Which Sigma APS-C Lens Should You Actually Buy?

Sigma now makes 10 lenses for APS-C mirrorless cameras, priced from $344 to $919, and the primes and zooms overlap more than the spec sheets suggest. If you shoot on a crop sensor, this lineup is one of the few places you can build a complete kit of small, sharp glass without paying full frame prices.

The hardest call in the lineup is whether a fast zoom can stand in for several primes, and Curtis Padley works through that question while ranking every Sigma APS-C lens from last to first. He starts with the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary, the smallest standard zoom available for APS-C. Even zoomed out, it's shorter than his phone and about as light. At around $579, it's the lens he points beginners and kit-lens upgraders toward, since a standard zoom lets you try landscapes, portraits, street, and product work and learn how focal length shapes a picture along the way. The Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary follows with the same compact build and a constant f/2.8 aperture, and Padley leans on it for street work and interiors.

At $729, the 10-18mm also became his main vlogging lens. It's wide enough to keep both you and the scene behind you in the frame, and the zoom gives you room to tighten up without moving. Padley's favorite overall is the Sigma 17-40mm f/1.8 DC Art, which has followed him through Porto, a 43-day trip across northern and southern Vietnam, New York, and Istanbul. It's the only f/1.8 zoom made for mirrorless APS-C cameras, so you keep that aperture at every focal length in the range. The internal zoom, extra controls, and Art series optics give it the most premium feel of any crop sensor lens he's handled. It also costs the most here at $919, and it weighs close to twice what the 18-50mm does, which is the price of carrying that much light through a zoom.

Every equivalent focal length in the video assumes a 1.5x crop, which matches Sony, Fujifilm, and Nikon APS-C bodies. Canon's APS-C sensors are slightly smaller at 1.6x, so on a Canon EOS R7 or Canon EOS R10, a 56mm lens frames closer to 90mm and a 23mm lands near 37mm. Depth of field scales the same way. At f/1.8 on APS-C, you get roughly the background blur of f/2.7 on full frame, while exposure stays exactly what f/1.8 gives you on any sensor. That split explains why a fast crop sensor zoom earns so much attention. You get the look of a full frame f/2.8 zoom in a smaller package, and you keep f/1.8 shutter speeds in dim streets, restaurants, and churches. It also explains why Sigma keeps building f/1.4 primes for these mounts, since that extra stop is how a smaller sensor wins back subject separation. If you're weighing a crop sensor body against a full frame one, run this math on the lenses you'd actually buy before comparing camera prices.

The primes divide mostly by how often you shoot their focal length. The Sigma 56mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary gives you about an 85mm view for $454, and Padley names street, car, and portrait work as its strongest ground, with compression and sharpness he struggles to fault. The Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary is widely loved, though he rarely shoots that wide with a prime and prefers it for talking-head video, where f/1.4 separates you from the background. Its successor, the Sigma 15mm f/1.4 DC Contemporary, is smaller and lighter, adds an aperture ring, and sharpens the edges, at $579 against the older lens' $414. The Sigma 12mm f/1.4 DC Contemporary goes wider still, to about an 18mm view, which suits astrophotography and makes vlogging easier without stretching your arm out. The Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary dates back to 2016 and remains Sigma's cheapest lens at $344, with some color fringing wide open in high-contrast light. At the other extreme, the Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC OS Contemporary costs $694 and covers wildlife, motorsports, and hiking trips without a single lens swap.

Padley's thoughts on the 23mm f/1.4 and the 16-300mm, along with the full ranking and a few placements that moved since last year, are waiting in the video above.