Sigma 35mm F1.2 DG II | ART Review: Top of the Class at F1.2?

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you my review of the new Sigma 35mm f1.2
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DG Mark IR series lens. Now, the predecessor of this lens I reviewed back
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in 2019, I believe, and so six years have gone by since the release of that lens. It was actually one of Sigma's
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earliest dedicated what they called DN at the time or designed for mirrorless designs. And ironically, it came out in
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conjunction with the 45mm f/2.8, the first of their ieries lenses, a really small compact lens, and then there was
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this massive 35mm lens. And I remember writing in my review at that point that this was the most Sigma of lenses and
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that it was optically excellent, but it was huge and it was heavy. And that was obviously a real limiting factor for a
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lot of people. Sigma has a different philosophy in 2025 where they recognize
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it's not enough just to be optically strong, which they've developed a brand for. But now it's equally important to
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try to shave some of that weight, reduce the size down, and make lenses, even if
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they're going to be these extreme type designs with maximum apertures of f1.2, but the kind of lens that people might
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actually want to bring along. So, this Mark I lens, it's 20% shorter, it's 30% lighter, and now it is really
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competitively sized in weight in a form factor that's actually almost identical,
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at least in length, to their 35mm f1.4 lens.
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But is this lens worth having? Earlier this year, we had the excellent Viltrox 35mm f1.2 from their lab series. And so,
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is Sigma able to bring something extra to market that the lab didn't bring? and
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does it justify the what actually becomes the premium lens in the 35mm
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class here on Sony at $1,549. That's more expensive than the Sony G
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Master lens, though the G Master is just an F1.4 lens and obviously considerably more expensive than what the Viltrox Lab
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is. So, in today's review, we're going to try to explore all of that and determine whether or not this is the
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lens that you should desire if you're looking for a high-end 35mm prime for
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either Sony E-mount or Leica Lmount. We'll dive into it right after a word from our sponsor. Today's episode is
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and use code dustin20 for 20% off. So in full disclosure, this lens was loan to
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me by Sigma. However, they have had no input in this review and my findings are
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my own. As always, this is a completely independent review. So, I've had a unique opportunity during this review to
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have a couple of key comparison points, including the Sony 35mm F1.4 GM, which
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I've owned for a few years, and then the more recent Viltrox Lab 35mm F1.2. Sigma
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putting here in between the two, and that's basically where it falls in terms of its size and weight. Now, the
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original lens from Sigma was actually larger even than the lab. Larger and heavier. And so, this new lens is 20%
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shorter. It is 30% lighter. And you can see in this comparison image just how it
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falls out compared to both the original 35mm f1.2 and then also Sigma's own 35mm
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f1.4. So, that plays out as being 81 mm in diameter or 3.2 in and 111.4 4 millime
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or 4.4 in in overall length. So to give you an idea, that is almost exactly what
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the length of the 35mm f1.4 art is. But this f1.2 lens is about 5.5 mm wider in
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diameter to accommodate that additional glass in there. The old lens by comparison was 87.8 mm in diameter. So
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plus 6.8 8 mm compared to this lens, but it was a whopping 136.2 millime in
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length, which is nearly 25 additional millimeters in length. So, that is a huge difference. Now, the Viltrox Lab
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lens, just to give you an idea, it is 89.2 millimeters in diameter. And so, it's it's quite wide, about 8
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millimeters wider in diameter, and it is longer by about right over 10 millimeters. It's 121.8 millimeters.
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In this process of condensing down the size, Sigma has also managed to reduce the filter size down to 80 or excuse me
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to 72 millimeters I believe from 82 millimeters was the original uh on the
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previous lens. And so that's a you know significant reduction in size for the filters. So now this lens weighs in at
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755 gram. That's 26.6 ounces compared to 90 or 910 g for the lab series lens. The
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original lens was right under,00 g and so they've shaved off a lot of size and
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weight. Now obviously the elephant in the room is that Sony's 35mm f1.4 G
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Master it doesn't have the same maximum aperture obviously but it is considerably more compact than the f1.2
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lenses. And so if you can live with f1.4 it remains a really stellar choice because you're not going to get a better
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quality lens in this form factor uh at 35 mm. It really is a fantastic lens.
