Today, these two crystals have arrived, here a small test, RAW, no processing, focus in "A" 14X zoom, spot metering, tripod, 2 secs. mirror: Sigma 30mm f2.8 {} M.Zuiko 45mm f2.8 {} M.Zuiko 45mm f1.8 {} Full scene: Sigma 30mm f2.8 {} M.Zuiko 45mm f2.8 {}
Surprising how small the differences are - but there is a difference. The 45mm is (not surprisingly) a bit better. I suspect it would be even more noticeable in a large print.
Yes, Zuiko is sharper than Sigma, but not as much as I thought. Processing the photos would be minor differences, probably.
Those are pretty close...The color on the Sigma looks a bit warmer and a bit more pleasing to me. The Olympus is sharper but I'm not sure you'd notice without it being pointed out.
I have both lenses. The Sigma is a very nice lens, I've taken many nice pictures with it and like the long normal focal length, but... The out of focus areas look much nicer with the Olympus, the Sigma has significant amounts of CA (can be easily corrected in software) and doesn't focus nearly as fast. Not to mention that they are far enough apart in focal length, for them to used differently.
Whoa : silver and smooth ... If the 19mm looks like that I'm going to hunt one down for style reasons alone. In lower light my Sigma 30mm focuses significantly faster than my mZuiko 45mm, just to add a different view to Rubenstein's post. In bright light they are both so fast I don't measure.
The Zuiko is sharper even at f1.8, though not by a lot, by 2.8 it looks a good deal sharper to my eyes. But the Sigma has less contrast; if you boost that I'll bet it looks sharper. Having said that, I'll repeat what I always say: it's not what it looks like straight ooc at 100% that matters; it's the final image. None of those are going to be as big as what 100% represents. I just got the 19mm Sigma and like it a lot.