Sigma 135mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art Lens Hands On Review

On this review photographer, Christopher Frost looks at what might be one of the best portrait lenses or recent years – the Sigma 135mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art to see if it really lives up to the hype.

Sigma’s Art series has been making a name for itself over the past several years and one of the most recent lenses in this line is the 135mm f/1.8 DG HSM which is a full frame mid-long telephoto lens which has a huge potential for portraits.

Frost took it through its paces and discovered that the lens is simply superb optically (actually the lens completely out-resolves the 20MP of the 6D (well not really a surprise – this lens should really be tested on a much higher resolution body such as the 5DR or the Nikon D850). It has very little if any chromatic aberration or flare and in general performs amazingly even wide open – which is why you might want to spend the money (and weight – this is a 1.2kg~ lens).

The only downside which we noticed with all Sigma lenses (especially the new fast ones), is AF accuracy – Sigma has not been able to nail the focus perfectly (we had a similar problem with the Sigma 50-100mm f/1.8 where we also got only 70-80 percent hits and that as with the high-quality AF system of the D500).

If you can live with the focus accuracy thing you will still need to be able to carry the lens and pay for it as it is currently selling for $1235 for the Canon version (or just under $1400 for the Nikon version)

You can find many more previews and reviews on our Photography review section here on LensVid and you can find more of Frost’s videos here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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