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Now, this uh new lens has Sigma's more robust approach to feature set compared
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to the previous lens. And so that includes a more complex approach to the aperture control. You can have clicks at
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one/ird stop to tints, but there is a dclick option here that allows you to smoothly move through it. And so you can
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do smooth aperture racks for video. Very useful on that front. On this other side, there is an iris lock that will
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allow you to either lock into or out of the manual aperture ring. Um, and so if
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you don't like aperture rings at all, no problem. Just lock into the automatic mode and you don't have to worry about it. Or if you always want to use the
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aperture ring and you don't want to inadvertently go into automatic mode, you can use that aperture lock to take
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care of that. Other features here include a focus hold button and AFMF switch. And so you have quick control
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for that. And I will note on that point that I love the fact that uh on Sigma lenses you do have full-time manual
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override. And so that's really useful. We'll talk a little bit more about that during the autofocus section. While
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we're here, the manual focus ring here, it is very moves very smoothly, which is
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not unusual on mirrorless lenses. However, it does have a decent amount of damping and the focus motors are nice
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and reactive and so there's no input lag and so manual focus experience really is quite good. The Aperture Iris has 11
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blades, so it keeps a nicely circular shape. Go through that aperture rack one more time so you can see it does
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maintain a nice circular shape. And the geometry is pretty good and definitely by f2 you have consistently round uh
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specular highlights all across the frame, even a little bit before that. And so very nice on that front.
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We do have Sigma's dust and moisture resistance gasket at the back of the
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lens, coating on the front element, and then seals throughout at all of the rings and switches. And so, it is a
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thoroughly weather sealed lens there. It does come with a nice uh hood here.
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Sigma's hoods are typically cut above. And so, there are some different textures on there. There is a lock
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locking button that allows you to make sure it's never going to inadvertently come free there. really nicely
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implemented and I will say that I would say that it's even a bit nicer than what you're going to find on the G Master
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lens. Minimum focus distance is 28 cm and so that allows you to get, you know,
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relatively close to your subject. It and you get a 0.19 times level of
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magnification. So that's a little bit better than the Viltrox 0.17 times. Not quite as good as the Sony 0.26 times.
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It's one of the areas where the Sony lens is a standout, but uh 0.19 times is
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very useful for a lot of things. And as you can see of uh the lens on the front of the old SLR, you can, you know, fill
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a pretty good part of the frame with that. So I find that to be very useful. Now, it is interesting and unusual for
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the a Sigma lens to actually be the most expensive in this particular class, at least on Sony. And that plays out
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because Sony does itself does not have an F1.2 option. it only has an f1.4 option. And so the Sony's MSRP is right
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under $1,500, whereas the Sigma is $1,550. Now, at the moment, because it's been on the market for a while, you
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know, you're you have some play in that with the Sony lens at right now at B&H Photo, this is $100 off. And so, it's
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playing more at the the uh $1,400 range rather than the $1,500 range. And I know
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for many of you around the world when a new Sigma lens is releases an older G Master lens may actually be cheaper
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already in the market compared to that. The value option here is the lab lens which MSRPs at about a,000 bucks but
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there's discount codes including one in the description down below if you want to jump in and get that for even less.
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And so obviously um it is the the value king here as is pretty traditional space
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for the Vtrox. And so this is the premium lens in the class, but it is also premium in performance. And to give
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you a little bit more of a head-to-head perspective, this isn't available on Nikon Zmount. But if you compare it to
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the Nicor 35 F1.2 S-line lens, that lens retails for about $3,000, almost twice
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the cost of this. That helps put things into perspective a little bit. All told, this is another nicely executed package
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from Sigma. No real complaints here. So let's talk autofocus. Sigma has elected
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for the second time here to have a autofocus design that uses two of their
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new HLA focus motors. That's stands for a high-speed linear actuator. And this
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along with the 135mm f1.4 are the first of Sigma's lenses to employ two focus
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motors to get the job done. Now, obviously, this is going to give a huge advantage over the first generation lens
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that employ just a single STM focus motor. Now, we have a lot of additional thrust. And so, you can see here that
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focus adjustments from close to distant, if not instant, are just a hair off
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there. Despite the big glass elements, a part of a f1.2 design, autofocus is
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really fast and snappy here. Fast enough that I found in shooting sequences on my Alpha 1 of Nala, even at f1.2, that
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focus was good most of the time. you will see some periodic dips in those
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focus sequences where all of a sudden for a frame or two focus slips and then it picks back up and so it's not
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flawless for sports work and frankly if you want to do sports type work usually a first party Sony lens is the way to go
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anyway but in this case focus was fast enough that it kept up most of those things for portrait work it was flawless
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as you'd probably expect at this point having no problem nailing even at f1.2 too. Likewise, when just shooting
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general purpose type things, I had excellent autofocus, even when shooting at very narrow subjects. No problem with
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that. And I will give one additional bit of praise to uh Sigma on this front, and that is that their lenses allow for a
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full-time manual override, which can be really useful. I find with all camera systems and with pretty much all lenses
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that there will be moments where I want to focus on a foreground subject and the focus system for whatever reason just
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wants to keep locking on the background and being able to just quickly manual override to get at least into the right
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zone then focus will snap to where I want it to be uh is a very useful thing.
