Shoot Crisp Motion on Sigma’s New 24-45mm F1.8 Zoom Lens

With their new 25-45mm F1.8 Sigma seems to have found a sweet spot here in catering both to motion shooters and still shooters. For a long time shooting motion on a “stills” zoom felt frustrating, with a lot of sacrifices in the interface clearly targeting stills shooters getting in the way.

But in the last few years lens designers have landed in a sweet spot, at least partially now that autofocus is just so insanely good on these lenses. That means the focus system is less important, and what we really want is things like a consistent aperture and a controllable aputure ring.

The 24-45mm (and the recent 24-70mm) are right in that line, with a focus on great image quality combined with fast autofocus. For a long time you wanted a brand match to get the fasted autofocus (Sony Lens, Sony body, etc.), but Sigma have done a ton to build that speed and integration into their lenses with other manufacturers bodies, especially with Sony. The Sigma and Sony pairing has been very popular.

Advantages of 1.8 Stops

That consistent 1.8 is such a gift for filmakers, since remember we can’t ever just expose for longer to let in more light. If we’re shooting 24fps, 1/24 is the longest we can keep it open. Having that 1.8 in a nice short little zoom is clutch.

It’s not a massive zoom range like a 24-105mm or even a 24-70mm, but 24 is plenty wide when working in full frame as these lenses are designed to do (available in either E or L mount). That 45, then, is just there for an option; zoom all the way in, take 4-5 steps closer to the subject, and you get two shots that are different enough to cut without feeling like a jump cut, which is frankly all you need on a lot of doc productions.

But the trade off to that short range is the massive benefits of that consistent 1.8. Nothing is more frustrating that zoom that opens 1 or even 2 stops wider at the wide end of the focal range than punched in. You keep zooming in, it’s darker, then you have to fix it in the edit. That consistent 1.8 is going to be very popular for any doc shooter with night scenes coming up.

Clicks and No Clicks Aperture Option 

The aperture ring can either be clicked or declicked, and frankly that was the best of both worlds. If I’m not actively planning an aperture rack in the middle of a shot, I kind prefer clicked so I don’t have to worry about it getting bumped and drifting.

Sigma have already been hugely dominant in the motion space for awhile. Not just the Cine Zooms and the Cine primes, but also countless shooters using Sigma lenses with their Sony and Fuji bodies, they are popular for a reason.

But these latest iterations, both the 24-45mm and also the recent 24-70mm, are really getting to a great combination of fast auto-focus and ergonomics that a lot of shooters will love.