Barcelona native Kevin Hidalgo lives in London but is a frequent traveller capturing images everywhere he visits. He is a fan of SIGMA lenses and a frequent contributor to the #SIGMAUK Instagram account. He shares his latest adventures using the SIGMA 24mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art lens as both a native SE mount and with the SIGMA MOUNT CONVERTER MC-11 in his first Sigma lounge article.
I recently had the pleasure to visit the island of Phuket in Thailand and the Dolomite’s of Italy within a couple months of each other. Two completely different sceneries of beach versus mountains but the lens I choose for both was the SIGMA 24mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art lens. My first trip was to Thailand and in order to use it with the Sony A7R, my camera of choice, I had to pair it with the SIGMA MOUNT CONVERTER MC-11. However on the second trip to the Dolomite’s a SE mount version of the SIGMA | 24mm Art lens was available and therefore I was able to use a native mount lens on my camera.
Although my surroundings were different, there were many similar photographic projects which I wanted to complete during the two trips. They included landscape, portraits and food photography as well as testing in low light conditions. Plus in Thailand I was able to photograph a wedding. I was excited to see how this lens would perform as a native mount versus used with an adapter. Here is a summary of my observations and results.
Thailand:
The areas I visited in Thailand were some of the most beautiful beaches on earth. Having the SIGMA 24mm | Art lens gave me the wide focal length I needed but also provided me with enough depth of field to play around. Using it with the SIGMA MOUNT CONVERTER MC-11 was easy and I had no issues with focus speed.
I had wondered if using the SIGMA 24mm | Art for some portraiture images would provide me with enough depth of field and create the bokeh I wanted. I was really surprised with the results and could see a noticeable difference with SIGMA 20mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art lens which I’ve been accustomed to using. The bokeh of the SIGMA 24mm | Art would gave such a nice blurry effect when shooting at F1.4. The image quality of this lens is outstanding.
I had to take some images of the hotel on the island and this proved to be a good scenario to test the low light conditions. One chosen location was the restaurant by the beach. The daylight sun was too strong and didn’t help to set the romance of the location so I decided to take the pictures during sunset instead. Sadly it didn’t go as planned and we had to wait to take the images. It was quite dark by the time we had the perfect opportunity however when you have an aperture of F1.4 you know that you will still be successful
Italy
My trip to Italy was to visit the Dolomite’s in the North of the country. The scenery is unique and dramatic with hundreds of mountain trails in the area to discover the area. The SIGMA 24mm | Art lens is the perfect lens to use in such a location.
My main goal on this trip was for my images to describe the character of the Dolomite Mountains as well as capture the strong contrast between their dry peaks and the green forest beneath them. This contrast makes this place one of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) world heritage locations.
This was also the first time I could use the SIGMA 24mm 1.4 | Art lens as a a native SE mount for my Sony A7R and I found it so much convenient to use. The ease of use without an adapter made me appreciate this awesome lens even more. It was really quick to focus which I have found to have been the issue of many of the native Sony lenses.
My visit to Italy also included a stopover in Sicily to photograph a client wedding. The native SE mount SIGMA 24mm | Art lens was also useful during this event to capture the beautiful surroundings and the lens produced some beautiful results.
Using the native SE mount lens was the preferred method as it gave me more freedoms as a travel photographer. However using the SIGMA 24mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art lens in general, using it in so many different situations, made me push my limits and use my creativity to create attractive content. A SIGMA Art lens inspires me to get out of my comfort zone and explore new concepts of photography.
Having this lens for a while and using it for so many different situations made me push my limits and use my creativity to create attractive content. Also inspires me to get out of the comfort zone and explore new concepts of photography.
You can see more images from Kevin Hidalgo on his Instagram account:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kreation/
Featured product: SIGMA 24mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art lens and SIGMA MOUNT CONVERTER MC-11
