Over the past three years Sigma has easily been the most prolific lens developer on Sony FE and Leica L. We went from no full frame options from Sigma on Sony’s mirrorless platform three years ago to 30+ lenses today. And, while I tend to look at these lenses from a Sony slant (I don’t cover Leica L-mount), I do recognize that often these iSeries lenses (a lineup of compact prime lenses that debuted in late 2019) are designed even more with Leica cameras in mind. Compact lenses are even more desirable on compact cameras, and while Sony does have the compact a7C full frame camera, there are a variety of L-mount supporting compact cameras, including some from Sigma itself. The newest lens to join the growing ranks of the compact iSeries lenses is the Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN, which we will refer to as the i50 for brevity in this review, with a 17mm F4 lens also being announced at the same time. If you’re interested in other focal lengths, here is the growing list of iSeries compact prime lenses all hyperlinked to my review of them.
I’ve noted that Sigma’s marketing language for the iSeries is typical marketing word salad (impressive words without much grounding in reality), but the premise for the series is sound. Sigma has recognized that there are multiple segments within the mirrorless market, and those segments have different priorities. One group wants maximum performance in aperture and optics, and these are served by Sigma’s larger ART series (like the recent 50mm F1.4 DN ART), but there is a secondary market who bought into the mirrorless vision of smaller and lighter while retaining the performance. This second group is the target audience for the iSeries. The iSeries lenses are beautiful crafted, very tactile, but are also much smaller and lighter than other premium lenses. I’m a fan of the premise, myself, and have liked most of the iSeries lenses quite a bit.
I recently released my review of Sony’s newest 50mm lens, the 50mm F1.4 G Master, and one of the comments I heard often from my audience was that many of them were less interested in an F1.4 lens (when Sony already has an amazing 50mm F1.2 lens), and what they really wanted was a better quality 50mm F1.8 lens (perhaps in the G series). Sony already has a very compact 50mm F2.5 G lens (which I reviewed here), but people wanted something a little faster than that. Sigma is happy to jump into that void, as the i50 has the superior build quality, quality optics, and compact size that people said they are looking for.
The main threat to the i50 on the Sony side is that Sony 50mm F2.5 G lens, as the Sony is a really solid little lens with a great build, excellent autofocus, good up close performance, and very strong optics. It’s also 25mm shorter and about half the weight of the new Sigma lens…and the price point is pretty much identical. The main Sigma advantage is that it sports a 2/3rds stop brighter aperture (F2 vs F2.5), and it could be argued that the build is even nicer. There are fewer alternatives in L mount, however, where this lens will be even more welcome.
So should the new Sigma jump onto your wish list for a new 50mm lens? I’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of the lens in this review. So now you have a choice: watch the video review below or read the text review to get the full picture.
Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Sigma 50mm F2 DN, Sigma 50 2, Sigma 50mm 2 DN, Sigma 50mm, Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN, DG, DN, iSeries, Contemporary, 50mm, F2, f/2, Review, Sony 50mm GM, Sony 50mm F1.2 GM, Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II, Leica L, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA, #SIGMA, #SIGMA50mmF2Contemporary, #SIGMAContemporary, #SIGMAContemporaryPrime, #SIGMADGDN, #Iseries, #SIGMAIseries
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
It’s the one I’ve been waiting for! Even since Sigma released their 85mm F1.4 DN in 2020 (my review here) I’ve been harassing my Sigma contact about a 50mm DN lens. Well, it’s here, and the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG DN ART is sure to be a hit. Why do I say that? While Sony has a TON of available lenses at this point, the amount of quality 50mm options is actually fairly low. The older Sony Zeiss 50mm F1.4 Planar (my review here) is still available, though at a pricy $1500 USD. There’s the bargain Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II (my review here) which is well worth considering at $650 USD. Then at the top of the heap there is the brilliant Sony 50mm F1.2 G Master lens (my review here), though it will run you $2000 USD. But Sigma is unique in that it brings us lenses that are more like direct competitors with something like the GM lineup though at a significantly reduced price tag. In this case, the 50mm F1.4 DN is coming to market with an MSRP of $850 USD. That’s a great value for such a high performing lens (as we will see), in particular because the new Sigma is much more competitive with the GM lens than either the older Sony or the new Samyang in terms of autofocus.
Sigma has given the 50mm F1.4 DN their new HLA focus motor, making it just the second lens (after the new 60-600mm DN Sport) to receive this superior high speed focus system. HLA stands for “High-response Linear Actuator”. There is a clear improvement in focus speed with this new focus motor, delivering near instant focus changes. The Sigma is closer to the GM in autofocus performance than any of the other 50mm alternatives.
There are few lenses more valued to wedding and portrait photographers than a quality 50mm F1.4 lens, as this is a versatile focal length and can deliver very striking results. The 50mm F1.4 DN definitely delivers on that front, and its reasonable price is sure to prompt the same kind of success that Sigma saw with its original 50mm F1.4 ART for DSLR mounts.
If you don’t “speak Sigma”, here’s a quick breakdown of what those letter combinations in the name mean. DG is Sigma’ designation for a lens designed for full frame (DC denotes APS-C). DN refers to lenses designed for mirrorless cameras (in this case the lens will initially come to Sony E-mount [tested here] and Leica L mount, with hopefully other mounts in the future). ART is the designation Sigma gives to its higher end primes and zooms that tend to have larger maximum apertures and higher optical performance.
So should the new Sigma jump onto your wish list for a new 50mm lens. Should you upgrade your current lens to it? You can judge for yourself by either watching my video review below or reading on to get the full picture.
Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN Build and Handling
Sigma divides its lenses into three different categories: Contemporary, Art, and Sport. The Contemporary lineup gets the lowest level of build and weather sealing, while the lines are a little more blurred with the Art and Sport lenses. This ART lens is very nice built, and has a “Dust and Splash resistant structure” in the form of a gasket at the lens mount, internal seals, and a water and oil repellant coating on the front element.
Sigma has managed to really reduce the size and weight of this new DN lens relative to the DSLR lens from the previous generation (which I reviewed here). They’ve shaved 14.4mm off the length, 7.2mm from the diameter, and, most significantly, 235g in weight. The new lens is 78.2mm (3.1″) in diameter (with a 72mm front filter thread) and 111.5mm (4.4″) in length. It weighs 660g (23.3oz). The size reduction isn’t nearly as dramatic as what we saw with the 85mm F1.4 DN, but neither was the original 50mm F1.4 ART as ridiculously large. Here’s a look at how the new 50mm F1.4 DN compares with the 85mm F1.4 DN and the Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II:
As per usual with the ART series, Sigma provides a nice padded nylon case along with a quality lens hood. The lens hood has different textures to it along with a locking mechanism. Sigma does go the extra mile in the presentation of their lenses, and they are proud that their products continue to be fully assembled in Japan.
The 50mm F1.4 DN has Sigma’s unique approach to aperture, which includes several features. This includes an aperture ring with the option of using the “clicked” version (with one-third stop detents) or, with the flip of a switch, a fully declicked version that will allow for aperture racking for video. One unique Sigma feature is an aperture lock switch, which you can engage either in the manual aperture portion (this will keep you from inadvertently sliding into “A” [Auto] position, particularly important if doing aperture racks), or you can engage it when you are Auto aperture mode to make you that you don’t inadvertently bump the ring and change the aperture without noticing.
This really gives users the best of all worlds, as for those who don’t like an aperture ring, you can use the lock and just control the aperture from within the camera (or allow the camera to control aperture) without being concerned about an inadvertent bump of the ring. You can use the manual aperture ring with clicks (my personal preference), or declick it if preferred.
The aperture iris itself features a higher blade count with eleven rounded aperture blades, which, incidentally, equals the tally on the GM lens. This ensures that the aperture stays nice and round even with the lens stopped down.
The 50mm F1.4 DN also sports an AF/MF switch and a focus hold button which you can program to various functions in the camera.
The manual focus ring is nice and wide, deeply ribbed, and is really nicely damped. The high power of the focus motor means that there is no latency when you manually focus (mirrorless lenses operate on a “focus by wire” arrangement rather than a direct mechanical coupling to the focus elements). Manual focus action is very nice and feels pretty close to the real thing. If you are using the Leica L version of the lens and the USB dock, you can tweak the behavior of the focus ring between linear focus and non-linear focus.
The build quality feels very nice here, roughly on par with the much more expensive G Master. It’s a great mix of nice materials, including some metal alloys and engineered plastics, and Sigma has long been good at using different textures as a means of keeping their lenses from being “boring” even though there are essentially no accent colors in use here.
The minimum focus distance is 45cm (17.8″), and that leaves us with essentially a 0.15x magnification figure. That’s about average for a 50mm lens, though this is one area where the GM wins. It can focus closer (40cm) and achieves a 0.17x magnification figure. This probably isn’t a deal breaker for most photographers, and the results at the MFD are quite good on the Sigma:
This opens up the possibility of some nice depth of field shots with beautifully blurred backgrounds.
Sigma has delivered a feature set that is pretty comparable to the G Master lens but at a much lower price point. That’s almost certainly going to be a winning combination.
Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN Autofocus
It’s always exciting to see a lensmaker take a leap forward, and Sigma has done that this year with their new AF system. The new HLA (High-response Linear Actuator) focus motor is a definite improvement over the stepping motors Sigma has used in the past on their mirrorless lenses. Here’s how Sigma describes the focus system, “A linear motor is a linear actuator that controls electromagnetic forces and can be driven freely, enabling high-speed AF. It can move the heavy focus group while ensuring the lens remains quiet, but the weight is relatively heavier.” That final phrase can be a little difficult, but essentially they are making the distinction that while typical stepping motors are smaller and lighter, the linear focus motor here is more powerful and has the necessary torque for rapid focus changes even with the heavy glass elements in a large aperture lens like this. And you can definitely feel the speed, as there is little hesitation when making focus changes and instead focus is essentially where you need it be near instantaneously.
I had plenty of speed in all kinds of lighting conditions, including dim lighting.
Furthermore, when I shot a portrait series in falling snow, I had perfect focus results at a variety of focus distances despite the distraction of the snow flakes.
I also shot through some of the foliage of a blue spruce and had perfect eye stickiness and tracking during it.
Animal Eye AF also delivers exceptionally good results. I got perfect lock-on to Nala’s eyes and got a beautiful series of shots of her with light from a nearby window.
Video focus pulls are smooth and fast, with no hesitation, pulsing, or settling. I also saw smooth, confident focus transitions when I put my hand in front of the lens and then allowed focus to transition back to my eyes. The only negative on the video front is that A) there is a significant amount of focus breathing and B) the Sigma is not compatible with Sony’s “breathing compensation” correction found in their newest cameras (so far this is only available with Sony branded lenses).
I would say that the only other negative when comparing to the G Master lens is the fact that the Sigma is artificially limited on Sony’s sport cameras (the a9 or Alpha 1 series) to 15FPS in burst speed. 15FPS is still very fast, obviously, but if you’ve made a big investment in a sports camera, you might want to consider a Sony lens for that simple reason. It’s not fair, obviously, but it’s pretty typical for camera makers to try to bias things in favor of their own lenses. I doubt too many people are buying a wide aperture 50mm lens as a dedicated sports lens, so probably not a big deal for most.
I did some complaining over the focus accuracy on the first generation Sigma, but this new focus motor was just what Sigma needed to up their game in the one area that I felt was lacking a bit. I shot some with the Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II side by side, and the faster focus speed of the Sigma is extremely obvious.
Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN Image Quality Breakdown
Sigma has done a pretty remarkable job as a third party lensmaker in that people expect a new Sigma release (particularly an ART prime release) to automatically be a very high performing lens. The previous generation 50mm F1.4 was considered to be one of the sharpest 50mm options ever on the Canon EF platform where I was reviewing at the time. Sigma has managed to further improve things on this new DN version. The optical design has gotten a little more complex (14 elements in 11 groups vs 13 elements in 8 groups), and Sigma has upped the number of aspherical elements from 1 to 3 in the new design along with 1 SLD element). The MTF charts shows a stronger performance all across the frame, though the improvement in the corners is the most noticeable element here.
You can see that the HSM lens (first gen lens) started at about 75% in the center but dropped down to the 40% level in the corners. The new DN lens starts at around 80% and rises to 83% or so in the midframe, but then only drops to about the 70% range in the extreme corners. It is essentially as sharp in the corners as the HSM lens was in the center of the frame – something even Sigma pointed out in their pre-release information packet.
I took a look at the MTF charts from two competitors – the less expensive Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II and the much more expensive Sony 50mm F1.2 GM. The Samyang MTF shows a slightly weaker performance across the frame with more of a drop to the corners. The GM shows a considerably sharper center performance (at F1.2) but has more of a drop in the corners than what the Sigma shows. Here’s a look at the MTF charts for all three lenses.
We’ll break down what I actually found in a mix of real world and chart tests. First of all, a slight surprise to me: I definitely saw some fringing in real world use. I was somewhat shocked when I zoomed into the second image I took with the lens and saw some longitudinal chromatic aberrations in a shot of my wife’s glasses sitting on a side table.
This shot of an old Yashica also shows a bit of LoCA on some of the shiny surfaces.
To be fair, I saw a similar amount of CA when using the Samyang side by side and even saw a bit of LoCA with the GM during my tests. A bit of LoCA is par for the course with a wide aperture 50mm lens, and there isn’t enough here to be destructive.
I also saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations along the edge of the frame.
