographers.
If you’ve got a hankering for razor thin focal planes, a wide field of view, a super fast aperture, and impressive macro performance at half the cost of Canon’s direct competitor, I urge you to continue reading about the Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM. If wide is not your bag with battery like Canon BG-E2 Battery Grip, Canon BG-E3 Battery Grip, Canon BG-E5 Battery Grip, Canon BG-E6 Battery Grip, Canon BG-E7 Battery Grip, Canon BG-E8 Battery Grip, Canon BG-E9 Battery Grip, Canon BG-E10 Battery Grip, Canon LMK-5D Battery Grip, Nikon BP-D60 Battery Grip, Nikon EN-EL9 Battery Grip, hold on tight for the rumored (and hopefully upcoming) 85mm and 135mm Art lenses.
First off, a little about me. I primarily shoot real estate, flashy events, food porn, and occasionally portraits. I tend to steer clear of the latter because the subject matter tends to possess vocal chords capable of forming opinions. I shoot with a 5D Mark III and mostly use a Canon 24-105mm f/4 and Canon 14mm f/2.8. Needless to say, it was quite refreshing to be in the company of such a bright piece of glass.
The Sigma 24mm f/1.4 is a sexy barrel of refined vertical lines. In fact, a glance at the lens from underneath is almost hypnotizing. As a result, the 24mm f/1.4 offers ample grip for handling and manual focus. It also shares a small amount of DNA with a Hungry Hippo, tipping the scale at 665g (23.5oz), which is identical to the 35mm f/1.4. Both aforementioned lenses do undercut the beastly 50mm f/1.4 by approximately 50g (5oz).
I personally prefer a bit of heft in my lenses, especially when shooting video, and the f/1.4 slid snugly between my Canon 14mm (645g) and 24-105 (670g) lenses, so its weight was right in the sweet spot. Its weight complimented the Mark III body with aftermarket Phottix dual battery grip nicely, and I couldn’t tell the difference between it and my other lenses.
The Sigma f/1.4 is armored with a rugged metal body and mount with plastic filter threads and detachable petal hood. It showed no aversion to bunking next to the Canon 14mm in my Kata 467 DL bag, which was schlepped all over the great state of Maine for well over a month.
We all try to take exceptional care of our lenses, but there are those times when the camera happens to not be attached to your neck when you think it is and you let go of it only to be greeted by the sound of two grand’s worth of hardware exploding upon the ground. It happened once with my 14mm, but luckily I had half a brain cell left to remember to keep the lens cap on between takes. If put in the same scenario, I feel as though the Sigma 24mm f/1.4 would have cracked its petal hood, yet remained structurally sound and fully functional, courtesy of its Terminator-grade construction.
It’s indubitably more reliable than a zoom lens like the Canon 24-105, which shed its red ring last year and is attempting to complete the molting process by ditching the top ring. Yes, the Sigma is a prime––which generally tend to be more structurally sound––but its quality effortlessly meets or exceeds that of Canon’s L glass family.
In terms of dimensions, the Sigma f/1.4 (85mm x 90.2mm/3.3in x 3.6in) is closely related to the company’s 35mm Art (77mm x 94mm. 3in x 3.7in). It’s about an inch higher than the Canon 14mm with hood attached, and a half-inch higher than the 24-105. Most importantly, the Sigma is approximately the same length as its direct competitor, the Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM, though it weighs 15g more. To me, it’s still an ideal size for a lens, balanced by exceptional weight distribution.
The Sigma 24mm is stocked with 13 elements in 11 groups, the two aspherical lenses located at the caboose on the sensor side, and second in line to the top element. This arrangement produces an 84.1° angle of view, the widest currently available in Sigma’s Art series. Couple that with Sigma’s round nine blade aperture and 9.8-inch minimum focusing distance, and let the creativity flow.