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So in general I found that autofocus performance was excellent. Again, there
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are a few limitations when it comes to sports type applications, but outside of that, you're going to be delighted with
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the kind of autofocus results you can get. It's fast, it's quiet, and it is very accurate in operation. So, how
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about autofocus for video? Now, I've shot all of these outdoor segments all on this lens. And in this particular
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shot, I have set it up intentionally with a few layers in the foreground, some things that might potentially
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distract on autofocus. But as you've probably seen at this point in all of these segments, focus has no problem
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locking onto a static subject like myself. And so zero issues with things like that. Likewise, I noticed when I
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did my test of focus pulls back and forth, a couple of things. First of all, those focus pulls, they're they're
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confident. They move smoothly back and forth. No pulsing or settling. But also, I noted a relatively low amount of focus
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breathing. Certainly less so. For example, if I throw on the Viltrox Lab, there's a much more obvious amount of
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focus breathing. And of course, the other lens that I'm benchmarking in this series is the Sony 35mm f1.4 GM. And the
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Sony GM lens is pretty notorious for the amount of focus breathing it has. Now,
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the Sony does benefit from the ability of being able to use focus breathing compensation in camera to correct for
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that, which is reserved only for Sony lenses. However, when there's a significant amount of focus breathing,
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as there is with this lens, it means that it's coming at a pretty noticeable
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amount of crop to achieve that. And so, I actually prefer what Sigma's done here
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in that the focus breathing is primarily solved from within the actual lens itself. And they've done that by
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employing some floating elements as a part of the design. And and so that that helps there to be less issues with focus
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breathing. I also found when doing my hand test, no problem in going back and forth as far as my hand. And I did
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notice in my static shots or then in my slow pans or different movement shots
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that focus moved along just fine. No issues there. And the only place where I saw any issue that I can report is that
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if I was zooming in towards a subject and I got into that close range as I
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moved closer to it, I did find some slippage as you can see here where focus kind of gets off and then it catches
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back up again and and gets to the place where it needs to be. And I saw a couple of those cycles in that particular clip
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there. And so it's not flawless, but at the same time it is very very good. And
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most of all, I find it very dependable. I don't have any kind of concerns at this moment that focus isn't doing what
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I want it to do even though I have introduced these layers into the shot and I'm shooting at f1.2. It's pretty
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fantastic in that regard. So, no real reser reservations when it comes to the autofocus performance for video either.
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So, let's talk image quality. Optical design here is pretty complex. 17 elements in 13 groups, the same as the
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new 135 F1.4. In this case though, the exotic elements are different. We have four aspherical
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elements and one SLD element to achieve what is a really good optical
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performance. Sigma chose to benchmark their first generation 35 F1.2. You can see that the new lens, despite being
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much smaller and lighter, still manages to beat the old lens all across the frame. Very impressive that they've been
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able to, you know, their ability to grind new and unique exotic elements allows them to condense things down. So,
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that's really fantastic. If I look and compared and I did my typical lining up with the MTF chart for the Lab series
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lens across the first half of the frame, so from center to mid-frame, Viltrox has
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a very slight edge and then there's some give and take with the corners being very slightly better for the Sigma lens.