The surprise with the 85mm F1.4 DN was that it had a surprising amount of pincushion distortion. That was the thing that had to give to get the vastly reduced size while continuing to have great performance elsewhere. It took a pretty significant amount of correction (-11) to eliminate the distortion and I had to max out the sliders in Lightroom to get rid of the vignette. The 50mm F1.4 DN is fairly similar, though with slightly reduced amounts of pincushion distortion (-8) and vignette (+84 instead of 100).
Both these figures are slightly worse than the G Master lens, which required a -5 to correct pincushion distortion and took a +71 to correct for the vignette. Slightly worse, but not radically worse. Sigma provided me with a pre-release correction profile for RAW images that I manually loaded into Lightroom/ACR and I found that it did quite a good job, though I would have corrected just slightly more for the distortion. The good news is that 1) pincushion distortion tends to correct more cleanly than barrel distortion and 2) pincushion distortion can be flattering as it tends to be slimming while barrel distortion is a bit, ahem, bloating.
Here’s a look at a wide open portrait shot without any correction (left side) and after the standard profile has been added (right side):
The snowy environment obviously emphasizes the vignette, so I definitely prefer the corrected version in this setting. In many situations I probably wouldn’t mind the vignette as it provides a natural drawing of the eye to the subject.
Nothing major here, though. All of this is easily correctable.
We’ll move on to testing sharpness. All of the tests and photos shown in this review are done on the 50MP Sony Alpha 1, which is Sony’s second-highest resolution full frame mirrorless camera at the time of this review. Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.
If we look closely wide open at F1.4, we find that the lens produces very good center performance, exceptional mid-frame performance, and extremely strong corner performance.
Stopping down to F2 improves things to exceptional levels across the frame. The most obvious improvement is actually in the center of the frame, but you can see the improved contrast and detail in the mid-frame as well:
In some ways there is more obvious improvements when shooting in the real world. In this comparison between F1.4 and F4 you can see that the improved contrast certainly makes a difference in a longer distance shot:
For portraits, however, I think there is plenty of resolution at F1.4. The fact that peak sharpness is slightly off center is actually an asset, as you can get your sharpness wide open results in the rule-of-thirds zones.
Sharpness seems to peak around F4 on my 50MP camera. Minimum aperture is F16, though by that point diffraction has softened the image quite a bit.
Sharpness is not going to be a problem with this lens. Period.
If you are interested in how the Sigma compares to the new Sony 50mm F1.4 G Master, here’s a video that highlights the relative strengths and weaknesses for both lenses:
I found that while the Samyang compared well in the center of the frame on my chart tests, the Sigma offered a little more punch in terms of real world contrast and detail.
Bokeh is subjective, but I don’t think there is any noticeable difference between the bokeh of the Samyang and the Sigma when viewed globally.
Sigma has touted that the corner bokeh is smoother on this new lens due to less sagittal coma. This results in less coma (for astro work) but also results in less outlining near the edge of the frame. There is still some lemon shape to the bokeh near the edge of the frame at F1.4, but I did find that if you stop down to F2 you can get nicely circular bokeh across the frame if that is an issue for you. The high blade count of 11 aperture blades helps assure that you see little of the aperture blades when the lens is stopped down, too.
When I evaluate very sharp, high contrast lenses, I always take a careful look at the bokeh quality. Sometimes it gets sacrificed on the altar of sharpness and contrast, but I felt like the bokeh quality was pretty nice here. We’ve already seen that it handles specular highlights quite well, and I also found that bokeh in closer shots was pretty creamy, like the needles in this snowy evergreen shot.
The foreground bokeh is nice in this portrait shot where I framed the model through the snow covered branches of a blue spruce.
The bare trees behind this full length portrait are not soft and creamy, obvious, but neither is there any harsh outlining or anything distracting about them.
I didn’t find the bokeh and overall rendering quite as “magical” as the 50mm F1.2 GM (a very special lens optically), but part of that is also due to the fact that an F1.2 lens just has a little more capacity to blur out backgrounds and produce softer bokeh. I suspect that many people with a limited budget will decide that the extra $1150 to get the GM’s bokeh is probably not worth it.
I’ve got a “VS” video comparing the Sigma and Samyang (closest in price, thus most likely to be cross-shopped), which you can watch here.
A few quick observations from my comparisons:
While the color temperature of Samyang glass has often been warm in the past, it was the Sigma that was slightly warmer in side by side comparisons
The Sigma frames a little tighter than the Samyang – probably about a millimeter or two.
Autofocus speed definitely favors the Sigma
Both lenses show a bit of LoCA, but the Samyang shows slightly more
The Samyang is considerably lighter and more compact (about 250g lighter and 20mm shorter)
I found flare resistance to be quite good from the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN. Contrast held up well, I saw little ghosting at wider apertures, though I saw a mild flare pattern when stopped down to F11. When stopped down the lens also produces an attractive 22 pointed sunstar.
I thought I would get a quick test of the coma performance since Sigma mentioned it, and I did find a fairly low instance of coma, making this a very viable option for shooting astrophotography.
In short, there really isn’t a lot to complain about optically here. You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here. This is a very strong lens optically, though, like the 85mm F1.4 DN, it is fairly dependent on profile corrections to deal with distortion and vignette.
Conclusion
I have been eagerly awaiting Sigma’s release of the 50mm F1.4 DG DN ART. Sigma’s DN versions of their ART series lenses have been significant improvements over the previous generation DSLR lenses in basically every way: smaller and lighter, better autofocus, more features, weather sealed, and with optical improvements as well. The 50mm focal length is so important, and I was excited to see what Sigma would do in this space. I actually thought they might do an F1.2 lens, though their early 35mm F1.2 DN was definitely on the large side of things. They instead opted for a “safer” choice where they could moderate the size. That leaves the Sony 50mm F1.2 G Master as the exclusive F1.2 option for the moment, but it also means that the Sigma can be very aggressively priced relative to the GM. $850 vs $2000 USD is a huge price difference, and I suspect that many photographers will consider the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN “enough” for their tastes…and budget.
Those that opt for this new Sigma will find a very strong performing lens. It focuses very quickly, has great wide open sharpness, and has very nice bokeh rendering even if not quite as gorgeous as the G Master.
The list of weaknesses is pretty short. It has a bit more distortion and vignette than what I would like, but nothing that can’t easily be corrected via the profile in-camera or in software for RAW images. I found it to be a very nice portrait option along with being a great general purpose normal lens. I’m very impressed with Sigma’s HLA focus system and the improved performance it brings, and the fact that Sigma has kept the price point affordable makes the 50mm F1.4 DN a great value and a strong candidate for the next lens in your bag!
Pros:
Excellent price to performance ratio
Good quality of construction including robust weather sealing
Feature rich – competes directly with Sony G Master
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN, Sigma 50 1.4, Sigma 50 1.4 DN, Sigma 50mm, Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG DN ART, DG, DN, ART, 50mm, F1.4, f/1.4, Review, Sony 50mm GM, Sony 50mm F1.2 GM, Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II, HLA, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
It’s the one I’ve been waiting for! Even since Sigma released their 85mm F1.4 DN in 2020 (my review here) I’ve been harassing my Sigma contact about a 50mm DN lens. Well, it’s here, and the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG DN ART is sure to be a hit. Why do I say that? While Sony has a TON of available lenses at this point, the amount of quality 50mm options is actually fairly low. The older Sony Zeiss 50mm F1.4 Planar (my review here) is still available, though at a pricy $1500 USD. There’s the bargain Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II (my review here) which is well worth considering at $650 USD. Then at the top of the heap there is the brilliant Sony 50mm F1.2 G Master lens (my review here), though it will run you $2000 USD. But Sigma is unique in that it brings us lenses that are more like direct competitors with something like the GM lineup though at a significantly reduced price tag. In this case, the 50mm F1.4 DN is coming to market with an MSRP of $850 USD. That’s a great value for such a high performing lens (as we will see), in particular because the new Sigma is much more competitive with the GM lens than either the older Sony or the new Samyang in terms of autofocus.
Sigma has given the 50mm F1.4 DN their new HLA focus motor, making it just the second lens (after the new 60-600mm DN Sport) to receive this superior high speed focus system. HLA stands for “High-response Linear Actuator”. There is a clear improvement in focus speed with this new focus motor, delivering near instant focus changes. The Sigma is closer to the GM in autofocus performance than any of the other 50mm alternatives.
There are few lenses more valued to wedding and portrait photographers than a quality 50mm F1.4 lens, as this is a versatile focal length and can deliver very striking results. The 50mm F1.4 DN definitely delivers on that front, and its reasonable price is sure to prompt the same kind of success that Sigma saw with its original 50mm F1.4 ART for DSLR mounts.
If you don’t “speak Sigma”, here’s a quick breakdown of what those letter combinations in the name mean. DG is Sigma’ designation for a lens designed for full frame (DC denotes APS-C). DN refers to lenses designed for mirrorless cameras (in this case the lens will initially come to Sony E-mount [tested here] and Leica L mount, with hopefully other mounts in the future). ART is the designation Sigma gives to its higher end primes and zooms that tend to have larger maximum apertures and higher optical performance.
So should the new Sigma jump onto your wish list for a new 50mm lens? Should you upgrade your current lens to it? You can judge for yourself by either watching my video review below or reading my text review to get the full picture…or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN, Sigma 50 1.4, Sigma 50 1.4 DN, Sigma 50mm, Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG DN ART, DG, DN, ART, 50mm, F1.4, f/1.4, Review, Sony 50mm GM, Sony 50mm F1.2 GM, Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II, HLA, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
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The Sony a7RIII was the camera that really made me believe in Sony. It took a deeply flawed camera (though with some great strengths) in the a7RII and turned it into the most complete camera on the market at the time. It had a little bit of everything: great sensor, great autofocus, great video performance, and improved ergonomics. I liked it well enough that I immediately bought one. The one thing that mostly stayed the same was the excellent 42MP sensor from the a7RII. The a7RIV (my review here) debuted a new sensor (with a then-record 61.2MP) and improved autofocus but also had a lot of similarities to the a7RIII in other areas. There were a number of shortcomings that I thought were left unaddressed. I had a list of things in my review that I thought should have changed but didn’t. But much like the a7RIII, the new Sony a7RV carries forward the excellent sensor from the previous generation but essentially improves almost everything else on the camera. The list of new features and changes is a long one!
One of my critiques about the a7RIV is that it had a massive amount of resolution (61MP) but no way to reduce that resolution for the situations where it was overkill. You could switch to an APS-C crop mode (at 26MP), but that would change the angle of view of your lenses. The a7RV introduces both an MRAW (26MP) and SRAW (15MP) in the Lossless Compressed mode that allows you to shoot at lower resolution levels for those situations where you don’t need the full resolution. It also retains multiple options for the RAW file type at full resolution, which include Uncompressed, Compressed, and Lossless Compressed (which is typically my file type of choice in most cameras).
The long list of improvements on the a7RV basically check off every box that I would look for in this class of camera, and, much like the a7RIII, I feel like the a7RV is the upgrade that many people are looking for who might have skipped the a7RIV upgrade path. This is an incredibly complete camera, and while its price tag of roughly $3900 USD isn’t low, this is a LOT of camera for the money. We’ll explore the pros and cons of Sony’s latest camera more deeply in this review, and you can also watch my video review if you prefer that medium.
Thanks to Gentec (Sony’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a loaner of the a7RV. As always, this is a completely independent review.
List of Features and Improvements
If you get lost in lengthy reviews, here’s a little bullet-point breakdown of what’s stayed the same, what’s changed, and what didn’t change but should have since the a7RIV:
What stays the same:
61MP – Full frame BSI-CMOS Sensor
10fps continuous shooting with AE/AF tracking
Interval shooting
Pixel Shift
NP-FZ100 battery
mic input and headphone output (3.5mm)
Same ISO range (native 100-32,000)
Dynamic Range and ISO performance
Similar body and button layout
240.8MP Pixel Shift feature
What’s different:
8K24P and 4K60 recording
Support for CFExpress Type A cards
Much deeper buffers (up to 583 RAW images)
Ability to choose MRAW (26MP) or SRAW (15MP)
693 vs 567 Phase Detect points – 79% coverage (more points, slightly less coverage)
567 Phase Detect Points in APS-C mode (vs 325)
Newer image processor (BIONZ-XR) and AI learning for superior tracking
More detectable subjects for AI tracking (Humans, Animals, Birds, Insects, Car, Train, Airplane)
Improved IBIS performance (up to 8 stops vs 5.5 stops)
Improved Viewfinder (9.44M dot vs 5.7M dot)
Higher viewfinder magnification (0.90x vs 0.78x)
Improved LCD screen (3.2″ vs 3″, 2.36M dot vs 1.44M dot resolution)
Fully functional touchscreen
Fully articulating screen with 4 axis points (tilt + articulating)
Full size HDMI port
Can record video without time limits
Mode dial allows separate setup for stills and video
What Should have Changed (but Didn’t!)
Higher burst rate?
Still no internal GPS option
What the bullet points can’t cover is how all of this plays out in real-world use, so let’s cover these areas in more detail.
Sony a7RV Handling and Ergonomics
There are minimal differences in size and weight between the aRIV and the a7RV, though the latter in many ways takes more cues from the basic layout of the a7IV. The basic size is very slightly larger at 131.3 x 96.9 x 82.4 mm (W x H x D), or 5.2 x 3.8 x 3.2″. That’s a few millimeters larger in each dimension, all of which adds up to a slight increase in weight to 723g (1.6lb) from the 1.46 lb (665g) of the a7RIV. Sony continues to increase the grip depth of their cameras, which I find welcome, though I still find that Sony cameras don’t leave a lot of room between the grip and many lenses. It’s still not unusual for my knuckles to be pressed up against the lens barrel while gripping the camera.
