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

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The most interesting part for me was that, at a certain distance (when Trotti tried to get all of the model's body in the frame), the Sigma struggled to find focus quite a bit. The example photos show many that are blurry and pretty much unusable. Up close, the Sigma was outstanding, but at that particular distance, it was very hit and miss. The lens features a fast ƒ/1.4 aperture, nine curved aperture blades, and a SLD (super low dispersion) lens element (the lens is composed of 11 elements, in 8 groups). The front element sports a Super Multi-Layer Coating to reduce flare and ghosting. The Sigma 85mm ƒ/1.4 EX DG HSM was announced in the summer of 2010, and released later that year in the fall. The lens is Sigma's second fast prime lens (the first being the 50mm ƒ/1.4), notable for being relatively inexpensive compared with similar lenses from major manufacturers. AF-D version is weaker in almost all respects, except maybe on bokeh ( probably those soft corners are helping here) The reason my eyes lit up when I saw this is that I recently got my hands on the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens. I debated long and hard whether to go with that or the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM lens. I opted for the Sigma, but in my limited use so far, I've found that it misses focus more than I like in certain scenarios. I've played with all manner of settings but haven't been able to nail down settings to guarantee a 95 percent or greater keeper rate on shots just yet.

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. 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. The lens shows a slight amount of corner shading when attached to the sub-frame Canon 7D - just over 1/4 EV in the corners when set to ƒ/1.4. On the full-frame 1D Mark III, it's a bit more significant: the corners are almost 3/4 of a stop darker than the center at ƒ/1.4. Stopped down, it's less significant: at ƒ/2 the corners are just over a quarter-stop darker, and stopped down further than that, the light falloff is marginal. The great thing about the Sigma lenses is that I can calibrate the AFMA on different focal distances, where the Canons can only be calibrated at one distance.Canon's offering in this category is the fastest you can get, with a maximum ƒ/1.2 aperture, but you'll pay for the privilege. Performance wide-open is slightly soft, but overall, the Sigma seems to match it - though the Canon is just slightly sharper at smaller apertures such as f/5.6. CA tolerance is excellent, there's slightly more corner shading, and the Canon distorts slightly more on full-frame. It's L-series, glass though, and you do get what you pay for: weather sealing and overall build quality, specifically. The Canon’s build quality feels excellent throughout, and handling is refined with a smooth-action manual focus ring that enables precise adjustments. The ring-type autofocus system and image stabilizer are whisper-quiet in operation, although the stabilizer makes an audible clunk when it starts up and shuts down. Performance

Despite not having an image stabilizer, the optical path is long and complex, based on 14 elements. These include an aspherical element at the rear and two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements, placed at the centre and towards the front. We’ve been thoroughly impressed by the build quality of all Sigma Art-line lenses but, unlike some of them, this one has the additional bonus of weather-seals, which will please rainy-day wedding photographers. I tested the 85mm lenses with the setup above. It’s not a laboratory test, of course, but I tried to keep everything consistent. Here are the competitors I tested: I've appreciated this lens together with the Nikon D700, and I think it's a very good choice to spare money (in comparison with the double costly Nikkor), keeping an high quality. Overall the two more modern lenses seem really similar in the final rendering, to the extent that maybe in real world the differences will be

The bokeh is very similar to the Nikkor AFS, and even at f1.4 the definition is extremely high in the center, and far better than the Nikon AFD on the corners (the Nikon AFS is more linear). The Tamron 85 is great, but absolutely a different class of 85. If you desire both crazy DOF and creamy bokeh, you may not be able to "settle" for anything less than a 1.4.

Canon will have better focus consistency and has the addition of is which is likely to be a very effective is. If you have the “Which 85mm should I buy?” question on your mind, I hope that this article shows you the way. First of all we again see that f/1.8 lenses can never beat f/1.4 lenses in any point. I often get asked: “Is it worth buying an f/1.4 lens?”. My answer is a big yes.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.

Some of the photos in this video were completely unusable but I haven't experienced that really. I have, however, had far too many slightly off shots. As you said, the quality of the Sigmas is almost unbeatable - when they get it right. But because of that incredible quality and laser sharpness, it is very noticeable when it's not quite right. Sony 85mm is also a very new lens. Sony is the leading company in the mirrorless segment and they know that they need to produce more and more lenses everyday and their GM series is the best lenses Sony have. When we look at the results, at f/1.4 it is a little bit soft but gets sharper at f/1.8 and stays sharp. I found this lenses behaviour very close to Sigma 85mm Art, but the price is not the same. But again, Sony 85mm is a great lens for Sony mirrorless users who don’t want to use adapters on their bodies. Really not easy to use, deep of field and AF precision arevery impressive... and hard to use with perfection The Sigma 85mm Art is a great lens with quality optics and body. It’s a little bit heavy and big, but the lens feels more professional with these attributes. This is the success of Sigma’s marketing department: we photographers now believe that Art lenses are high-class lenses rather than lesser alternatives to Canon or Nikon lenses.Nobody can refute the value and image quality that Sigma is offering in their new Art and Sports series lenses. However, I think it’s important to note that over time I have experienced significant Auto-Focus drifting in Art series lenses. Far more than I would notice in Canon and Nikon Professional lenses. What a great lens...From the moment I mounted it on my 7D until now (about a week later) I've been blown away...first, by the build...It's solid and has a new rubberlike coating that just feels really good. Note : this Sigma 85f1.4HSM is not really a 85mm lens it is shorter than both Nikon 85f1.4G AFS and Zeiss 85f1.4ZF2.