Of any of the traditional reviewers of an accredited publication, I’ve always been the hardest on Sigma lenses. I have typically been sick of having such soulless and almost algorithmic-feeling image quality. If I had to describe many of their lenses, I’d say that you’d think of the output as background noise in the form of music playing while you’re doing chores that you simply ignore while doing a million other tasks. But very recently, it seems like they’ve actually tried to change things. Announced today is the new Sigma 135mm f1.4 DG Art lens. Not only is the image quality pretty nice, but it’s also one of the fastest L-mount lenses I’ve used. Considering that my main rig these days is the Leica SL2s, this shocks me. If you’re an L-mount shooter, trust me when I say this: you’re a smart person that will probably be making a stupid decision not purchasing this lens.

The Big Picture: Sigma 135mm f1.4 Art Conclusions

I’ve reviewed almost every 135mm lens that this website has published. And though my favorite is still the Zeiss 135mm f2 Apochromatic, specifically for its rendering, this new Sigma 135mm f1.4 Art is wonderful. In 2017, I reviewed the Sigma 135mm f1.8 for Canon EF mount and liked what that lens could do then. But this is a whole different adventure in the collection of stories about 135mm lenses. It focuses closely, quickly, and accurately. Most importantly, it also does really well in low light with L-mount cameras and people of color with more melanin in their skin tones.

Returning to what I’ve said about the image quality of these lenses being like background noise, I think that you’ll be best served still using it with Panasonic LUMIX cameras along with the Real Time LUT feature. That’s not to say that it didn’t make wonderful photos on my Leica SL2s. But nothing is really going to beat the specific and more fantasy-like look that my LUMIX cameras are giving me.

• The single fastest focusing Sigma lens that I’ve ever used. It’s faster than Viltrox, Tamron, etc. on even a Leica SL2s – which was always a fast camera but is now much older.
• Revolutionary in that no one has done this with autofocus before while also making an f1.4 lens
• Weather resistance is nice
• Because it focuses so closely, it’s good enough to take around as an everyday lens
• It’s not that big and heavy
• Feels very balanced across a variety of L-mount camera bodies
• 135mm F1.4 DG | Art — $1,899

The Sigma 135mm f1.4 DG Art lens receives 5 out of 5 stars and the site’s Editor’s Choice award. I truly don’t know how Canon, Nikon, and Sony will ever think that they’re going to beat this thing.

Experience

When the Sigma 135mm f1.4 Art came to me, it was wrapped up in a lot of plastic bubbles. So I thought that it was going to be huge. But honestly, I’m quite shocked. It’s an f1.4, but it feels comparable in size to the Viltrox 135mm f1.8 lens. However, something about the ergonomics and the way it’s laid out feels like it’s a million times more manageable. Sigma even gave this lens a tripod collar. Indeed, the body feels very matte and almost like how Canon’s L lenses have a matte feel – but it’s much better.

Oh yeah, it’s an Art lens — so they gave it weather resistance.

I’m not kidding you when I say that this is the single fastest focusing 135mm lens that I’ve used in many, many years. In fact, it’s faster than Leica’s 28mm f2 Apochromatic – which is by far, one of the fastest focusing lenses available for L mount. The only others that focus quicker are probably the LUMIX 100mm f2.8 Macro and their 35mm f1.8. And that’s a big, “probably.”

Let me be frank here, in my first moments of holding and experiencing this lens, I’ve never wanted to use a 135mm as much as this one in years. The last time I felt this way was when I was reviewing a Zeiss 135mm f2 Apochromatic. That lens just felt incredible and made images where everyone looked like they do in our fantasies. In this case, I’m totally shocked at how great this one feels.

I really need to mention this again: this lens is also weather resistant, which means that it will last a whole lot longer than a non-weather-resistant lens. Oh, yeah, and you can definitely take it out into inclement conditions.

I remember telling the staff at the Phoblographer about how shocked I was to be holding and testing a lens like this. Reviews Editor Alberto Lima, upon reading what I said, was amazed that these words were coming from me. And honestly, so was I.

I took the lens into my bedroom to see just how close it could focus. And it’s really just a few feet away. This, more than anything, made me literally say out loud, “Get the fuck out of here.” It did so on the Leica SL2s and the Panasonic LUMIX S5 II. Alberto came by and realized the same thing.

