Sigma 85mm F/1.4 ART Lens Review

On this review photographer Christopher Frost looks at the the new Sigma 85mm f/1.4 ART lens which was first shown on Photokina 2016.

We saw the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 on the Sigma booth at Photokina (you can see it as a b-roll during our interview with the CEO of Sigma in Photokina last year) and in the hand the lens feels exceptional (it is also quite big and heavy).

According to Frost, the Sigma 85mm is not just well made but very impressive optically – it is super sharp wide open across the frame (on FF and a bit less so on APS-C), has no distortion and relatively little darkening in the corners (even the flare is controlled well).

Is there a drawback – well, just like we discovered on our Sigma 50-100mm f/1.8 review recently – AF seems to be somewhat problematic – Frost got 8 our of 10 in focus (which means that about 20% of your shots will be off focus – not amazing). Currently this seems to be Sigma’s biggest obstacle to perfection. If you focus manually or with the live-view or you can live with 20% misses in focus – this is an amazing lens – if you can find one now (there seems to be a great demand for it) and afford it at $1200.

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.