Sigma 105mm Art

A few weeks ago I bought the newish Sigma 105mm f/1.4 Art lens. My goal was to have a better portrait & product lens and also something that would be a little longer for shooting at events. I haven't had the chance to use it a whole bunch yet but I brought it to my friend Kyle's to show it to him and try test it out a bit at his son's first birthday party. Most of these images were shot at f/1.4 and they are pretty brilliant. The lens is super sharp and the separation with that shallow depth-of-field is pretty awesome. The lens is also known for its pleasing "bokeh" which is a word that describes the quality of the out-of-focus blur in the background of a photos.

I have taken a few product shots in the studio and this lens can focus close enough to fill the frame with the object. That was my main problem with my Canon 85mm - I had to crop in and throw away a bunch of pixels. If you are super into technical details check out the many YouTube reviews of this lens - I have watched a few and most reviewers also seem really impressed. I've seen a few comparing it to Nikon's 105 f/1.4(which costs $600 more) and this out-performing it. All that being said the lens has one major drawback - it is heavy and gigantic! I can't over-state how big this lens is. It does not comfortably fit in the messenger bag I like to carry for events. In fact it has already been left on the shelf a few times since I bought it. I don't use filters, but it is also worth noting that filters for the huge 105mm front element will be very expensive. I'm still glad that I bought this brilliant lens - and when I do need super high quality photos I'm usually also using a lot of big lighting gear so the lens size doesn't matter as much in that situation.

You can also click through these images if you want to check them out in larger sizes on flickr.






If you are interested in this lens I would definitely recommend checking it out in a physical store to get an idea of the size but I can guarantee the image quality will not let you down.