Amateur Photographer - UK (2020-12-05)

A railway portrait taken with the
aid of Sony’s remarkably effective
Real-time Eye AF functionality
Sony A7 III, Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art,
1/800sec at f/1.4, ISO 100

It’s heralded as the new gold standard in portrait

lenses for mirrorless cameras, but is it? Michael

Topham put it to the test over a fortnight to  nd out

U

sers of Sony’s
A7-series of full-frame
mirrorless cameras
are well catered for
when it comes to fast prime
lenses of the 85mm variety. At
the more affordable end of the
spectrum there’s the manual-
focus Samyang MF 85mm F1.4
Mk2 (£359), the Sony FE 85mm
F1.8 (£539) and the Samyang AF

85mm F1.4 FE (£549), while at

the premium end there are three

stellar examples: the Sigma

85mm F1.4 DG HSM Art (£929);

Zeiss Batis 85mm F1.8 (£1,129);

and Sony FE 85mm F1.4 G

Master (£1,499). Not exactly a

shortage to choose from, so how

does Sigma’s latest 85mm prime

differ and where does it  t in?

Whereas the older Sigma

85mm F1.4 DG HSM Art was

originally designed for full-frame

DSLRs and later adapted for use

with mirrorless cameras that use

the E-mount and L-mount, the

Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art

is developed for full-frame

mirrorless cameras from the

ground up – denoted by the ‘DN’

initials in its name. As with

other Sigma DG DN full-frame

Sigma 85mm

F1.4 DG DN Art

mirrorless lenses, of which we’re

starting to see a growing number

appear, the 85mm F1.4 DG DN

stands out in a number of ways

from previous Sigma examples

and its rivals, which we’ll come

on to shortly. We’re not looking at

a fast prime that’s only made in

Sony E-mount, either; it’s also

available in L-mount for use with

Leica, Sigma and Panasonic

full-frame cameras.

Features

Compared to the Sigma 85mm

F1.4 DG HSM Art, which is

one of the largest and

LENS TEST Testbench