Fujifilm XF16mmF1.4 vs Sigma 16mm F1.4 Contemporary

This time I'm going to have a comparison between Fuji XF16mmF1.4 R WR vs Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary. Long story to short, the original requester of this comparison doesn't read Japanese so I'd post this entry in English for him. Sorry for inconvenience for the others. Alright, let's get straight into the comparison anyway.

Build quality

Both lenses have nice build quality but if I pick only one winner, that would be the Fujinon. Because most of the Fuji 16mm exterior is made of metal, while the Sigma 16mm is made of metal, plastic and rubber.

Handling and features

Both lenses are fairly heavy. Fuji 16mm weighs 375g, Sigma 16mm weighs 400g. Those numbers look similar, but for me, the short-fat Fuji 16mm is obviously comfortable in field use. The Sigma 16mm's height is a little too long for most of E-mount camera bodies. Regarding features, the Sigma 16mm has a simple design with no particular feature. The Fuji 16mm has a useful distance scale and the clutch-to-MF function. Thus, in Handling section, the Fuji 16mm is more than 2 steps ahead.

Image Resolution

Photos taken by the Sigma 16mm and A6000 combination look very sharp entire image if you see it alone. But if you do side-by-side pixel peeping with a same picture taken by the Fuji 16mm with a 24MP Fuji body, you'll feel the Sigma 16mm a little bit soft. This result reproduces regardless of type of photography (nature, buildings, portrait and almost everything). I believe the difference is not only because of the lenses but also because of the other factors (A6000 has Beyer sensor with low-pass filter, X-T2 generation cameras have x-trans sensors without low-pass filter, also Adobe gives different image processing for each). Anyway see the evidence shown below:

You can click to enlarge each picture.

Common Conditions: Details Enhanced by Adobe Lightroom, No any other sharpening effect.

Left (左): X-T20 on a  Tripod, XF16mmF1.4 R RW, @f/6.4, ISO 200

Right (右): A6000 on a Tripod, Sigma 16mm F1.4 DC DN, @f/6.3, ISO 100, Lens Correction turned off

1:1 zoom points

The bark texture drawn by the Fuji 16mm looks crisper than Sigma 16mm's

The Fuji 16mm draws vein of leaves nicer than Sigma 16mm does.

Common Conditions: Details Enhanced by Adobe Lightroom, No any other sharpening effect.

Left (左): X-T20 on a  Tripod, XF16mmF1.4 R RW, @f/8, ISO 200

Right (右): A6000 on a Tripod, Sigma 16mm F1.4 DC DN, @f/8, ISO 100, Lens Correction turned off

1:1 Zoom-in points

Image Center, both equally sharp but the Fuji 16mm is slightly sharper.

Right Edge, XF16mm is noticeably sharper.

Bottom right corner, XF16mm is noticeably sharper.

Bottom Center, the Fuji 16mm draws details of fences much better than Sigma 16mm.

Left Bottom Center, the Fuji 16mm draws fences and details better.

Distortion

The Sigma 16mm has strong distortion as bad as -4% while the Fuji 16mm is optically well-corrected as good as -0.9%. This time I intentionally turned off the lens correction to see maximum resolution of the Sigma 16mm, but if you apply lens correction, you'll see some degradation in image resolution, especially in corners and edges.

The Fuji 16mm Distortion

The Sigma 16mm Distortion

The Sigma 16mm Corner Distortion

Bokeh Quality

Sigma's bokeh control is excellent in many modern lenses. The Sigma 16mm is no exception. For me, the Sigma 16mm has much smoother and nicer bokeh than the Fuji 16mm that obviously has busy bokeh. Of course I intentionally chose the condition and subjects that tend to produce busy bokeh (branches and grasses under daylight) , if you choose ordinary background, you might not see such a big difference. Also those images are taken at f/1.4 wide open. Basically if you stop down to f/2.8, the busy bokeh becomes smoother.

Light is the Fuji 16mm, Right is the Sigma 16mm.

Zoom-in points.

Right Sigma 16mm has much smoother bokeh.

Many would prefer right side Sigma 16mm.

Many would prefer right side Sigma 16mm.

Many would prefer right side Sigma 16mm.

Focus Distance

The Fuji 16mm can get much closer (as close as 15cm to the subject) than the Sigma 16mm's 25cm. The Fuji 16mm would extend your range of expression.

Price/Performance Ratio

There is huuuge difference in prices. The Sigma 16mm is just about 42k JPY while the Fuji 16mm is about 112k JPY in retail shops in Japan. The Fuji 16mm has better performance, but I don't think many people can justify 800k JPY (750 USD) of price disparity. 

Conclusion

Fujifilm XF16mmF1.4 outperforms Sigma 16mm F1.4 DC DN in many ways except for wide open bokeh quality. But the difference is not such huge. The Sigma 16mm F1.4 would be a fantactic choice for E-mount users. Sadly, Sigma Corporation has ignored and will keep ignoring Fujifilm X-mount. So Fuji users have no choice to use the cost effective Sigma 16mm.

Remarks

Adobe's Enhanced Details is one of minimum requirements to reproduce this evaluation. Fujifilm's SOOC jpeg can't draw details very well. If you only use SOOC jpeg, the Sigma 16mm can easily outperform the Fuji 16mm.