Other than that, the grip feels good in the hand. I no longer feel like my pinky finger has no place to go. I still prefer the feeling of Canon’s grips on cameras like the EOS R5, but this is one of the best executions of the family Sony full frame mirrorless camera shape. I was pleasantly surprised to find that that the a7RV is compatible with the VG-C4EM vertical battery grip, which is also compatible with the Alpha 1, a7 IV, a7R IV, a7S III, and a9 II. The grip will allow you to utilize two of the NP-FZ100 batteries and extends your shooting life. That could be important, as the additional focus and processing power on board the a7RV combined with a higher resolution EVF and rear LCD means that the a7RV will burn through battery power a little faster than the a7RIV. The NP-FZ100 is rated here for 440 shots through the viewfinder and 530 shots using the LCD screen. That’s down from 530/660 on the a7RIV, so you might want to buy an extra NP-FZ100 battery or two.
Overall the ergonomics feel very similar with just a few differences. I happen to own the a7IV, and the button layout is identical. Like the a7IV, the a7RV swapped the position of the C1 and movie recording buttons, so the C1 button is on the back next to the viewfinder (right side) while the movie record button is on the top of the camera next to the C2 button. The a7RV also uses the a7IV convention of not having the Exposure Compensation dial labelled. I don’t love this, as I always use that dial for Exposure Compensation, but the argument in favor of this change is that the dial can now easily be assigned a different function if you don’t want to use it for exposure compensation. The dial doesn’t have a predetermined limit in either direction, either, so it can be easily used for a completely different function. Menu options include exposure, white balance, or Color/Tone. This dial does have a locking mechanism that is either locked or unlocked, not one that you hold down during rotation.
Also borrowed from the a7IV is the two layer dial that has mode on the top (Auto, PASM, and 3 custom modes) and then a Stills/Video/S&Q (slow and quick) option below. This is great, as it allows you to have a completely different configuration for stills and video, up to and including button and menu customization for each setting.
The a7RV retains the a7RIV’s improvement to things like the rear joystick, which had better better surface texture and more precise movement compared to older models. The front wheel on the a7RIV received a slight cant upwards that makes it fall more readily to the finger, and the rear wheel was moved up to a higher position on top of the camera body where it is easier to get one’s thumb on it.
But there are areas where the a7RV is a huge ergonomic improvement over the a7RIV, and that primarily has to do with the rear LCD screen. I had complained in one Sony camera review after another over the lackluster implementation of touch on Sony’s LCD screens, and Sony finally listened starting with the a7SIII. Touch was fully implemented on all menus and there was less input lag. That carries over here, though we also get an upgrade in the LCD size (now 3.2″ rather than 3″). Photographers have debated whether a tilting or articulating screen is better, and Sony has answered that question in a novel way.
How about both?
Sony’s new 4 axis LCD screen allows you to have either tilting OR articulation. You can tilt the screen out if that is your preference. You can articulate it down for use in shooting with the camera in vertical position. You can articulate it out to the side or facing the front for monitoring in different positions.
Surely this will become the new standard that other cameras aspire to. It just makes so much sense.
Also upgraded is the viewfinder. It was upgraded to the Alpha 1 spec viewfinder that adds better coverage (0.90x magnification) with higher resolution (9.4M dot). The Alpha 1 allows you to have a slightly faster refresh rate (up to 240FPS), but the 120FPS spec here is still very high end. We have definitely gotten very close to the clarity of a optical viewfinder but with all the benefits that an EVF brings (magnification, overlays, menus, etc…) This is a fabulous viewfinder. And, for me, the biggest advantage to an EVF is when using manual focus lenses. It shows true depth of field, for one, making visual confirmation of focus easier. You can easily magnify the image in the viewfinder, allowing you to nail focus every time. You can choose to add colored focus overlays (focus peaking) in different shades that will highlight areas in focus. This final method isn’t my favorite, personally, as it makes the shooting process less organic. One of the keys to being an effective photographer is the ability to visualize – to see color, light, and shadow – and I find overlays interfere with that. Still, it is my love for my manual focus glass was one of my primary catalyst in moving to mirrorless bodies. Nailing focus consistently adds so much enjoyment to using these lenses…and the EVF is the single biggest reason for that.
Like the a7RIV, the feel of the doors and ports on the a7RV is improved over earlier cameras. They have better gaskets and seals and open in a cleaner way than older cameras. The doors don’t just hang there like before. The a7RV has a nice level of weather sealing with gaskets throughout the camera.
The side of the camera with the ports doesn’t look all that different, but there are some important upgrades there. First of all is that the a7RV has a separate port (like the a7IV) for the microphone out. This is very useful as it allows you to have the screen facing forward for monitoring while having a microphone plugged in.
The headphone monitoring jack occupies its own port as the HDMI has moved, and below that are the standard USB-C and micro USB ports. The USB-C port is upgraded to the USB 3.2 Gen 2 standard which allows double the transfer rate (up to 10 Gbps vs 5 Gbps). We have been upgraded from a mini-HDMI to a full size HDMI (sure to be welcomed by videographers!) that has moved up to the front port where it shares real estate with the flash sync port.
While the a7RIV did have a minor upgrade in that both (rather than just 1) card slot were UHS-II compatible, the a7RV upgrades to having dual CFExpress Type A/UHS-II SD slots which allow you to use either/or in each slot. I tend to use the “Sort” option that writes RAW images to one card and JPEGs to the other. CFExpress Type A cards are expensive (my 160GB card retails for $350!), so I compromise by having the CFExpress card in Slot 1 and then an SD card in Slot II. The upgrade to CFExpress here allows for much faster data transfer (almost 3x as fast) which in turn enables much deeper buffers as we’ll see in a moment. I personally use and recommend the Sony Tough cards for SD cards and the Sony Tough CFExpress Type A cards are very good as well, though slightly more expensive than the similar Delkin Black card I’m currently using in my Alpha 1. This move along with faster processing allows for both deeper buffers and also for those buffers to quickly clear, making the a7RV much more useful for capturing action than what the a7RIV was.
Sony’s 5 Axis in-body-image-stabilization (Steady Shot) has gotten a huge upgrade here, moving from a CIPA rated 5.5 stops to up to 8 stops! That rating is reported using the 50mm F1.2 GM, so there will be some minor variation based on what lens is attached. I’ve found that Sony’s IBIS works better with shorter focal lengths in the past, so I was interested in how it would work with longer lenses. My longest focal length in my kit that doesn’t have lens stabilization is the Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 RXD. I shot with it at 200mm and the Tamron 35-150mm VXD at 150mm. I got nicely stable results at 1/5th of a second at 150mm (5 stops) with the 35-150mm (I didn’t test lower than than that with that lens)
I then tried the Tamron 28-200mm and got stable results at 1/4th of a second at 200mm (6 stops). I could have possibly gotten even better results than that if I had tried, but what this told me was this newest version of IBIS is going to work fairly well even with telephoto lenses, which is incredibly important.
Sony does a great job with this sensor shift stabilization, and, to me, the benefit of sensor-based stabilization is the fact that it works for all lenses…including adapted lenses, vintage lenses, and wide aperture prime lenses. Having stability in a high-resolution body is even more important, as we will see in a moment.
One nice feature of Sony’s IBIS is that if you are using a lens with electronics (even an adapted lens), it will automatically adjust for the focal length. If you are using a lens without electronics you can manually set the focal length in the Steady Shot settings. I found that experimenting with that setting definitely made a big difference in the results and steadiness of the viewfinder image. An additional upgrade here is that the a7RV now sports Sony’s Active Mode for video capture which adds digital stabilization into the mix to help with those handheld video shots. The combination works very well for getting run and gun video.
The a7RVsports an intervalometer that is well-implemented for shooting time lapses, though I continue to wish there was an option for creating the timelapse movie in-camera, as downloading potentially hundreds of images and then creating the time lapse in software feels like unnecessary extra work. I would prefer to have a both/and option rather than either/or for this.
Ditto for the Pixel Shift feature, which is mostly unchanged from the a7RIV.
What is Pixel Shift? Pixel Shift functions by taking up to 16 photos (options are 4 or 16) while shifting the sensor one-half pixel in between, which results in getting massive amounts of information at a pixel level. Those (up to) 16 images are blended together (in software) to produce a single file with as much as 241MB, plus it eliminates things like moire and even increases color accuracy. This is particularly noticeable at a pixel level, where the file has much more resolution. Pixel Shift works best with a subject in which there will be no movement in between frames (architecture, for example), as there will be some minor delay between shots. Landscape images might be marred if there is any breeze present.
After shooting you will have either four or sixteen uncompressed RAW files in camera (there is no automatic combining of files in camera, unfortunately). You have to combine these files in post afterwards, and, at least for now, this is unsupported by Adobe or other third party software makers even after several years of the technology being on the market. You are required to use Sony’s own Imaging Edge Software to combine the images. The end results are impressive, but, as things exist in the present, the technology has limited scope/applications. I actually prefer the 4 file option, which now creates a 61MP file (same resolution as normal) but with additional detail, contrast, and color fidelity due combining information from the four files. The downside is that the file size is roughly 4x higher than an uncompressed RAW, or about 480MB. Huge, in other words. But the 16 image file is a staggering 1.9GB in size. I have a very powerful workstation (with 32GB of RAM), and it still gets choppy with a file this size. Here were my findings when testing this on the a7RIV:
“A conversion to DNG in Lightroom resulted in 178MB and 664MB files respectively for the 4 image and 16 image options. In a couple of attempts, I didn’t actually find the 16 image file for me made an appreciable difference over the 4 image file (even when downsampled to equal size), and so it is highly unlikely to be a part of my regular workflow.
Here’s a look at a few pixel level crops from an image taken in normal compressed RAW (smallest file size at about 61MB) and the 4 shot Pixel Shift image (480MB):
You’ll be forgiven for thinking that the difference is not night and day. Yes, there is better contrast and slightly better resolution, but the different is not significant enough to use other than in incredibly critical situations. I suspect that Pixel Shift will be more of a novelty for most photographers.”
Another feature I continue to wish was internal is GPS logging and geotagging. This is handled via a bluetooth connection to your smartphone and having the Sony Image Edge Mobile app active (and the Location Linkage set up). The problem? It doesn’t really work consistently, in my experience, leaving some images tagged and others untagged. You essentially need to be sure that the Bluetooth link is active before you start shooting (at the very least at the beginning of your shoot). I really wish this was handled internally, as the Canon cameras I’ve used with this internal GPS work much more reliably, though with at least some battery drain.
In summation, though, the a7RV is improved in so many ways over the a7RIV. It feels like a serious upgrade even though the camera doesn’t look or feel a lot different at a glance. The a7RV feels much the same in the hands, but operationally it is hugely improved on so many levels. I really like it.
a7RV Autofocus Performance
The headline on paper is the upgraded amount of autofocus points (from 567 to 693 Phase Detect points), but in reality the biggest upgrade is the new AI Learning and intelligent tracking. Eye AF has proven to be an extremely reliable technology for when an eye is detectable, but the AI-driven tracking helps to fill in the gaps. This includes to detect and track the subject when they are too small in the frame for an eye (or face) to be detected, when they are turned away from the camera, in profile, or have their face obscured for some reason (a helmet or when they move behind another object temporarily). Whereas humans, animals, and birds were recognizable and trackable before, new subject tracking subjects include Insects, Cars, Airplanes, and Trains. My time with the a7RV didn’t include many of these new subjects, but what I did find was the technology is improved even with the traditional subjects. Case in point:
This shot may not look remarkable, but I was actually in the processing of testing the IBIS (as mentioned in the section above). I was thinking that I would just focus on the “Home” sign on the mantle, but focus shifted to myself in the mirror. At first I was slightly annoyed, but then I realized that something a little bit amazing was happening. Sony’s amazing new AI tracking reliably grabbed onto my closed eye behind the camera…in the mirror…and in very dim lighting and reliably tracked it. I changed lenses for a longer focal length, and the same thing happened. I could see in the viewfinder that the AI was tracking my closed eye reflected/distorted in the mirror in very poor lighting conditions. That’s very impressive.
I had my assistant shoot using the a7RV and my current favorite event lens (the Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8 VXD) in a church service. I looked back over the dozens of images from the service and found that every one of them was perfectly focused…even when the subject was in profile. It was also a great opportunity to test the real world usefulness of shooting MRAW. It was perfect for event work (where I don’t need 61MP of resolution), leaving plenty of resolution, very sharp results, and retains the editing flexibility of RAW.
The autofocus just feels very sophisticated and intuitive in general, and, while the a7RV doesn’t have as many AF points or the fast frame rate of Sony’s sports cameras (a9 series or Alpha 1), it provides a similarly sophisticated tracking experience. The coverage is roughly 80% of the frame:
This graphic also highlights the low light performance. I shot this photo of my youngest son lounging on the couch in an essentially dark room. I shot at ISO 10,000 and still got only a 1/20th of a second shutter speed at F1.8 using the Samyang AF 135mm F1.8. Despite being a third party lens, the autofocus immediately tracked his eye and delivered accurate focus, and the great IBIS gave me steady results even with the slow shutter speed.
I saw extremely accurate animal eye tracking in both good and bad lighting conditions. These three shots are all taken with a different lens (one first party, two second party lenses). All tracked perfectly.