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I found that in real world, you know, shooting that I felt like there was a very slight edge of microcontrast for
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the Viltrox in the center of the frame. Again, yes, the corners looked a little bit better on the Sigma. This does
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really well in when it comes to distortion. That's an area that sometimes I have critiques of of of
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Sigma's wider angle lenses, but that's not a problem here. There is the tiniest amount of pin cushion distortion, but
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just a minus one corrects that. Vignette is relatively heavy. It's a plus 73 to
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correct. And so, that's right in the same ballpark as the Viltrox lens. you know big wide angle wide aperture now
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unfortunately comes with some vignette in the territory you will notice that in some shots as you can see here however
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you stop down and it will start to go away and Sigma does get excellent correction profile support either in
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camera and in thirdparty software I found very low instances of
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longitudinal style chromatic aberrations and no real visible lateral style chromatic aberrations either so no
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problem on that front uh all those aberrations are well controlled. If we take a look at resolution, um we can
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find even on a 61 megapixel A7R Mark II at 200% magnification that the center
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looks really good, that the mid-frame looks really good, and then the corners are a little bit less good, but still
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very usable. And as we move on past there, as you stop down to f1.4, you see
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some mild gains to contrast. And then at f2, more still, and the corners are
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looking better by f2.8, 8. It is pen sharp all across the frame, including right off until the very edges of the
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corners. That means that your landscape style shots are going to look really, really good. Um, and no issues with
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that. Defraction is going to kick in as per usual at about f11 and it will get a
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little bit softer by f-16, but you know, not terrible either. I found for portrait work that portraits look
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fantastic even at f1.2. There's lots of sharpness and contrast there. And again, if we take a quick look comparing at
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f1.2 to the Viltrox, they look very very similar. If I compare to the the Sony at
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f1.4, again, they look very very similar, but you will notice the background is definitely softer looking
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uh from the Sigma lens. And there's just more noticeable u circles kind of bubble
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effect with the bokeh balls on the Sony lens. And so definitely a smoother
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rendering. And I did find when it comes to the bokeh that it was, in my opinion, a little bit smoother uh from the Sigma
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lens than what it was from the Viltrox. Both in the foreground, as you can see here, a little bit more jittery from the Viltrox. And then even in the
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background, I felt like the Sigma produced just slightly softer looking results. So really good on that front.
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The bokeh in general, I mean, some lenses I have just this really magical
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quality to them. I don't know that I feel that about the rendering from this particular lens. But then again, when I
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compare it with other lenses that I think are also quite good. Um, you know, it seems to be a little bit better than
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them. So, as far as f1.2 lenses go, this is really nice. I will say that I think that the rendering from the Nicor 35
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F1.2S line is nicer, but again, twice the money. So, overall, uh, you know,
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good results there. I also found when doing testing for flare that flare is
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mostly good. You're going to see a little bit of a veiling um flare effect if the the light sources right out of
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the frame at wide apertures, but it's fairly artistic. I did note that when stopped down to small apertures, f11,
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that it got a little bit more distracting, a little bit more ghosting, and then also some something in the bottom of the frame which wasn't there
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at wider apertures. And so I mean I think a lot of the times you're going to be shooting maybe at wider apertures anyway. So it's maybe not a real world
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problem but just so you're aware of that. I think in most cases you can shoot a backlit subject without any kind
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of major problems there. At the end of the day optics here are really really good competitive with the very best and
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I don't know what more could you ask for? They've shrunk the size dropped the weight way down and made it optically
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better than what it was before. Sounds like a winning combo to me. So my conclusion is that while the Sigma is
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the most expensive lens in the class, at least here on Sony, in many ways I think
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it is the best lens here in the class, there might be a mild edge for the Sony
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lens when it comes to overall focus speed and consistency of focus if you're
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shooting in sporting type situations. And maybe the Viltrox has a very slight edge in certain applications when it
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comes to the image quality, maybe a bit more micro contrast, but the Sigma, it
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really it takes all the best elements and puts them together in one lens. It
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is not the smallest or lightest lens in the class. That would be the Sony, but it's only an F1.4 lens. And for a 35mm
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f1.2, this is as small and light as what we have seen. And so they've done a
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great job in both miniaturaturizing the lens while also not only retaining but
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improving on that optical performance. The fact that we now have excellent autofocus. We already had a great build
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and feature set means that this is a lens that is pretty much doing everything well. And if I could put it
