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

Product Information

It’s perfect if you are looking for the dreamy bokeh effect on your portrait shots. It takes the cake for impeccably sharp wedding images. Especially ones shot in dark venues where artificial light disturbs the moment’s natural intimacy. For these distinct occasions, this lens is perfect for you. While the Canon 85L wasn’t designed for peak sharpness, it has an almost ethereal fade from sharpness to blur. The “bokeh balls” do have more of an ovular characteristic to them compared to Canon’s circular appearance. Both have a soft transition due to their wide apertures and the difference is negligible. 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 My biggest issue is that the thing doesn’t even work usably with the Sigma 18–35 f1.8. With the camera in AF-S, the lens frequently and randomly goes completely out of focus without any action on the user’s part. This is totally unacceptable as most photographers are not going to want the focus thrown completely off on a whim by the adapter." Sharpness and contrast are superb, even when shooting at f/1.4, although the Canon isn’t quite as sharp as the Sigma 85mm when shooting at this aperture, especially towards the corners of the frame. Then again, corner-sharpness is seldom an important factor in portraiture. Even so, the corners become very sharp at f/2.8, and remain so through to f/11, dropping off a bit at f/16.

I own the Canon 85 f1.8 and the 135 f2. My copy of the 135 isn't significantly sharper than my 85 but the overall look of the image is so much more pleasing to my eye. It has this dreamy look only a few lenses can create, and from this Sigma gallery I can't find any of that here.The Sony 85mm ƒ/1.4 provides excellent results for sharpness. The Sigma produces images with slightly more central sharpness when used at large apertures, but the Sony has better edge-to-edge performance; its corners are sharper at wider apertures. Corner shading is similar between the two lenses; the Sony has slightly more CA in the corner regions, and distorts slightly more than the Sigma.

This is the part that I truly love about the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art. It provides exceptional sharpness with smooth bokeh. Even wide open at f/1.4, this lens works incredibly well.In the second part of the review, Trotti puts the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 Art lens up against the Canon 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens. She uses both on a Sony a7 III and a Canon 5D Mark IV. The key takeaways were: Next was the AF....I was really amazed at how fast the AF was (after owning multiple 85L's). It's twice as fast as the mkII and maybe more importantly....Just as accurate. But I haven’t yet pulled the trigger on the Sigma or any modern 85/90. Frankly, every single 85/90mm that I see falls down in one or more ways for my usage scenarios. I don’t actually need the f/1.4 max aperture, I’d be plenty satisfied with a lighter, smaller 85mm f/1.8-f/2 with outstanding performance, which should in most ways actually be easier for designers to achieve with an f/2 max aperture than at f/1.4 (let alone the rumored f/1.2 of a new Sony). Function available on supported cameras only. Available corrections or auto correction functionality may vary depending on the camera model.