One other point worth mentioned is that the a7RV is much more robust than the RIV in APS-C mode. The RIV would drop to 325 active phase detect points in APS-C mode, but the RV boasts as many PDAF point in APS-C mode (567 points) as the RIV had in total. That means that your tracking capabilities in APS-C mode are going to be extremely robust, which is important to the a7RV as a wildlife camera. The ability to still have 26MP of resolution in APS-C mode plus that many active PDAF points means that Sony’s current best APS-C camera is the a7RV in APS-C mode.
Bottom line is that the autofocus system here is pretty magical in its capabilities. The tracking is easily the most sophisticated that the a7R series has ever seen, and the deeper buffers also mean that despite the ultra-high resolution the Sony a7RV is a very versatile camera that could be used by anyone for a variety of purposes.
Buffer and Burst Rate
The a7RIV had a fairly anemic buffer depth of 68 Compressed RAW files in the a7RIV. It shared the weakness of the a7RIII of that buffer also taking a long time to empty. The buffer depth of the a7RIV was actually lower than the a7RIII, which I attributed to the amount of data that the camera had move due to the extremely high resolution. The a7RV is still capped at a 10 FPS burst rate, but now the buffer depth is dramatically deepened. Where the RIV could only record up to 68 JPEG images, the a7RV will record 1000+ JPEGs. RAW files? You can now record up to 583 compressed RAW images and 547 Lossless Compressed RAW files. You can even get 135 Uncompressed RAW images, which at 10FPS is still 13.5 seconds of action. You can hold that shutter down for nearly a minute when recording compressed or lossless compressed RAW files…at 61MP! That’s very impressive.
Both card slots can support either the very fast CFExpress Type A cards or the better UHS-II rated SD cards. If you want to capture a lot of action, I would recommend in investing in at least one of the former, but even with SD cards you’ll get much better buffer performance than what we saw on the a7RIV.
Sony a7RV Sensor Performance
The Sony a7RV inherits the 61MP Full frame BSI-CMOS sensor first seen in the a7RIV. This was already a great sensor that was mostly limited by the inability to choose both RAW and a lower resolution, meaning that you were stuck at that ultra-high resolution (9504 x 6336 pixels) all the time. That’s changed in the a7R5, of course, which makes this sensor more accessible than ever. It also creates some interesting options for dealing with, say, high ISO (dimly lit) situations.
Sony knows how to make a great sensor, and despite the high resolution this sensor ranks amongst the best out there for dynamic range and even turns in a fairly strong ISO performance. We’ll dive into those details here.
Resolution
My chief complaint over the a7RIV is that the resolution was overkill for most photographers in most situations, and the fact that you couldn’t elect to both shoot RAW and a lower resolution level limited the versatility of the camera. That is solved now, as the a7RV introduces both an MRAW (26MP) and SRAW (15MP) in the Lossless Compressed mode that allows you to shoot at lower resolution levels for those situations where you don’t need the full resolution. These resolution levels match the three JPEG options that were already available (and you can also choose the HEIF format instead of JPEG). In the a7RIV the only way to get both RAW and a lower resolution was to activate the APS-C mode (26MP), but then one also activates a 1.5x crop, which changes the angle of view on all your lenses. I want to be clear that this isn’t the case with the MRAW and SRAW options now available; they are still full frame with similar (though not identical) crops. When I shot in the three different modes from a tripod with a static subject, I actually found that MRAW framed ever so slightly wider than the full RAW, and the SRAW was very slightly wider still. The resolution of the MRAW files is 6240 x 4160 pixels, and the SRAW resolution is 4752 x 3168.
You can also choose a few options for the type or RAW or JPEG/HEIF file size, which gives you some flexibility on the size of images for storage. Sony Alpha Shooters has a post which demonstrates file sizes with different scenes, and here’s one of the examples to give you some baseline for how the different formats and resolution levels compare.
I personally prefer the Lossless Compressed RAW format for most situations, as the file size is workable but it gives up very little compared to the uncompressed RAW format in terms of quality. Obviously the smaller the file size the easier it will be to process images, which can be really important for, say, a wedding photographer that comes home with 1000 images.
I prefer having high resolution, however (particularly when, like here, I can choose less if need be). This gives one incredible versatility in how you can frame an image. Take this photo from my a7RIV review, for example:
I only had the Sigma 35mm F1.2 DN lens with me, and because of the physical location, I couldn’t get closer to the old mill. I didn’t love the foreground, and felt the image didn’t draw the viewer into the main event – that gorgeous old mill in the autumn scene. The sky is also quite bland here. So I did a 16:9 crop from the center of the frame and got this image:
What’s amazing, however, is that this deep crop still has the same resolution as the a9/a7III sensor, with plenty of resolution for even large prints. Imagine the possibilities this opens up for macro shooters, wildlife shooters, and even landscape photographers that can create entirely different framing of scenes from one location.
As previously mentioned, the APS-C crop mode is equally useful for the same reason. I like to assign APS-C/Super 35 to a button (C1, for me), so that I can easily switch back and forth between framing options. I find this incredibly useful at events where I don’t need as much resolution (and am more likely to deliver photos right to the client), as I can change up framing options on the fly.
Marketing hype for certain lenses (ahem, G Master), has created a somewhat false perception that only certain lenses will “work” on a high resolution body. My experience on a number of high resolution cameras that I have either tested or owned is that the sensor of a camera does not change the optical properties of a lens. What does change, however, is the amount of pixels that aberrations and optical flaws cover. Instead of a few pixels, purple fringing will cover 2-3x more…making it much more obvious at a pixel level. Ditto for the “haze” to textures that comes from surface aberrations.
Here’s a good example. A few years ago I used that same Sigma 35mm F1.2 DN ART and tested for for coma on both the a9 and the a7RIV. Obviously the lens has equal amounts of coma in both applications (same optics), but at a pixel level the comatic aberrations (wings growing on stars in the corners) is much more obvious on the a7RIV:
I shot with a number of lenses on the a7RV, and a good lens is going to look good on a high resolution body. Take a look at this shot from the underrated Sony 35mm F1.4 GM lens…at F1.4. Even with 61MP of resolution, the crop from this image looks amazing.
Likewise this shot from the less expensive but still excellent Samyang AF 135mm F1.8:
It’s not a GM lens, but it is extremely good optically, so 61MP is no problem for it.
But I felt like another Samyang, the AF 50mm F1.4 II, showed a little vulnerability wide open. Results weren’t as crisp, and I could see a little more chromatic aberrations because they occupied more pixels.
The lens sharpens up fine when stopped down a bit, but I think this illustrates the point. If you want to see how a number of other lenses hold up, take a look at this video that I did when I reviewed the a7RIV.
The improved IBIS (in body image stabilization) is an asset here, as that helps with motion blur. Like other aberrations, motion blur will occupy more pixels and make images look softer, so having good stability is extra important when shooting at higher resolutions. As noted earlier, I felt like I was able to experiment more with lower shutter speeds due to that excellent IBIS. Here, for example, I shot at a lower shutter speed (1/40th second) even at 150mm handheld so that I could contrast the static detail of the ice formed even while capturing some movement in the stream.
I shot this image at a temperature of about -18C (about zero Fahrenheit) while standing in knee deep snow – not exactly ideal conditions for steady hands!
The bottom line is that I finished my review of the a7RIV with little desire to actually own the camera (I ended up buying the Alpha 1 later instead), but I’m very tempted by the a7RV at least in part because the high resolution is more manageable due to the increased options Sony has given us here. I suspect I’m not alone in that.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range gives the photographer (and particularly the post-processor) more latitude to fulfill their vision. This could be in the ability to recover a blown-out sky or shadowed area as a landscape photographer or the ability to balance a foreground subject with a background or sky for portrait photographers. I’ve also been able to save images where I captured something special but a flash didn’t fire. I’d always rather have more than less dynamic range in a camera sensor, even though I don’t think you should always try to maximize dynamic range in every image.
As DR has improved dramatically in recent years, I have found that I do exposure blending/HDR less often, as it is often possible to get the result I want out of a single exposure. This helps simplify my workflow and yet create images that fulfill my artistic vision. Dynamic range is the range of visible light that a sensor can record, and according to Photons to Photos, the a7RV manages to squeeze just a hair more dynamic range (11.7 vs 11.62 stops) out of the 61MP sensor than what the a7RIV did. But wait, you say, doesn’t Sony claim over 14 stops? Yes, but if you look specifically, they are referring to 14+ stops when using the LOG3 profile for video. The truth of the matter is that there is a lot of different standards for how dynamic range is tested, so I like a site like Photons to Photos as they use the same methodology over a wide range of cameras and I can look through their findings and compare them to other cameras. What I found is that the dynamic range of the a7RV is better than about 99% of other full frame sensors and only consistently bested by Medium Format sensors. The bottom line is that the a7RV is a very strong performer for dynamic range.
I like to run a practical test for recovering shadows and highlights where I use essentially a still life of real objects. I also use a color checker to see how various colors are impacted by the process of recovering images. Let’s start with shadow recovery. I was able to effortlessly recover 4 stops of deeply crushed shadows with very little penalty to colors, contrast, and with little additional noise introduced to the image.
This is true even if you look critically at a pixel level.
There’s a little more breakdown at 5 stops of recovery, with a few more hot pixels (some “white” pixels in the shadow area), a few spots where I saw a little discoloration (some faint green blotches in grey areas), and a bit more visible noise. At the same time, however, the recovered image was pretty much perfectly usable, too.
To show a little real world value, I placed a candle in an area of complete shadow in this image. I was able to pull back up the shadow area and reveal the hidden candle. The label can easily be read and the recovered image is usable despite having been completely crushed in the original. There’s also an image of Nala that I purposely underexposed and then recovered.
This kind of shadow recovery is obviously very useful.
As is typical, it’s a little harder to recover highlights in the extreme, though is an area where Sony sensors tend to excel relative to the competition. Most cameras can successfully recover two stops of highlight information without too much lost data (hotspots where textures cannot be recovered or colors have blown out and cannot be recovered), but they really fall apart by three stops. The a7RV covers the two stop recovery with alacrity, with essentially a perfect recovery of all color swatches and recovering the textures in the hotspot areas like the timer face or the “Honeywell Pentax” face of the SLR camera.
The 3 stop recovery isn’t flawless but is definitely better than typical. The primary Sony strength is the recovery of colors, and you can see by looking at the color swatches on the first image below that almost all the colors have been successfully recovered in the color checker. Likewise the face of the timer is still pretty consistent, but the second image shows that some texture information has been lost from the SLR face and the text on the books shows evidence of being blown out and not fully recovered. I would argue that the image is still usable, however, which is good news for trying to recover blown out skies or other highlights. The final image in the series shows the 4 stop recovery, which is not a usable image. There are still a few positive signs there (color recovery isn’t bad), but we’ve definitely exceeded the limits of highlight recovery somewhere between three and four stops of overexposure.
My typical recommendation if you are shooting a scene where you need a lot of dynamic range is to slightly underexposure, as shadows can often be more cleanly recovered than highlights.
The difference between the a7RIV and the a7RV isn’t significant (it’s the same sensor), but we see a similar trend as with the transition from the a7RII to the RIII in that Sony was able to squeeze just a little bit more out of the sensor performance due to tweaks and processing.
ISO Performance
Typically high resolution bodies pay a price at higher ISO values. The noise at higher ISO values is more obvious due to it being “magnified” by occupying more pixels, but the a7RV has a few additional tools that the a7RIV lacked. They both share a native ISO range of 100-32,000 with the ability to expand to ISO 50 on the bottom end and ISO 102,400 on the upper end. Do NOT go there, or you’ll end up with an image that looks like this:
This exaggerates the Sony weakness; in extreme situations there is a color shift to the green dimension. Fortunately the a7RV controls this impulse effectively through ISO 12,800 and has it only in minimal doses by 25,600. I would recommend using ISO 12,800 as the typical practical limit and 25,600 as your emergency option, but I wouldn’t recommend going higher than that.
I think that pretty much everyone can tolerate the amount of noise through ISO 3200, as everything stays pretty clean. Contrast is good, shadows remain deep, and noise exists but in minimal amounts. Moving up to ISO 6400 is still fairly clean, but at a pixel level you can start to see a bit more noise and a few hot pixels in the black areas.
The a7RV handles ISO 12,800 reasonably well. I see a little more noise in the checkerboard table and a few more hot pixels in the shadow area (image 3) along with some grid patterns developing in the color swatches (image 2). If you look at the image globally (image 1), it still looks very good. No obvious noise, colors are true, and contrast is holding up fairly well.
By ISO 25,600, there’s a slight color shift and more obvious noise, but it will usable in some situations.
When I reviewed the Canon 5DsR back in 2016 (the first of the truly high resolution full frame cameras), the native ISO limit only extended to ISO 6400, and it was basically unusable even there. What I did find, however, is that if I shot at MRAW (which the 5DsR offered), I could get cleaner results at higher ISO values. I was interested to see if the same would be true here.
It was. At ISO 12,800 the full size LRAW files were showing more obvious noise and that grid pattern in the color swatches. There’s even the faintest amount of green tinge in the grey bezel on the color swatch chart. Even at a pixel level the MRAW image shows none of those trends.
What was interesting, though, is when I downsampled the LRAW image in Photoshop to the same pixel dimensions of the MRAW image (to learn what I mean by downsampling, I recommend that you watch this video.) I was intrigued to find that the MRAW image still looked a little cleaner.