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this way, if I were choosing a 35 millimeter lens in this class right now to purchase, I think I probably would go
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with the Sigma. And I may in fact do that and upgrade to it in the future because I feel like it is providing the
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best of all the worlds at the moment. And so you can tell that this is a second generation lens because it has
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that extra degree of polish that Sigma has managed to bring to bear. You can tell that Sigma has learned some lessons
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over the past six years since they made the first generation lens. And it shows in just the degree of polish in all
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these different areas where the lens is just better than what it's ever been before. And as I went through a lot of
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head-to-head tests, and yes, I will release a head-to-head video where I do some comparisons between the Sony, the
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Viltrox, and the Sigma lens, I came away feeling that the Sigma uh really was
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delivered the consistently best performance of those three lenses. And we'll break that on down in a future
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video. So, while it's not cheap at $1,549,
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it does provide, I think, a very strong value. And if you go out outside of the platform for a moment and you compare it
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to a lens like the Nikon 35mm f1.2 S-line lens, that S-line lens is an
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amazing amazing lens. However, the Sigma, I think, is pretty much matching
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it and at a a price tag of well under $1,000 cheaper. And so I think that
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helps to position it as being a really strong value. Now, if you want more information, you can check out my full
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text review which is linked in the description down below on the newly redesigned dustinbot.net. Go check that
23:26
out. And if you're one of those that wants the deep dive into the optics, stay tuned with me right now. Let's jump
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into that together. Okay, we'll start by taking a look at vignette and distortion. You can see that distortion
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is very well controlled. Not really hardly anything to see. I did dial in a minus1 here to wreck just the tiniest
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amount of pin cushion distortion. Vignette is much more the issue here requiring a plus 73 to get to the
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correction that you see here. Correction profiles will help with that. However, if you do not correct it, you will
23:58
definitely see some vignette in the corners. It will darken the image and give it a specific look. You can see
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that while longitudinal style chromatic aberrations aren't perfectly corrected in my chart here, there's a little bit
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before and a little bit after. And what I found when taking a look here at the SLR here at the front, you can see that
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there's very little fringing. There's a tiny bit in there. And then as we move towards uh past the plan of focus, you
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can see that there is basically no fringing showing up there. Nothing around the specular highlights. Pretty
24:29
nice and clean there. lateral style chromatic aberrations near the edge of the frame are zero problem. You can see
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everything is very very nice and clean in the transitions from black to white there. So taking a look at resolution
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and contrast again 61 megapixels 200% magnification level. You can see here in
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the center of the frame looks fantastic. High contrast great detail all good
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there. Mid-frame looks awesome as well. No problems there. Looks good on this side. As we pop on down here, we can see
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starting to get a little bit of drop off here towards the lower right. And as we move towards the corners, it is a bit
25:07
softer, but really not too bad. Holding up fairly well here. Now, I'm going to
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reserve most of my comparisons for the follow-up video between the Viltrox and
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the Sony and then this Sigma lens. But if we just do a very quick F1.2 to
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comparison. We can see that the Viltrox has very slightly more contrast in the
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center of the frame. Just a little bit more punch there. In the mid-frame, they are close, though I think Viltrox still
25:37
has a very slight edge there. As we move down towards the corners, there's a bit of give and take here, but I would say
25:44
that the Sigma looks a little bit cleaner to me, a little bit more definition in some of these areas. And
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so you can see that both lenses uh you know they're they're competitive. The Viltrox maybe has the very slightest
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edge in terms of just raw resolution and contrast. There is absolutely plenty here at f1.2 for shooting portrait work.
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And so if we zoom in here, you can see that on my face that there's lots of
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detail there. Uh you know, you really wouldn't be looking for anything more than that. I would say contrast looks
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very nice. Overall the rendering of the shot looks nice. Another shot here just
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quickly you can see that focus is doing a great job and fortunately even at f1.2 at 35 mm there's enough in focus that
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you actually get a nice you know look of the face. I would say that the overall you know dimensionality here looks
26:36
pretty good from the background and I just have a single fixed light here that is providing the fill light. Overall I
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would say it looks looks good. Now if we stop down to f1.4 for just that little
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bit of stop down. You can see there is a bit more contrast. I would say that you can see a little bit more popping up
26:54
here in terms of textures in the mid-frame. The corners, uh, this is not
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where I see a big corner jump. The corners look a little bit brighter and higher contrast, but not a lot of
27:05
additional detail yet. If we return to a portrait setting for a moment, you can see that there probably is just a little
27:10
bit more contrast like around the eyes area. But again, I wouldn't say that it is meaningful enough for you to really
27:17
notice much of a difference. Um, I mean, it looks looks good and but it looked good at f1.2 as well. There's a bit more
27:25
contrast at f2 as you can see here. Everything in like the mid-frame zone.
