Photography is one expensive hobby, you buy a cam and need good lenses to ensure you get what you wanted to capture.
Lenses for cam are not only limited to the manufacturers like canon nikon olympus sony etc, you do have a tonne of and great options from third party manufacturers. While on the apsc sensor nikon d7100 the nikkor 35mm 1.8g was my most used lens for street photos as well as a few portraits though for portraits.
I would use the nikkor 85mm 1.8g most often. So the time came i felt the need to upgrade to a full frame due to work requirements and the nikkor 35mm 1.8g being a dx(apsc) body lens would not do justice. Heck when you go with full frames you cant skimp on quality lenses thats when i decided the go in for the nikkor 35mm 1.8g ed fx lens the other option.
I had at the back of my head was the sigma art series 35mm lens a lens most talked about, a lens a few photographers swear by. Having not used a sigma before i was not to sure if i should go get one. I did look up some sample images to do a side by side compare my mind inclined towards the sigma but the heart towards nikkor.
Now one striking difference between the two lens is the aperture and the weight of the lens. Realistically there are few instances where one would most likely to be shooting at full wide 1.4 all this played back in my head.
The nikkor lens retailed for 50k and the sigma for 59k, it was a tough decision to choose one among the other. The dealer offered me to try the lens out for a few minutes, he too swore by sigma art series and their sports series knowing the kind of style i shoot he advised me to go in for the sigma lens. He did offer me to buy back the lens if i wasn't to happy with it being an offer i could not resist I went ahead.
Boy oh Boy! the lens felt heavy though major part of the body is of fairly good quality plastic.Focus is quick thanks to the Hyper Sonic Motor and silent as well. I must say this darn lens has spoilt me, i end up using it more than other lenses in my kit its more like my walk around lens though i keep my 24-70 f2.8 lens with me if the need arises.
Images are razor sharp but looses their sharpness towards the edge, images shot full wide till around 1.8 have fair amount of vignetting which is not a bad thing for me at least I anyways do add some slight vignettes in post processing.
One major annoyance is the lens suffers from back focus which needs you to spend time and fine tune the auto focus system but sigma has launched a new dock where in you can connect your lens update the firmware as well as make focus adjustments on your lenses so i doubt that would be a deal breaker to most but i do admit adjusting the focus through their application and dock is rather a nerve racking experience, make an adjustment and then hook up to cam test if good great if not repeat steps.
Ive grown to love sigma lenses now and i did also recommend my friends using Micro 4/3rds to get a sigma art series as well they are too a happy bunch. The nikkor 35mm 1.4g is a much better well built lens but for twice the cost. It all boils down to ones needs, budgets and style of photography. Folks loving reportage kinda photography/faded/ retro/ hazy looks this sigma lens is a great option.
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