Sigma Drops Bombshell, Announces a 18-35mm f/1.8 Lens
Wow. The rumor of a new Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 lens we shared earlier today has just been confirmed by Sigma. The company has just officially announced the lens, which is the world’s first lens that offers a fixed f/1.8 aperture throughout its zoom range. That’s a pretty big deal.
The lens, officially called the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM, is geared toward APS-C format cameras. On a 1.5x crop sensor it’ll be the equivalent of a 27-52.5mm f/1.8 lens.
The fixed f/1.8 aperture breaks new ground in the camera lens industry, as the zoom lenses of other major players in the industry (e.g. Canon and Nikon) top out at f/2.8. This Sigma lens offers more than a stop of extra light.
Sigma says that developing the lens was a technological challenge, and that the company needed to draw from an extensive amount of know-how developed over the years in order to overcome difficulties that other major camera manufacturers apparently haven’t conquered yet. These include “reducing optical aberrations” and “designing advanced structural elements.”
Other features of the 18-35mm f/1.8 include a new lens hood with a rubberized connector, a newly designed lens cap, a new AF/MF switch, a hypersonic motor for speedy and stealthy autofocusing, full time manual focus override, and a brass mount and rugged build quality.
As with other newer lenses that Sigma has released as of late, the 18-35mm f/1.8 will be compatible with Sigma’s Optimization Pro software, which lets you connect the lens to your computer using a special dock in order to adjust focus precision and apply other tweaks.
No word yet on pricing or availability, but we’ll likely hear about both of those things shortly.
Sigma has been making brilliant moves with its lenses as of late. Its new 35mm f/1.4 matches up very well with rival lenses from major manufacturers, yet costs hundreds of dollars less. This new lens will further solidify Sigma’s growing reputation as one of the major innovators in the camera lens industry.
