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Sigma AF 50mm 1:2.8 Macro

 

The 50mm variant of Sigmas first generation AF-Macro-lenses. Other than the 180mm-lenses, this is a real 1:1 macro. 

There are several 50mm Macro - lenses made by Sigma. This is a review of the first AF-version with 52mm filters and the rubber body-coating typical for Sigma-lenses of that time, that gets sticky with time and feels really nasty.

I'll hold this review short. It's like most other real Macro-lenses: Near perfect optically, even if I was surprised to see soft corners at infinity and f/2.8. And it's like most other Sigma-lenses of that time: Made of metal, solid, but with this special "old-fashioned" feeling mechanically and really slow and loud AF.

Warning: This lens does only work wide open on digital- or newer film-bodies and cannot be stopped down, except for having been converted, which mine is.

 

COMPATIBILITY

As a classic EF - lens, it mounts on every EOS - body ever made, be it 35mm film, APS, digital APS-C or "fullframe". On APS-C, the smaller sensor of these cameras let's this lens have an angle of view like an 80mm-lens would have on 35mm and makes a great standard-macro here - most people use 90mm-100mm Macro-lenses on film oder "fullframe" because of it's good compromise between working distance and depth-of-field.

 

Warning: This is a lens from a time, when Sigma had reverse-engineered Canons EF - protocol wrong instead of licensing it. Therefore, these lenses DO NOT WORK with any digital or newer film bodies! On these bodies, you can only use such lenses wide open, the body cannot close the aperture and reports an "Error 01" or "Error 99". At the time this failure got evident, Sigma offered a conversion of the non-working lenses, but nowadays, they only do it for a handful, mostly expensive long tele-, lenses and not for this 50mm any more. The only way to get a sample, that works at any aperture is, that it has been converted by Sigma in the past or to convert it by yourself.

Excursus: Today, there actually and finally IS a way to convert these lenses by yourself, developed by two very cool members of the site "dslr-forum", nightshot and slein. It is based on a small (and cheap) micro-controller you first program and then solder "between" your lens' circuitry, cutting the original electrical circuits. I won't explain this further here and won't take any responsibility for anything you screw up trying this. Please search the internet, if you are interested. It really (really!) requires some experience in soldering (the parts involved are heat-sensitive and small!) and in using a computer on quite a low level: If you don't know, what a hex-code or a programmable fuse is: Don't do it! Having said that, I did convert several old Sigmas using this way and it really works. It doesn't work flawlessly, but it works. The problems are, among others, that you have to wait a few seconds after turning on your camera (or waking it from sleep) before you take the first shot, otherwise the aperture won't be closed. You still get Error - messages periodically, especially when pushing your luck e.g. by taking a longer series of images, stopping for a second and pushing the shutter again. Then you have to turn off your camera and turn it back on again. This can happen 3 times within 2 minutes or not happen for a hundred shots. This is still and will always be kind of a botch-solution, or at least a DIY-solution and a bypass, with a controller, metaphorically speaking, "stopping" a signal from the camera, "translating" it and sending a different one to the lens' electronics. And all that in the short fractions of a second between the signal sent from the camera and the lens having to have reacted by closing the aperture just in time while the shutter is open and all this up to 11 times a second on a 1D - body. That simply can't work flawlessly.

 

PRICE

These sell really cheap, around € 30,- on ebay, sometimes well below this. I have even paid too much: I bought mine in very bad condition for € 17,- plus another € 16,- for delivery from the Netherlands, because I found it to be a steal and didn't know, that I can good samples for this, too. This is a joke for a lens of this optical quality.

On most samples, and mine too, the rubber-coating has already turned into some nasty glue.

 

ACCESSORIES

This lens was originally shipped with a shade, I don't own and wouldn't use anyway. It's so small, that the shade really is in your way all the time. Use a collapsible rubber hood instead.

The filter-thread doesn't turn, so using filters is no problem.

I strongly suggest using an UV-filter, partly for my usual reasons, but also because you work at quite small distances with it - at 1:1 reproduction-ratio with a 50mm, your object nearly touches the lens and it is quite likely to bang the front to something. And since you normally can't really change your working-angle in Macro-work, use the one with the most effective coating you can get. My favorites regarding flare-resistance at reasonable cost are Hama HTMC and Samyang UMC, followed by Hoya HMC Super.

It works really well with the Kenko 1.4x and 2x (MC7) teleconverters, this lens is sharp enough to be used with converters.

 

MECHANICS

Made in Japan.

Metal lens mount, like everything else.

This isn't a Sigma - pro-grade - lens like the 180/2.8, but it's still built to their top-standards from that time, while still being small, but not light.

Everything seems to be made of metal. The only thing made of plastics on the outside is the window of the focus - scale... and - of course, the miserable rubber-like stuff the complete outer lens body is covered with on the old Sigmas. This rubber gets sticky and nasty with time an today, I could scratch it from the lens with my fingernail. *ughhh* That's not nice. I think it was supposed to have kind of an "outdoor" and "rugged" touch. My sample was so bad, that I simply couldn't handle it the way it was. So I decided to take a rag soaked with gasoline from my motorbike and rub it off. The lens smelled like an engine for about two weeks or so, but the stuff really came off! Of yourse I rubbed off the markings as well, but luckily, the focus-scale is behind a windows, so I just can't see the diameter of the filter-thread and the brand any more... I can live with that.

