Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art Lens For L-Mount

The lens has horrendous pincushion distortion, very surprising. My guess is, once the lens profile becomes available in Capture One, Lightroom, etc., no one will notice it. But correcting so much distortion results in an upscaling of the center of the image by 5-7%, depending on the camera to subject distance. That means pixel-stretching and a loss of quality.But most of the time, you're going to be taking photos of people, so a slight loss of peak sharpness is usually not an issue, since the lens is exceptionally sharp and well-corrected. And there are times you may be able to get away with it uncorrected.The lens also suffers from focus shifting. Don't assume you have the best focus at f/2.8, for instance. If you are shooting landscape, it's best you manually ... MoreThe lens has horrendous pincushion distortion, very surprising. My guess is, once the lens profile becomes available in Capture One, Lightroom, etc., no one will notice it. But correcting so much distortion results in an upscaling of the center of the image by 5-7%, depending on the camera to subject distance. That means pixel-stretching and a loss of quality.But most of the time, you're going to be taking photos of people, so a slight loss of peak sharpness is usually not an issue, since the lens is exceptionally sharp and well-corrected. And there are times you may be able to get away with it uncorrected.The lens also suffers from focus shifting. Don't assume you have the best focus at f/2.8, for instance. If you are shooting landscape, it's best you manually focus with live view and focus peaking at your intended f-stop. Don't assume autofocusing will be accurate.Apart from those two caveats, the lens is made very well like other Art lenses, and it's crazy sharp. Colors, contrast and details are all excellent, and there is no hint of any LOCA/LACA. Bokeh at f/1.4 is buttery smooth with no stressful areas. And last but not least, the price is great, relatively speaking.Autofocusing speed is acceptably good. The Sony 85 GM is probably a little surer in tracking, but by and large, the Sigma is just almost as good. So far, not too many autofocus misses.Net-net, recommended.

I would give it 4.5 if I could because it's not perfect but it is great.I immediately noticed how sharp this lens was. Pretty blown away. But something that I wasn't expecting was the contrast. I couldn't quite put my thumb on it until I realized it reminds me of the Leica look and the micro contrast. Maybe that's all BS but I love the look of the photos that come out of this lens on my A7RIV.Yes, there is a healthy amount of pincushion distortion, but that easily gets fixed in lightroom or whatever software you use. Not a deal breaker for me.

What can I say, everything you read about this lens is true. It performs incredible on the A7R IV, as we need great glass with 61MP! Wide open at F/1.8, it even beats the sharpness easily of the Sony 135GM, and beats the Sony 85MM F/1.8 as well. Once the 135GM is stopped down to F/2.8, the GM might be only a hair sharper, close call. The colors are perfect, Sigma is on fire with their DG DN line. I also have the Sigma 35mm F/1.2 which is stellar. BUT, Sigma fixed the one issue aggravating with the 35mm, no lock for the aperture ring. This lens is also light! It's not much bigger than the Sony 85mm F/1.8, and we all know how big the Sigma 35mm F/1.2 is! Yes, some distortion, but I'll take that any day with everything else that's amazing about this lens. (Distortion ... MoreWhat can I say, everything you read about this lens is true. It performs incredible on the A7R IV, as we need great glass with 61MP! Wide open at F/1.8, it even beats the sharpness easily of the Sony 135GM, and beats the Sony 85MM F/1.8 as well. Once the 135GM is stopped down to F/2.8, the GM might be only a hair sharper, close call. The colors are perfect, Sigma is on fire with their DG DN line. I also have the Sigma 35mm F/1.2 which is stellar. BUT, Sigma fixed the one issue aggravating with the 35mm, no lock for the aperture ring. This lens is also light! It's not much bigger than the Sony 85mm F/1.8, and we all know how big the Sigma 35mm F/1.2 is! Yes, some distortion, but I'll take that any day with everything else that's amazing about this lens. (Distortion easily fixed in post, but we do have to wait for a lens profiles to become available for Photoshop.) ... I will put this lens in the same class as the legendary Voigtlander 50mm F/2 APO Lanther when talking about sharpness.- Fast focusing even in low light AND for photographs & video.- Pin sharp wide open. You don't need to worry about shooting wide open, especially with portraits. Stop it down a little, and now the corners become sharp as heck too. This means you can use this lens for landscape too!- Bokeh is beautiful. It can get a little nervous once and a while, but any lens will do that under certain conditions.- Lightweight! Lightweight! Had to say that twice, this is after all a Sigma--surprise!- Beautiful and accurate colors (From what I can tell so far!)Included is a photograph of my Siberian Husky shot wide open at F/1.4. Sorry no beautiful models, but just got this lens today :)For $1,200 this lens is a no-brainer, you won't find a better 85mm lens for this price anywhere, on any platform.