Another part of my mind immediately said that this lens deserves the site’s Editor’s Choice award.

Unlike many other reviewers out there, I’m a paid photographer on the side with taxable income from this gig. My day job is being the Editor in Chief of the Phoblographer.

So I took the Sigma 135mm f1.4 Art to my three-day-long gig for Plant Con 2025 here in NYC to shoot candids. For a little while, I had the Panasonic LUMIX S5 II with this lens and the S1II E with the original Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 attached. After a while, the strap for the camera holding the 24-70mm broke. It was shocking, but everything continued to work without flaw. I’m grateful that the camera didn’t stop working nor did the 24-70mm. But that goes to show that even when using similar cameras, the 24-70mm f2.8 is still heavier or at least differently balanced. Despite this, everyone who felt the weight of the 135mm thought that it was heavy. And indeed, when the lens is slung around my side for an entire 8-hour event, my back was hurting a bit.

To give you some more background, I’m formerly obese and have gone on a workout journey for the past few years. I’ll typically shoot with a camera and a lens in one hand and hold a Profoto B10 in the other. Then I’ll shoot. I hurt my lower back in yoga a few weeks ago and when I was doing this gig, I really needed to stretch it out more. However, the lens was light enough that my back wasn’t hurting in the same way that it would when I use Canon gear for hours.

Yes, a 135mm lens was kind of light enough for this sort of work!

Even more impressive is that the lens often hit the mark in lower light. I used a combination of human detection and choosing the focusing area to get my subjects in focus. Plant Con 2025 was at South Street Seaport. And if you’ve ever shot in a place like the Javitz Center and thought that it was dark, you’ve never done this. It was a challenge so much so that even my clients said that my images were too dark and needed to be fixed in post-production. But that’s not the Sigma lens’s fault.

Best yet, it even did it with people of color in low light. That is incredibly surprising to me that this camera system can outdo most of Sony’s cameras and lenses at a cheaper price point.

Image Quality

The two images above were shot with my Leica SL2s and the Profoto B20 that’s on loan to us for review. There is no editing, and specifically, these images are JPEGs out of the camera. By all means, I think that the lens did a good job. But still, my favorite images come from it when using Panasonic cameras and a bit of editing is involved.

I’m sure everyone else is going to sit here and talk about the bokeh and the sharpness of the lens. But truly, I don’t care. My clients are using the images for social media and none of that matters in the end. What matters is that we get the photos, they look nice, and that my creative vision is holistically felt through the photos. And that absolutely can be done with the right cameras.

I know that I’ll keep requesting this from Sigma and they’ll probably never do it: but I’d love chromatic aberration control on lenses like this so I could have swirly bokeh or something like that if I wanted. Having that unique look helps me give my clients a product that they can’t really get anywhere else when I combine it with all my in-camera methods.

The images above were edited. Sigma still isn’t quite there yet to where I wouldn’t want to edit the photos with a more standard camera system. But if you’re the type that really wants the look of enhanced reality, then you’ll love the Sigma 135mm f1.4. Me, on the other hand, I still like living in my fantasy world.

Sigma 135mm f1.4 DG Art Tech Specs

• Lens construction 13 – 17
• Angle of View 18.2°
• Minimum Aperture F 16
• Minimum Focusing Distance 1.1 m (3.61 ft)
• Maximum Magnification Ratio 1 : 6.9
• Filter Size Ø 105 mm
• Ø 111.7 × 135.5 mm
• (Ø 4.4 × 5.3 in)
• Weight 1,430 g (50.4 oz)

Declaration of Journalistic Integrity

The Phoblographer is one of the last standing dedicated photography publications that speaks to both art and tech in our articles. We put declarations up front in our reviews to adhere to journalistic standards that several publications abide by. These help you understand a lot more about what we do:

• At the time of publishing this review, Sigma is not running direct-sold advertising with the Phoblographer. This doesn’t affect our reviews anyway and it never has in our 15 years of publishing our articles. This article is in no way sponsored.
• Note that this isn’t necessarily our final review of the unit. It will be updated, and it’s more of an in-progress review than anything. In fact, almost all our reviews are like this.
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• The Phoblographer’s standards for reviewing products have become much stricter. After having the world’s largest database of real-world lens reviews, we choose not to review anything we don’t find innovative or unique, and in many cases, products that lack weather resistance. Unless something is very unique, we probably won’t touch it.
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