That’s actually good news, as it shows that the onboard processor is doing a really good job of downsampling/oversampling in the MRAW format. It means that in high ISO situations you can choose to shoot in MRAW and get the ISO performance of a lower resolution camera. Just one more area where having those RAW options makes the camera much more usable.
Color Science
I’ve watched as Sony color science has progressively improved over the years. To be fair, however, I think there are a number of contributing factors to that. I do think that Sony has gotten better on the sensor/processing side of things. I also think that as Sony’s market share has grown, third party software providers like Adobe (which I primarily use) have gotten better at calibrating for and processing Sony colors. Finally, I’ve had nearly six years testing and using Sony products now, and I’ve gotten better at maximizing Sony strengths and limiting their weaknesses. On an instinctual level, I would say that I still put Canon colors #1, followed by Fuji and then Sony, but the truth of the matter is that the margin is so small as to be almost nonexistent at this point.
One area where Sony is touting progress is that the new AI technology also works to assist in automating white balance, which, in theory, should lead to more consistently accurate color balance in images. I would say that I noticed this most when shooting in a church setting. There’s a mix of natural light (one wall is almost all glazing/windows), pot lights, high bay lights, and spotlights. While we worked to be consistent with color temperatures in the lighting of our new facility, there’s only so much you can control when you add natural light into the equation. But what I found is that the photos taken in the auditorium had very consistent and accurate skintones regardless of the ethnicity of the people in the image.
Sony sensors have always been good for landscapes, so their ability to improve on skintones is probably the most important advance to their color science.
This is a great sensor for stills, and the combination of subtle improvements from the RIV along with the ability to control the resolution level has helped expand the versatility and usability of the Sony a7RV. To see more photos that will help illustrate these points, take a look at the image galleries here.
Video Performance
One of the strengths of the Sony mirrorless brand was on the video side of things, where Sony was initially far more aggressive than Canon or Nikon in introducing video features. There was a lag on that for a while, however, as while Sony was a pioneer in introducing 4K video onto many of their cameras, that performance capped out at 4K30 for several years. The basic performance of video on the RIV was very similar to the RIII. Sony pushes things forward here once again, however, with 8K24P and 4K60 recording now available. Cameras like the a7SIII and Alpha 1 give you a bit more (8K30 and 4K120), but there’s no question that these new resolution options are very welcome. Here’s a look at what Sony lists as the various formats, bitrates, and resolution options available.
One additional advantage is that the silly artificial recording limit (29:59) has been removed, and you can now record until you run out of storage, out of battery, or until things get too hot. On that last point, Sony states that they have redesigned the camera’s architecture to help with heat dissipation. They report that you can record 30 minutes of 8K24P video without overheating, which means that lower resolutions/bitrates should be able to be recorded without any real issue.
Another included improvement is Sony’s newer Focus Breathing Compensation. I tested it with the Sony 35mm F1.4 GM, a lens renowned for suffering with some obvious focus breathing. Without the Breathing Compensation on the size of the foreground subject (old bellows camera) changes a fair bit depending on where focus is. It’s a little hard to demonstrate in photos (you can see it better in my video review), but you can see from these screen grabs that the camera gets smaller as focus moves to the background. This is a more obvious distraction when doing video pulls.
The Focus Breathing Compensation introduces a slight crop, but it also manages to reduce the variance in size of objects caused by focus breathing, which makes focus pulls smoother and more subtle.
Sony also has an available “Active” mode when in video mode to assist with getting steady handheld video. It still can’t replace an actual motorized gimbal for smooth footage while walking, but it does subtly help with mitigating jerkiness from movement while recording video.
SLOG 3 is still available (with a stated 14 stop dynamic range!) along with a Hybrid-LOG Gamma (HLG) profile for high dynamic range video.
The a7RV carries over the upgraded hot-shoe (now referred to as a “Multi-Interface Shoe”) which can record digital audio. The ECM-B1M microphone can do analogue to digital conversation internally to output a direct digital signal.
As noted previously, the a7RV now has a full size HDMI port (very welcome for serious video work), and the upgrade to CFExpress Type A compatible card slots means that you move the massive amounts of data associated with high video resolutions and bitrates without issue. The dedicated Movie mode dial is also very beneficial ergonomically, as it allows you to have a completely unique video control setup, including a unique setup of custom buttons and custom menus unique from your stills setup. This makes for a true hybrid camera for stills and video work.
Clearly all of the improvements to the function of the camera (from the IBIS to the viewfinder to the more versatile/higher resolution LCD) also improve the Sony a7RV for video work as much as for stills.
Conclusion
I went Nordic skiing (cross country) with my assistant, Craig, last week, and he was asking me my thoughts on the a7RV because he knew I was reviewing it. When I tried to summarize my thoughts in just a few words, the word that immediately sprung to mind was “complete”. The Sony a7RV is a very complete camera with very few flaws and limitations. It is also a mature camera, as many of the ideas of the a7R lineup have progressed and matured here to where they just “work” without some of the irritations from the past. The touchscreen works, having multiple resolution options works, the buffer is deeper, clears faster, and just works, the tilting and articulating screen works, and so on. Basically all of my frustrations with the a7RIV have been resolved here, and the a7RV benefits from the developments on a number of other cameras. The end product is a very complete camera.
It may seem like a small thing, but Sony’s choice to finally include multiple RAW resolution levels really helps on a number of levels. It makes the a7RV a more versatile performer than the a7RIV was, and the much deeper buffers may also keep some photographers here rather than looking at a more sports oriented body because perhaps they don’t really 20 or 30FPS but don’t want to be limited in the amount of action they can capture at the lower 10FPS setting.
There are a lot of photographers that upgrade every new cycle, but others who wait it out a bit more. The a7RIII was a very worthy upgrade to previous cameras, and I feel like the a7RV is similar. It not only brings new ideas to the table but also generally improves a lot of existing ones, and the byproduct is a camera that has left me really struggling to find anything to strong criticize. If you’ve got an extra $3899 USD in the piggy bank and are looking for one of the most complete full frame mirrorless cameras on the market, look no further than the Sony a7RV.
Pros:
That 61MP is still at the top of the heap in terms of resolution
MRAW and SRAW options make that resolution more flexible
Unique tilt/articulating LCD touchscreen
Touchscreen performance works well and has higher resolution
Upgraded viewfinder is fantastic
AI tracking works as advertised
Increased AF points
Much deeper buffers add flexibility
Full size HDMI port
CFExpress Type A card support along with SD UHS-II
8K24P and 4K60P video options
No video recording limit and better heat dissipation
Improved IBIS
Cons:
A slight bump in burst rate would have been welcome
My knuckles are still “squeezed” against some lenses – camera should be a little wider
Keywords: Sony a7R5, Sony a7RV, ILCE-7RM5, Sony a7R5 review, Sony a7RV review, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
The Sony a7RIII was the camera that really made me believe in Sony. It took a deeply flawed camera (though with some great strengths) in the a7RII and turned it into the most complete camera on the market at the time. It had a little bit of everything: great sensor, great autofocus, great video performance, and improved ergonomics. I liked it well enough that I immediately bought one. The one thing that mostly stayed the same was the excellent 42MP sensor from the a7RII. The a7RIV (my review here) debuted a new sensor (with a then-record 61.2MP) and improved autofocus but also had a lot of similarities to the a7RIII in other areas. There were a number of shortcomings that I thought were left unaddressed. I had a list of things in my review that I thought should have changed but didn’t. But much like the a7RIII, the new Sony a7RV carries forward the excellent sensor from the previous generation but essentially improves almost everything else on the camera. The list of new features and changes is a long one!
One of my critiques about the a7RIV is that it had a massive amount of resolution (61MP) but no way to reduce that resolution for the situations where it was overkill. You could switch to an APS-C crop mode (at 26MP), but that would change the angle of view of your lenses. The ILCE-7RM5 introduces both an MRAW (26MP) and SRAW (15MP) in the Lossless Compressed mode that allows you to shoot at lower resolution levels for those situations where you don’t need the full resolution. It also retains multiple options for the RAW file type at full resolution, which include Uncompressed, Compressed, and Lossless Compressed (which is typically my file type of choice in most cameras).
The long list of improvements on the a7RV basically check off every box that I would look for in this class of camera, and, much like the a7RIII, I feel like the a7RV is the upgrade that many people are looking for who might have skipped the a7RIV upgrade path. This is an incredibly complete camera, and while its price tag of roughly $3900 USD isn’t low, this is a LOT of camera for the money. We explore the pros and cons of Sony’s latest camera more deeply in my text review, or you can watch my video review here.
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Keywords: Sony a7R5, Sony a7RV, ILCE-7RM5, Sony a7R5 review, Sony a7RV review, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
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It’s hard to believe that just a few short years ago the primary complaint on the Sony platform was a lack of telephoto options. Sony was the first to address the problem with the 200-600G (my review here), but then Sigma and Tamron jumped in with both feet. Sigma released the 100-400mm DN (my review here) followed by the 150-600mm DN Sport (my review here). Tamron, not to be outdone, released the 70-300mm RXD (my review here), then the 150-500mm VXD (my review here), and then followed that up with the 50-400mm VXD lens (my review here). That’s six quality telephoto options in the past three years, but Sigma has at least one more trick up their sleeve. One of their last new lenses for DSLRs was released in early 2019 in the form of the 60-600mm Sport (my review here), a lens that dramatically increased the subject possibilities when compared to the typical 150-600mm focal range. That extra foray into wider angle meant that suddenly the zoom ratio jumped from 4x to 10x. Sigma has brought a new version of that lens into the mirrorless world in the form of the new Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DG DN OS Sport (hereafter referred to as the 60-600DN). This will instantly become the most dramatic telephoto focal range on the Sony platform, allowing you to frame a scene like this at 60mm:
…but also punch into it and capture the details like this at 600mm:
Can you think of a few subject possibilities for a zoom range like that? I thought so!
If you don’t “speak Sigma”, here’s a quick breakdown of what those letter combinations in the name mean. DG is Sigma’ designation for a lens designed for full frame (DC denotes APS-C). DN refers to lenses designed for mirrorless cameras (in this case the lens will initially come to Sony E-mount [tested here] and Leica L mount, with hopefully other mounts in the future). OS refers to “Optical Stabilizer”, an in-lens stabilization system which is one of the upgrades in this design (to Sigma’s new OS2 designation). Finally, “Sport” is the designation Sigma gives to its better quality telephoto lenses designed for capturing action in demanding situations…or birds in flight.
The other highlighted feature here is a new focus system designed with the idea of increased torque and speed for a high performing lens like this one. Sigma calls this “HLA”, which stands for “High-response Linear Actuator”. There is a clear improvement in focus speed with this new focus motor, delivering near instant focus changes. That’s really going to help Sigma be more competitive with the other telephoto options listed here, as that focus speed will really enable you to capture the action you’re looking for.
There are a lot of positives in this new lens that will come to market at the same price as the previous 60-600mm Sport lens (about $2000 USD). That’s about a $500 premium (at MSRP pricing) over the Sigma 150-600mm Sport and about the same as the Sony 200-600G lens. The Sigma obviously has the best focal range of any of these lenses, but is it your best bang for the buck? You can judge for yourself by either watching my video review below or reading on to get the full picture.
Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
Sigma 60-600 DN Build and Handling
Sigma divides its lenses into three different categories: Contemporary, Art, and Sport. The Contemporary lineup gets the lowest level of build and weather sealing, while the lines are a little more blurred with the Art and Sport lenses. Typically, however, the Sport lenses do have the highest grade of weather sealing because they are the most likely to be used in inclement conditions. Many sporting events will take place regardless of weather conditions, and, surprisingly enough, most wildlife is waterproof! With that in mind, the Sigma 150-600 DN Sport has Sigma’s highest grade of weather sealing. While I haven’t seen a diagram yet (I’m doing this review before the public release of the lens and before any such diagrams are available), Sigma says this of the weather sealing, “Dust and Splash Resistant Structure is applied to the joints of the mount, manual focus ring, zoom ring, switches, switch panel, and exterior parts to prevent dust and dirt from entering the lens. Water and Oil Repellent Coating is applied to the front element of the lens.” That sounds like a very thorough weather sealing to me.
As has been the case with all of the “Sport” lenses I’ve tested, the 60-600DN feels very well built. Sigma uses a variety of materials in the design, including magnesium, carbon fiber reinforced plastics, and “thermally stable composite” (a high end engineered plastic that has an excellent thermal expansion rate). The byproduct of these quality and yet lightweight materials is that the lens has shed 205g when compared to the DSLR version. That’s very welcome in a lens that still weighs in at 2485g (87.7oz). This is not a light lens…but it is lighter. Even this lighter weight makes it the heaviest in this class on Sony. That’s about 370g heavier than the Sigma 200-600G (2115g) and the Sony 150-600 DN (2100g), though you have to remember that it has a much larger zoom range than either of these lenses.
This is an externally zooming lens, so, while the retracted length of the lens is 267mm, the lens barrel does extend by a full ten centimeters (100mm), making the extended length actually longer than the Sony 200-600 G by about 65mm (the Sony is internally zooming). Here’s a look at how they compare when extended.
Sigma designed this to be a “dual-action” zoom, meaning that you can either twist the zoom ring or just grab the lens hood and treat it like a “push-pull” design.
