The best lens for landscape astrophotography
Astrophotography presents a unique set of challenges for photographers, often requiring specialized equipment and a high level of technical expertise. The need for a perfect lens is important in capturing great astro images. Achieving sharp and detailed images of stars demands a lens with exceptional optical quality, minimal distortion, and precise focusing capabilities. There are many fantastic lenses out there (find my previous post here) but recently we got the king of astro-landscape photography. And I’m not kidding!
Last year Sigma released the new Sigma 14mm F1.4 DG DN | Art for L-Mount and Sony E-mount (sorry Canon users). As a Sigma ambassador, I asked the guys to give me this lens for testing as I heard and read a lot on the internet. The lens arrived at the perfect time before my workshop in the Canaries.
What changed?
The lens itself is kind of a beast, like the f1.8 version, but it comes with some updates. First and foremost, now we have a focus-lock button. So, you don’t have to worry about bumping the focus ring or putting a lens heater on. Moreover, the lens wears a collar ready to be mounted on any arca-swiss tripod head with the surprise that it works as an L-bracket. So you don’t have to buy any of these custom rotating lens collars.
The setup after time-lapsing the whole night. The lens is mounted on Sony A7III.
Image quality
No lens is 100% perfect, but this one is really close. I won’t say much, but I’d rather demonstrate its performance through some images from that trip.
Only WB is adjusted. All images are shot in f1.4 with ISO 1600-3200 and shutter speed 15-20sec.
Conclusion
So who is this lens for? It’s for any astrophotographer out there. However, it’s really special for time-lapses, because you can gather so much light on a single shot. You can also achieve great results in panoramas as you can go from stacked panos to just..panos :)
I hope you find this article useful. Stay well and clear skies!