AF is slow - a bit faster than the 180/2.8, maybe because the moved elements are lighter, but still reaaally slow and noisy. That's meaningless, of course, because you simply can't use AF in Macro-mode: Your own movement due to your breathing and tremor has such a huge difference on the narrow depth-of-field at these short distances, that you have to adjust focus by your own movement, no AF-system could be fast and precise enough to compensate for this.

AF accuracy is very good, nearly dead-on with all of my bodies. Mine doesn't have the occasional AF-problems, that these old Sigmas have sometimes.

The focus ring does not detach and does move. Focussing isn't completely internal, the front extends significantly (to nearly double the size), but doesn't turn, so using a polarizer or graduated filter is easy.

The inner mechanics of this, as well as of most Sigmas of that time, are generally "tank like", also best described as "down-to-earth" or "low-tech". Cables are thick, screws are solid and the barrels are made of metal. With many of these old Sigmas the devil is in the details, but I don't know of any of problems like haze or worn rubber-belts with this lens. However, mine had a broken gear-wheel of the aperture-gearing - a real standard-failure of these old Sigmas. I was able to glue it, see "DIY repair of old Sigma lenses".

All in all like I imagine old russian technics to be: Feeling quite old-fashioned and rough, but built to survive a nuclear war.

 

ERGONOMICS

This lens feels quite unique, like most of these old Sigmas. The focus-ring is good to reach, you can support the lens with your whole hand and turn the ring with your thumb and first finger. but in AF-mode, just pull back your fingers and you'll never tend to accidently turn the focus-ring. Great!

It's small, just a bit bigger than other 50mm - lenses, but quite heavy. Size DOES matter, also see Lenses: What's important?. 

Focussing is not internal, but nothing turns.

There is a focus-scale without infrared-focus-indices but with a depth-of-field-scale for f/22.

The manual-focus-ring is full-metal with a normal rubber ring around it. It does not detach during AF and when set to manual, is not dampened and feels a bit scratchy, like metal on metal, what it probably is. Mine isn't OK mechanically, as the focus ring, if turned hard against the end of the scale at infinity, seems to jam something and you have to use a little force to free it. Happily, this never happens in AF.

Overall: Hmmm... 

 

OPTICS

Optics of this Sigma are generally typical for a macro prime, very impressive, but with a little soft corners wide open.

The mamimum reproduction ratio is real macro, 1:1 on fullframe without any converters.

Distortion near to zero and won't be visible in any real shot - thats mostly the case with macro lenses, as these are supposed to be used for reproduction purposes. The plane of focus is not curved at all for the same reason.

Vignetting, too, is on a remarkably low level. Maybe it could the extreme corners could be half of a stop darker than the rest, but that would never be a problem in real shots and could as well be due to changes in lighting condition. However it may be: Great! Of course, this is invisible on APS-C.

The aperture is made of 6 straight blades, giving you not-so-smooth out-of-focus highlights with boring 6-ray-light-stars.

I have no information on this lens' usability for for infrared-photography, sorry.

Flare can be a problem at times and is surely not among the best controlled problems of this Sigma, but usually isn't, because the front-element is so small. Normally I don't use shades, but I suggest to do so with this lens, just to be sure. Ghosting, however, is not a regular effect. Nonetheless you can shoot directly into the sun and if you don't get blind doing so, the pictures look great all the time, because when suffering from flare, this lens does not completely blow-out your pictures, but remains reasonably contrasty and usable.

It's color reproduction is a little bit different from my other lenses, as older Sigmas often are: It seems to be a little bit warmer overall, but with single color-tones being more intense than others and some obviously left alone. Maybe this is a matter of the lens' coatings, as the cheap 19-35mm Cosina-built lenses show a similar behaviour, but with other colors.

Lateral CAs (purple/green fringes along high-contrast edges), when not corrected by newer EOS cameras (or nearly all Nikons), are nearly invisible with this lens. It is definitly below 1 pixel, maybe around half a pixel wide at it's worst. 

Sharpness is one of the most overrated qualities of lenses. That being said, macro lenses often are nearly perfect, but this lens is a bit softer in the extreme corners at f/2.8. Every other setting is perfect. This is, what it looks like at it's worst, 100% crop, top left corner, 21MP JPG, 5D Mark II:

This crop is 400x300 pixels and gets sharp by about half way in from the upper left, so an area of about 200x100 pixels is soft - wide open, where you never use Macro-lenses.

My sample of this lens is centered well, with no difference recognizable between the four corners at any setting... Knowing Sigmas quality control, maybe I was just lucky.

Worth mentioning, as I did a few times above, I think, especially for macro work, is, that this lens works really well with the Kenko 1.4x and 2x (MC7) teleconverters:

 

Alternatives

All of the 50mm Macros, probably most are a little better, but none cheaper. I like having it, because I rarely use such a short Macro, in fact mainly for my product shots of lenses, the AF doesn't bother me, because you always focus manually at short distances because of your movement forth and back, and the corners at f/2.8 are meaningless. You can't get a cheaper 1:1 lens.

 

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