There’s also a significant lens hood here (about 85mm long), which makes for a really long combination when you have the lens hood attached and the lens fully extended. That’s about 46.5cm in overall length, or roughly 20″. The good news is that while the lens is heavy (and you are going to have to get used to supporting that kind of weight), the balance point of the lens isn’t bad and it doesn’t feel front heavy in the way that the first Sigma 150-600mm Sport (on DSLRs) did. The large hood is actually fairly lightweight. It attached via a tension knob on the bottom (it doesn’t bayonet on), and there is a nylon cover that goes over the lens hood when you have that attached or reversed for storage. Sigma also includes a traditional pinch cap in the box, though that is hard to access if you have the lens hood mounted (it’s quite a ways in there!). The lens hood is ribbed inside and, as is common with long telephotos, has a rubberized rim that will allow you to stand the lens on the lens hood (which is much more stable a position than standing it up on the rear lens cap).
A large nylon padded case with a carrying strap is also included. Sigma does go the extra mile in the presentation of their lenses, and they are proud that their products continue to be fully assembled in Japan.
Worth noting is that the front filter threads take an extremely large (and hard to find) 105mm front filter size, which is larger than the 95mm size found on either the Sony or the Sigma 150-600 DN.
Sigma went away from the Zoom Torque Switch they debuted on the 150-600 DN and have instead gone back to a standard zoom lock to prevent zoom creep. The lock will engage at either the 60mm or 600mm position.
Like the Sony telephotos, the 150-600 DN employs the Focus Hold button in three different positions, meaning that you have easy access to one regardless of how the lens is rotated.
Sigma employs a tripod foot that is Arca-Swiss compatible, meaning that it can be directly mounted onto a tripod without the need for a quick release plate. For some reason Sony (and Canon) do not employ this Arca design…and I’ve never understood why. Sigma’s tripod collar is not removable (a downside), but on the upside it does employ very nice detents at the four cardinal positions, which does make it easier to rotate quickly and to find the proper position. The tripod foot itself is removable and replaceable, though this is not a tool less operation. There are also strap connection points on either side of the tripod collar, which is also very welcome.
There’s a fairly standard bank of switches along the left side of the lens fairly near the lens mount. This is quite a large lens, obviously, and so I was fairly surprised to find this section felt a little cramped. The tripod collar is raised on one side, and the lens quickly slopes away on the other side towards the fairly narrow Sony lens mount. The top switch (AF/MF) is a fairly good size, but the other three switches are smaller, fairly flush, and a little stiff to operate. The first of these is a focus limiter with three options, including Full, 6m to infinity, and minimum focus to 6m. You can obviously increase focus speed by employing this, though I did find that focus was fast enough that I never reached for it. The third switch down is a three position switch for different OS (optical stabilizer) modes. Mode 1 is the Standard mode, while Mode 2 should be utilized while panning, as one axis of stabilization will be turned off to provide for smoother side to side panning. Sigma does note that the 60-600DN has “Intelligent OS” that utilizes info from an accelerometer to help with panning. The third position is an OFF switch for the stabilizer.
As noted in the intro, the OS is a new and improved system (OS2) which significantly improves the rating of the OS compared to the 150-600 DN (which was rated at four stops). This new system is rated at a whopping 7 stops on the wide end and 6 stops on the telephoto end, and you can really feel the improvement. As before, you can’t turn off the lens’ OS without turning off the camera’s IBIS, so I can’t tell you whether the two systems work in conjunction or not. I shared the lens with a few other photographers, and they were blown away by how stable the lens was despite the incredibly long focal length. I was amazed to get two steady shots in a row of this 1/5th of a second shot at 600mm on my Alpha 1 – which is near 7 stops of assistance. This is probably the best telephoto stabilization result as I’ve ever seen.
Where things get a little confusing is that the final switch is dedicated to custom modes (OFF | C1 | C2). On DSLRs you could buy the Sigma USB dock and use the Sigma Optimization Pro software to tweak some functionality (including the function of custom buttons), and, while that same functionality is available to Leica L mount customers, it isn’t for Sony shooters (who make up the lion’s share of the market). That means that function of these switch positions is fixed, and they are really just more OS options. C1 prioritizes stabilizing the viewfinder (probably a good option if you’re shooting video or just have shaky hands), while C2 is called “Moderate View” and seems to focus more on stabilizing the image at capture and less on stabilizing the viewfinder (a good option when panning, for example). This final option option gives you the most stable results on your shots, but in most situations having a shaky viewfinder image at 600mm just complicates things. C1 does a nice job of really keeping the viewfinder steady, though. It was pretty much rock solid even at 600mm.
If you are using the Leica L version of the lens and the USB dock, you’ll be able to also tweak the distance employed on the focus limiter and assign a new value to the custom buttons.
Sony has limited teleconverter compatibility to first party Sony lenses, so unfortunately you won’t be able to use teleconverters with the 60-600DN on Sony. L-mount users can use either the TC-1411 (1.4x) or TC-2011 (2.0x) teleconverters with the lens. There are obviously a couple of advantages for Leica L-mount owners due to Sigma being part of a cooperative that uses the mount. It is more of a “first party” lens on that platform.
There are two rings on the lens – the typical zoom and manual focus rings. The manual focus ring is closest to the camera. It has very nice damping and a good feel, and I was able to make focus changes with a finger (somewhat important since you need to continue to support the lens with that hand). The zoom ring moves fairly smoothly, but I found the resistance a little stiff and it is a fairly long zoom throw that will require two rotations to run the full zoom range. This is one area where the Sony 200-600 G is much nicer in the field. It has an internally zooming design that is really smooth and allows for very quick zoom changes. I can see some shots being missed on the Sigma by comparison just due to the amount of time it takes to change the zoom position, and you can pretty much forget smoothly zooming during video capture. Sigma does provide the option to push/pull the zoom (grab the front of the lens and pull it to the desired zoom position). This is faster, though fewer people are familiar with/comfortable with push/pull and will have to mentally reprogram for this approach. It’s worth learning, however, as it does allow you to be more reactive to changing conditions in the field.
This is a variable aperture lens, starting at F4.5 at 60mm:
60-81mm = F4.5
82-136mm = F5
137-359mm = F5.6
360-600mm = F6.3
This isn’t a bad performance, lagging only very slightly behind the 150-600 DN Sport and arriving at F6.3 slower than the Sony 200-600G.
Like many modern zoom lenses, the 60-600DN has a variable minimum focus distance depending on the focal length. At 60mm the MFD is just 45 cm (17.8″), but at 600mm the MFD is 260cm (102.4″). The maximum magnification figure is actually found at 200mm, where you can get at 1:2.4 (nearly 0.42x) magnification, which is going to be very useful for getting nearly half size macro with a great working distance. Here’s what that maximum magnification (at 200mm) looks like.
You can get closer at 60mm, obviously, but I prefer the more blurred out backgrounds at 600mm despite the longer working distance. Using 200mm will kind of get the best of both worlds if you want high magnification. The third shot shows the big specular highlights you can produce at 200mm.
This is another nicely made, highly functional lens rom Sigma. There’s some give and take relative to the Sony and Tamron alternatives, but all are nicely made lenses with slightly different design philosophies, strengths, and weaknesses.
Sigma 60-600mm DN Autofocus
It’s always exciting to see a lensmaker take a leap forward, and that’s the case with Sigma here. The new HLA (High-response Linear Actuator) focus motor is a definite improvement over the stepping motors Sigma has used to this point. Here’s how Sigma describes the focus system, “A linear motor is a linear actuator that controls electromagnetic forces and can be driven freely, enabling high-speed AF. It can move the heavy focus group while ensuring the lens remains quiet, but the weight is relatively heavier.” That final phrase can be a little difficult, but essentially they are making the distinction that while typical stepping motors are smaller and lighter, the linear focus motor here is more powerful and has the necessary torque for rapid focus changes even with the heavy glass elements that a big lens like this has. And you can definitely feel the speed, as there is little hesitation when making focus changes and instead focus is essentially where you need it be near instantaneously.
I had no problem acquiring a bird in flight and getting perfect focus even for one single shot at roughly 550mm. Once I had the bird in frame and started focus the lens locked on near instantly.
But the 150-600 DN Sport could basically do that. The question that I had was how the new HLA motor would handle high speed tracking sequences – an area where I found the 150-600DN bested by both the Sony 200-600G and the Tamron 150-500mm VXD. I will note that Sigma informed me that my prerelease copy of the 60-600DN had a beta version of the firmware and that the release firmware they had been working helped improve tracking accuracy even further. Obviously I can’t test what I don’t have, but I did do a series of tests with several different telephoto lenses to compare with the Sigma.
It’s always a little frustrating to me when I get telephoto lenses for testing in the dead of winter. Many of my typical wildlife subjects are either in hibernation, have limited movement, or have just headed to warmer climes for the winter! It’s difficult to find active subjects, and carrying heavy lenses deep into the woods through heavy snow (which I did a fair bit of!) is not a particular joy for me. It’s not unusual to trudge though heavy snow for hours carrying a big telephoto lens and come back with ten shots of dead leaves because I saw no living thing out there!
Rant aside, I set up a test with the one willing subject I could find – my son. He agreed to run for me again and again while I tracked him. These sequences were probably about 30 meters (100 feet or so) as he ran towards me with the camera and my bursts were typically 7-8 seconds in length. I started with the Sony 200-600 G mounted on my Sony Alpha 1, and the Sony combination at 30 FPS was magic as per usual. You can see the timelapse of those shots in my video review, but it is basically like watching slow motion video footage. Very smooth, and focus is perfect throughout the sequence of 206 shots (about 7 seconds worth). You can see how little space elapses over the three shots from the sequence I’ll show below, and also that focus is nailed in all of them.
I then switched to the Sigma and did multiple runs. The Sigma is artificially limited on Sony’s sport cameras (the a9 or Alpha 1 series) to 15FPS in burst speed, as this is another area where Sony has put its finger on the scale in favor of its own lenses. You can only get a maximum of 15FPS with any third party lens on Sony. The timelapse is slightly more choppy due to the fact that I was capturing 15FPS rather than 30FPS (I captured about 125 frames per run). Most importantly, however, is that as you watch the timelapse footage you see perfect focus throughout the run. No swings to front or backfocus and the tracking stays “sticky” on my son throughout the whole sequence…even when he got close to the camera. Here’s a total of 12 shots in four groups of three in a row taken from two different run sequences. There’s a bit of motion blur in some of them (shutter speed ranged from 1/400th to 1/500th, not quite enough for this action), but focus is perfect in each of them.
I’ll also note that I visually had very good “stickiness” in terms of the eye tracking in the viewfinder. Focus was staying properly locked and the end results confirm this. The HLA motor is going to make a huge difference in tracking accuracy due to its higher torque that allows it to more quickly activate focus, and Sigma’s focus algorithms (even in the beta version that I tested) are clearly improved. This is a much more competitive instrument for sports and wildlife tracking, and, while it can’t compare to the Sony combination because of the burst rate difference, the focus accuracy seems pretty close to the Sony performance.
I’m impressed. This new focus motor was just what Sigma needed to up their game in the one area that I felt was lacking a bit.
Autofocus accuracy is fantastic for the usual stuff. Eye AF works perfectly:
Animal Eye AF also delivers exceptionally good results. I got perfect lock-on to Nala’s eyes and got a beautiful series of shots of her with light from a nearby window.
The only negative here is the fact that the Sigma is artificially limited on Sony’s sport cameras (the a9 or Alpha 1 series) to 15FPS in burst speed. 15FPS is still very fast, obviously, but if you’ve made a big investment in a sports camera, you might want to consider a Sony lens for that simple reason. It’s not fair, obviously, but it’s pretty typical for camera makers to try to bias things in favor of their own lenses. The chief advantage for the Sigma in this case is the fact that you are getting that additional 140mm in focal range – a pretty significant advantage over the Sony.
I’ll end with a general observation: variable aperture lenses like this are not designed for low light work. That maximum aperture of F6.3 means that in very low light conditions the focus system isn’t left with a lot to work with, as the physical aperture can only open so wide to let in light. This lens (or any similar lens) will work best in decent lighting conditions, be it natural light or good stadium/arena lights. You need to be aware of that if you are purchasing the lens to shoot sports. It also means that if you want to keep the shutter speed up high enough to stop action, you’ll probably be shooting at higher ISO values in an arena, for example. The only alternative, unfortunately, is to buy one of the serious telephoto primes that have a larger maximum aperture and cost 6x as much. Most of us will just make do!
Sigma 60-600DN Sport Image Quality Breakdown
Part of what has made Sigma’s 60-600mm lenses interesting in both the DSLR and mirrorless iterations is that somehow they’ve managed to keep the image quality on par with the 150-600mm Sport. I didn’t really feel like that was the case with the copy of each lens that I tested in the previous generation, but there’s no question that, if anything, the 60-600DN actually outperforms the 150-600 DN across their shared zoom range while also adding that crucial additional 90mm of framing options on the wide end. The MTF charts show a very consistent performance across the zoom range, with 60mm ranking as the weakest and performance peaking at 400mm, though with a very mild drop off at 600mm.
Gone are the days when lenses releases into this segment were asked to resolve only 20 or 22MP. Today this lens must excel on a 50 MP sensor like my Sony Alpha 1, or the even higher resolution 61 MP Sony a7RIV/V or Sigma FP-L bodies…so flaws are easier to spot. The primary competitors (Sony 200-600 G, 150-600 Sport, and Tamron 150-500 VXD) are all optically excellent, with the Sony having the slight edge (particularly on the edges of the frame). Sigma has an optical design of 27 elements in 19 groups, with two of those elements being FLD (Extreme Low Dispersion) and another three being SLD (Low Dispersion) elements. This optical formula delivers, however, with very crisp results all the way out to 600mm along with some very nice bokeh:
While I didn’t love lugging this beast through deep snow to get to where I took this shot, I loved have the 600mm on tap to grab the shot of this red squirrel. This shot also serves a nice secondary purpose, as the crop shows the bright transition edge on the top of the snow to the background, and you can see only the slightest hint of longitudinal chromatic aberrations (fringing) in that transition.