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All of that's looking really good. The corners are looking better. However, you can see from f2 to f2.8 is really where
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the corners really start to pop. And you can see how the contrast is really standing out. Now, if I pop up pop up
27:44
here into the upper left corner, you can see that at f2.8, it just looks a lot better than what it did at f2. So, that
27:50
means when you're shooting at landscape apertures, this one is at f4, but anywhere between f2.8 and f8, you're
27:58
going to get really fantastic results all across the frame. You can see there's tons of detail and contrast
28:04
there. Uh the colors pop the, you know, the image just looks really, really good generally. And so certainly lots of
28:10
performance for landscapes or I mean if you're shooting uh portraits and you just want more in focus, it's going to
28:16
give you tremendous amounts of detail. Now by f11, you'll get a bit of softening due to defraction. By f16,
28:22
obviously that is more prominent. Still usable, but definitely not as sharp as what we saw at other aperture values.
28:29
Going back to minimum focus distance for a moment. I'll give you a look at how the performance is here. You can see
28:34
even at f1.2 there's good detail and contrast up close. This lens does have floating elements. So yes, that does
28:40
mean you'll feel like a things are moving around a little bit if you shake it when the lens is off the camera or
28:46
the camera is turned off, but it's mild in this case. It's not going to be really obvious. But it definitely helps
28:51
with that up close performance to get a flatter plane of focus and to get better detail. And so it is able to deliver a
28:57
really high level of, you know, not I shouldn't say super high level of magnification, but a very usable level
29:04
of magnification that will allow you to strongly blur out backgrounds. Speaking of the bokeh quality, you can see in
29:10
this shot, I think this one is handled really well. It has, you know, something closer to that magical rendering that
29:16
I'm looking for. Great detail on the subject. This shot I actually really, really like. I think that the background
29:21
is handled nicely and then the subject looks fantastic. really holding up nicely even though it's back lit. Now,
29:29
on the flare front, this is what you're likely to get if you're shooting at f1.2 and you have a bright light source
29:35
either in the frame or right out. It is a little bit of kind of a glow that's there. I I personally like this. I think
29:42
it's very artistic, very usable. Um, here's another shot here. And, you know,
29:47
a little this some of this bokeaz a little bit busy for me, but I think overall the the subject is holding up
29:52
well. fringing is well controlled in that very difficult situation and only the tiniest little bit of ghosting bits.
29:59
This shot you can see here and here we can see the sequence. So here's at f1.2 you can just see basically that bit of
30:04
glow there at f5.6 six, you're starting to get more defined. Um, look at the
30:10
aperture blades, but also more of this kind of green impact, a little bit more ghosting here. But then when you stop
30:16
down to f11, you can see here that this is where it's not so pretty. And
30:21
there's, you know, more obvious prismatic haze up here. But more concerning is down here where you're
30:27
getting a lot of this green blobs of color. Um, and that ghosting could be a
30:32
significant issue. So, I would say if you're shooting in back lit subject, you're going to be better if you keep it at f5.6
30:39
or brighter. And if you stop it on down, you could potentially run into some issues that might be a problem for you.
30:45
This shot here, while it's at that smaller aperture, it is kind of filtered through the trees. And so, yes, there's
30:51
a little bit of the ghosting pattern here, but not much of an issue. So, that's a more usable type situation. So,
30:57
I think that if you use a little bit of discretion in the way that you compose and how you set your shot up, you'll have no problems. And if you're shooting
31:03
at wide apertures, no problem at all. Overall, this is a great optical performance. So, hopefully the deep dive
31:10
helped you to determine whether or not this was the lens for you. As always, thanks for watching. Have a great day
31:16
and let the light in.

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