Wider

With the change to a full frame camera I was lacking some wide angle. My 12-24 Nikkor was a DX lens, and while it can be used from something like 18-19mm on for full frame too, it's just not very convenient to have an overall zoom range of (wow) 6mm. I sold it and replaced it with the Sigma 12-24 - exactly the same focal range, but for full frame, w00t! I can use it on the S5pro with it's crop sensor just like the Nikkor.

Sigma seems to be somewhat specialized in wide angle lenses. They have a very interesting line-up of wide angle lenses for both full frame and crop sensors (the unbelievable 12-24mm for full frame
is available for crop sensors too with their 8-16mm ultra wide angle zoom).

I made an evening walk around Burghausen's Wöhrsee with Toni + camera + lens the day the Sigma arrived here, and what can I say... it's simply amazing, barrels of fun!


Wöhrsee + Pulverturm (NIKON D700, 1/50s @ ISO 280; f/11, 12 mm (in 35mm)

The above photo was made from exactly the same spot where I also made the photo in the post "Feeling like a nerd" (about first time tripod experiences).

The minimum distance to focus is only 28cm - which means you can bring the front element of the lens as close as something like 10cm to a subject you want to have in focus:


Flower (NIKON D700, 1/50s @ ISO 360; f/4.5, 12 mm (in 35mm)

Yes, wide open the corners are extremely distorted and blurry, but it's one of the effects of wide angle that I really like. With being able to get that close (and wanting to do that for that typical wide angle effect) it's useful to stop down the lens a lot, and in the range of f/11 to f/16, the corners are good for a wide angle that is as extreme as the Sigma.

Sidenote: it seems that SeenBy has closed their US office, or at least their US website. Navigating to seenby.com results in an "authorisation required" request in the browser. That's pretty lame and unprofessional if you ask me. A simple redirect to their EU website seenby.eu would have done the trick. There's no notice about the US office on their website either. It's a pity. And I have to update all the links to my photos here in my blog and who knows where else... :-/