Take a look at this casual portrait shot and you’ll see that the frames with the exterior light spilling into the room have no fringing on them, either.
I also saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations along the edge of the frame.
Before jumping into the sharpness tests, I will give you one practical caveat about telephoto lenses in general. Long range shots can sometimes be less than satisfying at a pixel level in some conditions for the simple reason that telephoto images are more likely to be affected by atmospheric conditions like pockets of rising warm air. This “heat haze” or “heat shimmer” bends and distorts light waves. You’ve seen extreme examples perhaps in a movie where you can see heat waves rising off hot asphalt on a desert road, for example, but even milder conditions can sometimes reduce contrast or apparent detail through smaller amounts of “atmospheric distortion”. This has nothing to do with the quality of your lens and everything to do with the environmental conditions. I share this to help those who might buy a relatively expensive lens and then get “freaked out” when sharpness in certain situations is less than expected.
So let’s dive into the technical side of things and look at strengths and weaknesses from a clinical perspective. We’ll start with vignette and distortion at 60mm. There’s a mild amount of pincushion distortion and a moderate amount of vignette. The distortion I corrected with a -2 and the vignette with a +56 and moving the midpoint to zero.
At 400mm the pincushion distortion is slightly increased (-5 to correct) and the vignette is roughly the same (+59).
At 600mm both figures decrease, with less distortion (-3) and distortion (+41).
I was doing my review before there was a standard correction profile for RAW images was available in Lightroom/ACR, but Sigma lenses enjoy solid profile support in camera for JPEGs and video, and I have no doubt that the correction profile will soon be available in major software editions for RAW images. There’s enough vignette that I did see it in real world situations and wanted to correct it, like in this shot of these flying ravens.
Nothing major here, though. All of this is easily correctable.
We’ll move on to testing sharpness. All of the tests and photos shown in this review are done on the 50MP Sony Alpha 1, which is Sony’s second-highest resolution full frame mirrorless camera at the time of this review. Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.
If we start at 60mm, F4.5, we find that the lens produces stunningly good sharpness in the center of the frame, good mid frame performance, and that resolution holds up into the corners even when viewed at nearly 200% magnification here.
The MTFs suggest that this is the weakest place in the zoom range, which should give everyone a lot of reassurance. It’s well worth noting that this is a much stronger performance than any of the alternative lenses for the simple reason that they don’t even show up for nearly 100mm!
This somewhat gloomy landscape was shot at 60mm, F4.5, in less than ideal light (ISO 3200) but nonetheless shows good detail across the 50MP image frame:
You’ll find some increased contrast and a slight resolution boost at F5.6, and a bit more at F8. Minimum aperture is F22 at 60mm, but diffraction really softens the image past F11.
Performance at 100mm is similar with just a little less corner sharpness. Stopped down a bit I prefer 100mm in the center of the frame and in the midframe, but 60mm is better in the corners.
At 150mm the performance is quite similar to what I saw at 60mm, though at a smaller maximum aperture of F5.6. When stopping down to F8 I prefer the 150mm performance to the 60mm or 100mm performance. If I go back and compare to the 150-600mm Sport, the new 60-600mm is an easy winner as this 200% crop comparison from the midframe shows.
When we get to 200mm we arrive at the steepest competition on the platform, the genuinely excellent Sony 200-600mm G lens. Both lenses are excellent at 200mm, though I would give the very slightest of edges to the Sony both in the center:
…and at the edges.
It is remarkable how sharp lenses like this can be at their best.
At 400mm the MTF chart suggests that the 60-600DN is at its best, and we can that it bests the 150-600DN in both the center:
…and at the edges.
The 60-600DN Sport stays closer to the Sony at 600mm than any of these lenses I’ve tested to date. The Sony probably has the slightest edge, but I’m not sure you could perceive it without looking at them side by side at 200% magnification. I also preferred it in both the center and edges to the performance of the 150-600 Sport:
It’s pretty remarkable how well the Sigma 60-600mm does when one considers that it is a 10X zoom compared to the 3x zoom of the Sony and 4x zoom of the 150-600 Sport.
Real world performance at 600mm looks excellent:
I was consistently impressed with the look of images. I would zoom in even the back of my camera (or, even better, the high resolution viewfinder of the Alpha 1), and loved the crisp detail. I also liked the overall “look” of images, that have a great feel to them.
Some of that comes down to the bokeh and overall rendering from the lens, which I felt was very nice. That long focal length allows for a lot of compression of backgrounds. This often results in beautifully soft and creamy bokeh in a lot of situations, like this.
Here’s another example.
It’s hard for shorter focal lengths to imitate that degree of defocus irrespective of aperture. Even when the background was less compressed, though, the bokeh looked quite good:
You can achieve the most defocus for specular highlights at medium distances at 200mm, where you can keep the close focus distance of 60mm but with higher magnification. Specular highlight geometry looks great at 200m, too. I can hardly achieve defocus at 600mm because we are so near the minimum focus distance. Shown here is 60mm, 200mm, and 600mm:
Bottom line is that the 60-600mm DN Sport is a very strong performance optically and impressed me more than the copy of the 60-600mm that I tested four years ago.
Flare resistance also proved to be quite good. It’s somewhat rare to end up with the sun in the frame when the angle of view is so small (particularly on the telephoto end!), but when I intentionally put it that, I saw very minimal impact from the sun either wide open or stopped down to F11.
In short, there really isn’t a lot to complain about optically here. You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here. The Sony 200-600G is still slightly sharper, but the Sigma has a much larger zoom range and the potential for much higher magnification if you shoot at 200mm.
Conclusion
The Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DN OS | Sport is a very welcome addition to telephoto zoom options available on Sony or Leica L. It’s the largest lens in the class by weight (and size if you count the extended length), but it is also unique in the amount of zoom that it offers. It is a real competitor to the Sony 200-600G in both price and performance, though there will always be a few built-in advantages for the Sony (TC compatibility and burst rate on the sports bodies). I prefer the handling of the Sony in the field (smoother zoom action and the internal zoom design means that I don’t have to deal with zoom creep while hiking), but I definitely prefer the zoom ratio of the Sigma along with the excellent magnification results.
The improved focus motor helps to close the gap with the Sony in terms of focus speed and tracking performance, though I would still slightly prefer the Sony because it is pretty magical for tracking. I think the Sigma will do a great focus job for photographers, however, and again – that focal range is a huge advantage for the types of subjects you can capture.
The loser here may be Sigma’s own 150-600mm DN Sport, which is only very marginally smaller and is outclassed by the 60-600DN in performance in basically every metric. The 60-600mm is sharper, faster to focus, and has better optical stabilization. The 150-600mm’s biggest advantage is going to be price, where it will run at least $500 cheaper than the 60-600mm’s $2000 USD. My advice: save for a few extra months and buy the 60-600mm DN; it is Sigma’s “killer app” for this class of lens.
Pros:
That zoom ratio is just so useful
Good quality of construction including robust weather sealing
Feature rich – competes directly with Sony
Improved autofocus is noticeably better than previous Sigma models
The improved OS is better than anything I’ve seen in this class
Fairly low distortion and vignette
CA well controlled
Good sharpness across the zoom range
Great magnification and close up performance
Nice bokeh rendering
Zoom action can be push/pull or twist controlled
Cons:
Cannot be used with teleconverters
Lower burst rate on Sony’s top sports cameras compared to a Sony lens
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Sigma 60-600, Sigma 60-600mm, Sigma 60-600 DN, Sigma 60-600 Review, Sigma 60-600mm DN Review, DN, DG, OS, DG, Sport, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN DG OS Sport, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
It’s hard to believe that just a few short years ago the primary complaint on the Sony platform was a lack of telephoto options. Sony was the first to address the problem with the 200-600G (my review here), but then Sigma and Tamron jumped in with both feet. Sigma released the 100-400mm DN (my review here) followed by the 150-600mm DN Sport (my review here). Tamron, not to be outdone, released the 70-300mm RXD (my review here), then the 150-500mm VXD (my review here), and then followed that up with the 50-400mm VXD lens (my review here). That’s six quality telephoto options in the past three years, but Sigma has at least one more trick up their sleeve. One of their last new lenses for DSLRs was released in early 2019 in the form of the 60-600mm Sport (my review here), a lens that dramatically increased the subject possibilities when compared to the typical 150-600mm focal range. That extra foray into wider angle meant that suddenly the zoom ratio jumped from 4x to 10x. Sigma has brought a new version of that lens into the mirrorless world in the form of the new Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DG DN OS Sport (hereafter referred to as the 60-600DN). This will instantly become the most dramatic telephoto focal range on the Sony platform, allowing you to frame a scene like this at 60mm:
…but also punch into it and capture the details like this at 600mm:
Can you think of a few subject possibilities for a zoom range like that? I thought so!
If you don’t “speak Sigma”, here’s a quick breakdown of what those letter combinations in the name mean. DG is Sigma’ designation for a lens designed for full frame (DC denotes APS-C). DN refers to lenses designed for mirrorless cameras (in this case the lens will initially come to Sony E-mount [tested here] and Leica L mount, with hopefully other mounts in the future). OS refers to “Optical Stabilizer”, an in-lens stabilization system which is one of the upgrades in this design (to Sigma’s new OS2 designation). Finally, “Sport” is the designation Sigma gives to its better quality telephoto lenses designed for capturing action in demanding situations…or birds in flight.
The other highlighted feature here is a new focus system designed with the idea of increased torque and speed for a high performing lens like this one. Sigma calls this “HLA”, which stands for “High-response Linear Actuator”. There is a clear improvement in focus speed with this new focus motor, delivering near instant focus changes. That’s really going to help Sigma be more competitive with the other telephoto options listed here, as that focus speed will really enable you to capture the action you’re looking for.
There are a lot of positives in this new lens that will come to market at the same price as the previous 60-600mm Sport lens (about $2000 USD). That’s about a $500 premium (at MSRP pricing) over the Sigma 150-600mm Sport and about the same as the Sony 200-600G lens. If you want more information, you can watch my video review or read my text review…or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Purchase the Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3IxQ2mh | Amazon https://amzn.to/3ZqEtmU | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3GnJ5lc | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3GABb8m
Keywords: Sigma 60-600, Sigma 60-600mm, Sigma 60-600 DN, Sigma 60-600 Review, Sigma 60-600mm DN Review, DN, DG, OS, DG, Sport, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN DG OS Sport, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
My excitement over reviewing a new Samyang lens has grown by leaps and bounds over the past three years. In my DSLR days I had treated Samyang much like some of the budget manual focus lens players on the market today (7Artisans, TTArtisan, Brightin Star, etc…). They produced lenses that were sometimes optically interesting but not really at the same level as the big players in terms of build, features, and autofocus. They even sold their lenses under multiple brand names, of which only Samyang and Rokinon remain (yes, Rokinon lenses are the exact same save slightly different badging). But then Samyang started to experiment with autofocus, and, while early results were a little primitive, I saw rapid progress. About 3 ½ years ago I reviewed the first Samyang lens that I thought was truly competitive with the main brands, and it was the Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 FE. I subsequently reviewed the Canon RF mount version of the lens and found it even better (they added an AF/MF switch to the design). I added that lens to my own personal Canon kit and still regularly use it today. Today, however, I’m looking at the second generation of Samyang’s “big” prime lenses. I first looked at the Series II version of the AF 50mm F1.4, and found it a major improvement over the first generation lens. Today I’ll be examining the new Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 Series II, hereby referred to as the AF 85II. I will subsequently be looking at the new 35mm F1.4 Series II along with the impressive Samyang AF 135mm F1.8.
I’m excited about this Samyang lens as I’ve always appreciated the performance and value of the previous versions of the lens, and now we’ve gotten a more compact size along with new features as a part of the formula. The new version is slimmer and lighter along with some other significant improvements:
Smaller size:
MK 1 88 x 99.5 (D x L) | 568g weight | 77mm filter thread
MK 2 83.4 x 99.5 (D x L) | 509g weight | 72mm filter thread
Slightly improved MFD (0.85 vs 0.90 = 0.12 vs 0.11x)
AF Motor improved to Linear STM (Samyang claims improved performance for video. “Quieter, faster, and more accurate AF performance”
Improved weather sealing – from 3 seal points to 7 seal points
Added Focus Hold Button and Custom Switch
We’ll detail those features further, but clearly Samyang is upping its game in terms of providing lenses that are competitive with third party brands and even with first party options. For now, the AF 85II is only available on Sony FE, though here’s hoping that Canon and Nikon will wake up and allow their customers access to these excellent new lenses. The AF 85II comes at a price point of right under $800 USD, which places it only $200 more than the Sony F1.8 version (my review here) and about $400 cheaper than the lens I consider to be the chief competitor to this lens – the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN ART (my review here).
So is the new Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 Series II worthy of your consideration if you’re in the market for a new lens? Is it worth the upgrade if you own the previous generation lens? I’ll do my best to answer those questions either in my video review or in the text review that follows.
