Earlier this week, Sigma announced the 20-60mm F2.8-4 DG Contemporary, a surprisingly small full-frame lens that offers better range and a faster aperture than most full-frame kit lenses, in a package that’s smaller than any of its immediate rivals.

It arrived just before a planned trip to the UK, so I got to test my theory that it’d be an excellent replacement for most kit zooms, with the size and flexibility that would work well for travel.

This is my initial response, as I unboxed it:

And below are the samples Mitchell and I shot in both Seattle and London.

Sample gallery

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Thanks to Panasonic for the loan of an S1RII to shoot this gallery. All images were processed using our standard lens workflow in Capture One, with the manufacturer’s distortion correction applied but no correction of vignetting. The profile corrects a large amount of barrel distortion at the wide end and a minor amount of pincushion distortion at the long end. We’d consider it an essential part of the lens’ optical design.