Sigma 321954 85 mm F1.4 DG HSM Art Canon Mount Lens - Black

Product Information

As you can see, Sigma 85mm Art is a big lens compared to other 85mms. This is sometimes an advantage, sometimes a weakness. Customers may think that you’re more “professional” with big lenses, but you may also think that you don’t need to carry this much weight to get good looking photos. Sharpness Tests The Sigma 85mm ƒ/1.4 provides excellent results with regard to its tolerance to lateral chromatic aberration - colored fringing surrounding areas of high contrast. However the 85mm ƒ/1.4 suffers, as do most ''fast'' lenses, from problems with longitudinal chromatic aberration, where fringes of magenta and green are found near the plane of focus when the lens is used at its largest apertures. Lenses with a fast, f/1.4 aperture are often quite soft when shooting wide-open, but this Sigma retains superb sharpness and contrast. At f/2, sharpness across most of the image frame becomes spectacular, and it’s excellent at the extreme edges and corners by the time you hit f/2.8.

We've almost completely stopped recommending fast third-party lenses because the AF is inconsistent. Yes, the optical quality of the Sigma Art lenses is UNBEATABLE... but every single time we've tested them against native lenses, they miss focus far more. In our 85mm f/1.4 comparison, the Sigma missed focus so much that it was more accurate to simply manually focus it. Same applies to the Sigma 18-35 and 50-100 f/1.8 lenses. Focus calibration can't fix it; it's the result of camera manufacturer's not testing and optimizing the camera bodies for those lenses. There is only build quality compromise (the lens mount side exposes electronics within when focused at MFD), but am not sure how many of us really thrash our equipments. Lastly, I compared all the lenses at f/2.8. We expect nearly the best results, and all the lenses are really sharp now. The Canon 85mm f/1.8 seems like the softest one. Sharpness– Definitely gives the Canon 85L a run for its money and blows the Sigma 85 EX DG HSM out of the water.The Sigma 85mm Art lens goes down the traditional route, designed around a fast f/1.4 aperture, and delivering stunningly sharp image quality. The Tamron 85mm is two-thirds of a stop slower, at f/1.8, but still produces fabulous image quality with very good and highly consistent sharpness across the entire image frame, in a much smaller and more lightweight build than the Sigma lens. Crucially, the Tamron also adds image stabilization, or VC (Vibration Compensation) as Tamron call it. Canon’s latest portrait primes aims to beat both competitors at their own game. Features To test PF, I did some test shots at people with bright sunshine. PF was observed and did not disappear until f/4.5.

As borne out by our practically perfect lab score, the Sigma is essentially a zero-distortion lens. Verdict If you guessed the image on the right, you are indeed correct, and it’s surprising isn’t it? Given Sigma’s history in this department, we were pleasantly surprised with this discovery. low-light capabilities The Canon 100L macro lens is a 1:1 macro, the MFD is 305mm. 850mm is not a big value for a non macro mid tele lens. Get the 100 macro if you need that kind of photos.Serious portrait photographers need this focal length in their tool kit because it is just a portrait essential. It definitely isn’t a recreational lens to have on hand at all times, as it is highly specified and catered to perform in the realm of portraiture.

For those that don’t want to jump into the nitty gritty details, here is a TLDR version of our review: prosIt requires no focus adjustment on my d300. Focus accuracy equal to nikkors. I like the new finish of sigma. I had 10-20 from sigma previously, which indeed was a great buy.