The 85mm full-frame telephoto is also a useful and nice focal point when photographing reports, details and objects.

The lens is 96 mm long, and it weighs only 625 grams (E version). Bright 85mm lenses are popular as a portrait lens. At the shortest setting distance of 85 mm, you can photograph a head full-frame. The 85mm is very bright; when using the largest aperture(s), an extremely shallow depth of field is guaranteed; you basically focus on the nearest eye. Except for a few places, the face is already blurred, and that certainly applies to the background. The nature of the bokeh should be soft and smooth, without technical flaws such as chromatic aberration; the ugly distracting color hems on the border of light and dark areas. I can already reveal here that Sigma has succeeded in this excellently with this Art lens. The 85mm full-frame telephoto is also a useful and nice focal point when photographing reports, details and objects.

BUILD 

The 85mm DG DN is solidly constructed from aluminum and a composite (TSC). The mount is made of brass, the construction is dust- and splash-proof. The locked, 6 cm deep plastic lens hood with a diameter of 10 cm is also high quality with a rubber grip and flare-repellant ribs. Switches for autofocus or manual focus and an AFL function button are placed on the housing. The latter has assignable functions but will probably mainly be used for the standard function: locking the autofocus. A CLICK slider leaves the click stops in the aperture ring intact or turns it off for a quiet and stepless aperture setting for video. The aperture ring has a lockable A position and eight third-stepped aperture positions from F1.4 to F16. The optical design consists of 15 elements in 11 groups, five of which are SLD glass lenses and one an aspherically ground lens. The electrically controlled diaphragm has eleven blades.

FOCUS

The autofocus is controlled by a stepper motor optimized for contrast and phase detection AF. Operation on the Sony A7 II test camera is fast and accurate. Face recognition is supported. With manual focus, the focus peaking makes the focus area clear for checking.

IMAGE QUALITY

Thanks to the new Nano Porous Coating, stray light is suppressed. A moisture- and dirt-resistant coating keeps the front lens clean. The resolution is high, on the same level as with the DG HSM version. Jpegs are corrected in the camera and errors in the RAW files are passed by the lens in Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom, or Capture One. There is no chromatic aberration, but unfortunately there is a strong pincushion distortion in ACR 12.3. It almost disappeared after the conversion in Capture One 13.1.1. Undoubtedly, this is a software mismatch that will soon be adjusted. The resolution is already high from the full aperture in the image center; the corners lag only slightly behind. Aperture F2.8 is already top and only at F11 do the high values decrease again. The vignetting, which rarely disturbs portraits, is also low.

The same lighting conditions and settings. Thanks to Nathalie Schaafsma.

ConclusiON: REVIEW Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art oN A Sony A7 II