Review by Klaus Schroiff, published February 2013

Introduction

While the Sigma lens is pretty compact it misses the mark for a "pancake" lens by quite a margin - just to provide a size reference: the Sony E 16mm f/2.8 is almost half as "long". The build quality is on a very high level thanks to a body made of quality plastics based on a metal mount and a smoothly operating, rubberized focus ring. A slightly disturbing issue is some "rattling" if you shake it a little - a characteristic that it also shares with the Sigma AF 30mm f/2.8 EX DN. However, we didn't experience any negative side effect from this during shooting. The physical length of the lens remains constant regardless of the focus setting. A small barrel shaped hood is part of the package.

Sigma introduced a new linear AF motor optimized for mirrorless systems (thus contrast AF). The AF is fast and basically noiseless. Manual focusing works "by wire" so you actually drive the AF motor by turning the focus ring. This works reasonably well but it may not be everybody's darling.

Finally an outlook of the things to come - here's the "new" version of the lens. According to Sigma it is a member of their "A" or Art series which refers to lenses with a large max. aperture. Looking at this photo from the press release it remains a bit unclear whether this version has a manual focus ring at all.