Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary Lens (Sony E) Review

This looks like it would be ideal as a lightweight kit for travel, or as a general-purpose lens for people who want better image quality and a brighter aperture than dedicated kit zooms can provide.

The SIGMA 18-50mm f2.8 lens for FUJIFILM cameras will soon hit the market and we had the opportunity to work with it beforehand to get a feel for it and come back with some solid thoughts about its’ optical performance and built quality. Keep reading for a solid review and a bonus video!

This is a mid-range zoom with a constant F2.8 aperture throughout the zoom range. The lens is less than 3″ / 7.45cm) long and it weighs just over 10oz / 290g. According to Sigma, this makes it it is the smallest and lightest F2.8 standard zoom for crop-sensor mirrorless cameras on the market.

null

Picking up where the 10-18mm left off, the 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary is another example of Sigma filling a gap in Canon’s own lineup by offering a compact f/2.8 zoom built just for APS-C. This is the fast standard zoom to get, especially for R7 shooters who are comfortable with the APS-C format and looking to maximize quality and versatility without needing to jump up to full-frame.

The Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 is a compelling lens due to its small size, great autofocus performance, constant aperture, and sharpness. The image quality does slip in some areas -- such as strong light sources in the frame that cause ghosting or its color fringing on high contrast objects -- but for $550 all this matches expectations.

SIGMA’s first APS-C size mirrorless zoom lens has a versatile full-frame equivalent zoom range of 27-75mm, which makes it ideal for a wide range of photo and video applications including landscapes, portraits, street photography, architecture and events. It can also be used for macro-style close-up photography owing to its maximum magnification of 1:2.8 and minimum focusing distance of just 12.1cm.