I want to thank Samyang for sending me a test retail copy of the lens for review. As always, this is a completely independent review. The opinions here are completely my own. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the new Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here) and the Sony a7IV
Samyang AF 85II Build, Design and Handling
The AF 85II is a reflection of Samyang’s growing design evolution. It very strongly resembles the AF 50mm F1.4 Series II lens with what has become Samyang’s new design language. This includes a new diamond pattern texture of the focus ring and a transition of Samyang’s red ring (which previously really imitated Canon’s L-series lenses) to the new “hidden ring” design where the red is only visible from the front of the lens as it is somewhat hidden in the front fascia of the lens barrel. The resulting lens design is clean and modern.
I liked the look of the previous Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 and its sleek design, but the new design language is, I think, more distinctly Samyang’s rather than a simile of someone else’s lens. A byproduct of this process has been the ability to also slightly reduce the physical size of the Series II lenses, which is in keeping with the trend that Sony has been following with its MK II G Master designs. Of the competing options, the new AF 85II is the overall smallest and lightest, though not in every dimension.
It has shed about 60g (2oz) relative to the Series I lens, and weighs in at about 115g lighter than the Sigma DN lens and a whopping 310g lighter than the Sony G Master. It is only 140g heavier than the Sony 85mm F1.8 lens, which makes it competitive in the F1.8 market in both size and price. Here’s a look at the two Series II lenses I have on hand and then the RF version of the first generation AF 85mm F1.4, which definitely looks bigger all around.
The Sigma DN lens isn’t really larger in pure physical size, but I do prefer the profile of the Samyang once the lens hoods are attached. The Sigma hood is relatively huge in diameter, which takes up much more room in a bag.
I’ve watched Samyang grow in their lens design over the past 3-4 years as they steadily debuted new features. One of those was weather sealing, which the first generation lens had, though with fewer seal points (only three on that lens). I count seven seal points from this diagram on the Series II lens, including at various transition points in the lens (front and rear element, either side of the focus ring, and at the switches).
I consider weather sealing to be a must if you want to market your lens as a premium or professional lens, and Samyang has smartly recognized that many photographers feel the same. They’ve definitely embraced weather sealing as a part of lens design, which does help inspire confidence when the weather turns during a photo shoot…like it did during this one, with a burst of cold rain.
The Series II lenses features some newer features for Samyang which have debuted over the past two years. One is a custom switch that gives you some options for how the focus ring will be used. You can tweak the options via the Samyang Lens Station (a $60 purchase I definitely recommend as it also allows you to quickly update the firmware. This might help with some improvement to performance and also will keep your investment “future-proofed”). I would like to see Samyang move to a lens-based USB-C port like Tamron and Viltrox have moved to, as that eliminates the need for an additional accessory for this functionality.
My preferred setup is that the M1 position has the ring focus as an aperture ring and the M2 position automatically enables manual focus. This gives you the functionality of an aperture ring and an AF/MF switch in one.
There’s also now a focus hold button which can be programmed to a variety of functions from within the camera just like on a Sony lens.
The manual focus ring is nice and wide and has that new textured surface (with a rubberized finish). I like the tactile feel of the “micro pattern” (as Samyang calls it) and feel like it offers good grip. The damping of the focus ring is nice and smooth, though I felt like I could use just a little more precision in the ring when making very fine adjustments. The focus action appears to be linear (non-speed dependent), which is good for repeatability, though the focus throw is too long for major video focus throws. You need about 5 normal focus rotations to travel the extremes of the focus range, and I estimate the whole focus throw at somewhere near 380°. Fortunately you can control the speed of the focus ring via the Lens Manager software if you have the Lens Station. On a positive note, the automatic magnification of the active focus area is engaged with the lens, which helps make the manual focus process more intuitive and accurate.
The lens hood is included. It’s plastic and pretty basic. It bayonets into place smoothly and locks tightly but lacks a dedicated locking mechanism (if that matters to you).
The body materials here are engineered plastics, but good feeling plastics, and the build feels solid if not exceptional. The lens feels quality but not necessarily top tier in build…which frankly is where the price point is.
Up front we have a clean front fascia and a 72mm filter thread size that is shared with the new 50mm F1.4 II.
If you look inside, you’ll find an aperture iris with 9 rounded blades, though the shape of the aperture blades will start to show up by F2.8 in a mild way. Here’s a look at the shape of the bokeh circles at F1.4, F2, and F2.8.
The geometric shape is pretty nice, and the bokeh circles are nice and soft. Fringing around the bokeh highlights is not at all pronounced, so you won’t have to fear shooting portraits or other shots with bright lights in the background.
As noted in the intro, Samyang has managed to very slightly improve the minimum focus distance over the first-generation lens from 90cm (2.95’) to 85cm (2.8’), which increases the magnification from 0.11x to 0.12x. That’s about average for an 85mm lens. Here’s what the magnification looks like:
The large maximum aperture and longer focal length allow the AF 85II to nicely isolate subjects and leave backgrounds completely defocused. The fact that the lens is also very sharp produces great looking images with sharp detail on the subject and beautifully blurred backgrounds.
There’s something very pleasing about this Series II lens. It strikes a very nice balance between a quality build while also being compact and lightweight. I like the general profile and look of the lens and appreciate the growing functionality that Samyang is building into these new lenses. They don’t have quite the level of robustness that either a Sony GM or the recent Sigma DN prime lenses do, but this is compensated for by reduced size and weight. I’m happy with the general trend of Samyang design.
Autofocus Performance
The Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II employs a Linear STM focus motor. On paper this is a step down from the first-generation lens, as it employed a DLSM (Dual Linear Sonic Motor) focus system. One motor certainly wouldn’t seem to match two motors, yet Samyang claims “Quieter, faster and more accurate AF performance with linear STM motor”. I didn’t have the original first generation lens in Sony FE (I have one in Canon RF mount) on hand to compare the new lens with, but I did refer back to my review notes and images taken with that lens for some comparisons. I noted in my review of that lens that this was the area I felt still needed the most improvement. AF-C focus speed was somewhat slowed relative to AF-S, and I felt the focus system could use a little more torque. I also found that (at least initially), the older lens wasn’t always completely confident in focus and would have some minor focus adjustments taking place often.
What I can safely say is that I no longer have any of those concerns. I own the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN that I’ve alluded to in this review, and I used both lenses side by side during some comparisons and found essentially no difference between the two. They were equally fast, equally confident in focus, which means that autofocus is actually better than on the existing Sony 85mm F1.4 G Master (I fully anticipate a second generation replacement that will be more like the exceptional 50mm F1.2 GM in performance). Autofocus is fast, silent, and accurate with the Samyang Series II lens, delivering one well focused result after another.
Eye AF worked extremely well in my portrait series even when I placed foreground objects in between the camera and subject.
I have the Focus Hold button programmed to allow me to switch eyes during Eye AF for portraits, and I found that this function worked perfectly with the AF 85II, giving me accurate focus on the eye of my choice.
I had good Eye AF tracking an animal subject even while Ferrari was moving.
Focus pulls are still on the slower side for video, though they feel well damped and smooth. There is some very noticeable focus breathing, so this is not a top choice for video work if that bothers you. I saw good results with the “hand test” where I put my hand out in front of the lens to block my face before allowing focus to return to tracking my eye.
The focus motor is not completely silent; you will hear some faint whirring and clicking, though I essentially only heard it if I put my ear close. No sound was picked up during my video pull test. Typical focus changes are near instantaneous, though if you shift between a close and distant subject you will experience a brief lag.
Focus speed was fast enough that I didn’t really think about it when shooting stills and only noticed the slower transition speed when shooting video. Focus results were generally confident, however, and there was no settling before focus lock was achieved.
That larger maximum aperture (F1.4) assists in low light focus, making this a decent lens to use in very dim situations. This shot of Nala is at 1/20th second, F1.4, ISO 3200 – which equals very dim lighting conditions. I don’t remember any lag in focus, and I shot multiple shots during this sequence that were all accurately focused.
Focus accuracy was just generally excellent. I shoot a lot of very shallow depth of field shots with a lens like this, and I’ve got all kinds of great photos with pinpoint focus.
I shot with both the high end Sony Alpha 1 and the more moderately priced a7IV with good results on both. I even shot some pickup basketball action and got well focused results.
I’m not sure I would characterize this as a sports lens (I’m not sure it is fast enough for really fast action), but it will work fine for moderate action work and should be effortless for things like weddings. It’s not as fast as the best recent G Master lenses, but few lenses are. All in all, I would call autofocus solid here and an improvement at the margins over the first generation lens.
Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II Image Quality
It’s fortunate that Samyang had a great optical formula in their first generation of this lens, as both the optical design and the MTF charts suggest that we have an identical optical formula in the Series II lens. Both lenses employ an optical formula of 11 elements in 8 groups, with 4 HR elements and 1 ED element making up the “special” elements. In this series of MTF charts you can see the Series 1 lens, the Series 2 lens, and then the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN.
If you don’t understand how to read MTF charts, you can check out my video on the subject here. You can see the identical MTF curves of the Samyang, which show a very strong center performance, some dip to the mid-frame, and then a gradual tailing off to about 54% at the corner. The Sigma MTF suggests a percentage point or two better performance in the center, an actual improvement to mid-frame (giving a clear win there), and a steeper drop-off to the corners where it matches the Samyang performance. The Samyang MTF chart also includes an F8 MTF, where the performance is very near to flawlessly sharp. We’ll see if my real world tests back this up, but I can tell you this – the AF 85II is definitely real-world sharp!
We’ll work through the chart results by first looking at distortion and vignette. As of yet there isn’t a correction profile available in Lightroom, but you can use the first generation profile without issue since the two lenses are essentially optically identical (with one caveat that I’ll discuss in a moment!)
While I keep monitoring the status of in-camera corrections for Samyang lenses, it still doesn’t seem that lenses aren’t receiving correction in camera for JPEGs or video. My JPEGs of my chart test are no more corrected that my RAW images. I mostly shoot RAW images, so I don’t think about it much, but those of you who typically rely on in-camera corrections and shoot JPEG are going to be disappointed here. My hope that is Sony will afford Samyang the courtesy that third party lens makers like Tamron and Sigma get lenses get in terms of these corrections, but that day has not yet arrived. Fortunately Samyang has been making lenses in the past couple of years that don’t seem to need a great deal of correcting, so that certainly helps.
There’s only a negligible amount of pincushion distortion (a -1 to correct) along with a moderate amount of vignette that required a +53 to correct for, so around 2 stops in the corners. The vignette is fairly linear, which means that it will often be flattering to your images and you may want to leave it uncorrected.
This is also one area of serious advantage over the Sigma DN lens, which has both a LOT of pincushion distortion and much heavier vignette.
So how about chromatic aberrations? I found some lateral chromatic aberrations along the edge of the frame, and some very mild longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) which can be seen as purple and green fringing before and after the plane of focus at wide apertures.
I didn’t find either version of CA to be an issue in my real world images.
So how about resolution and contrast? Here’s a look at my test chart: *All chart tests done with a Sony Alpha 1 (50MP) using a tripod and a two second timer.
And here are the crops (at roughly 170% magnification) from the center, mid-frame, and extreme corner at F1.4:
That’s a pretty awesome result. Everywhere looks nice and crisp even into the extreme corner even at high magnification of a 50MP image. If we drop back to just 100% magnification the image looks flawless.
So what if we compare it to the Sigma? Here are three comparisons (you can find more in my VS video that will release soon). The first shows center performance at F1.4, then corner performance at F1.4, and finally a real-world mid-frame comparison:
What stands out is that the Sigma has an exceptional amount of contrast which gives it an advantage in the center and the real-world result. The Samyang is slightly better in the corners in my comparison.
I consistently saw more skin textures from the Sigma in my direct comparisons between the two lenses, though whether that’s a pro or a con depends on your preference in a portrait lens. Also interesting is that I didn’t really see a color difference between the two lenses. Historically Samyang lenses have trended towards warmer tones, but it seems like recent lenses have a more neutral color profile.
I didn’t notice the Sigma advantage as much in non-portrait comparisons. In this 100% crop from a shot of the chess board I can see a slightest increase of textures for the Sigma.
If you take the comparisons off the table, however, the reality is that the AF 85II is an extremely sharp lens. It was perfectly easy to get compelling landscape images even at F1.4.
I also loved the subject isolation at F1.4.
This is why 85mm F1.4 lenses are so compelling.
By F2 the Samyang is extremely sharp across the frame. Look at how crisp the textures are in the deep mid-frame even at 200% magnification.
Here’s some portrait detail at F2.5:
At F2.8 and beyond the performance is flawless. You’ll be able to get amazingly detailed images even on Sony’s high resolution sensors.
The quality of the bokeh is very nice as well. You can get amazing subject isolation and blurred out backgrounds, like this simple images of dried grasses:
How about this old lock?
Or step back a little with these frost-covered ferns?
This image was about the busiest that I could get from the bokeh, and it’s still quite nice.
This is a great lens for capturing bokeh.
I tested flare during a “sun-shower”, which produced very interesting results. There’s some veiling in the first wide open shot, though it is very artistic in its rendering. The second image is stopped down to F11, and it shows the strongest ghosting artifacts. The final image is wide open but with the sun more directly in the frame, and contrast held up more in that scenario.
There’s nothing that really turns me off about this performance.
I also found the colors I was able to capture with the lens very pleasing.
Bottom line is that this is a very strong optical performance with few flaws. It isn’t quite at the exceptional level of the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN (which is actually better than the current GM lens), but the Samyang also has less vignette and distortion. You’ll be hard pressed to find more better image quality for $800! You can see more images by checking out the lens image gallery here.
Conclusion
Samyang’s Series II lenses are evidence of the growing maturation of the brand and their ability to compete on merit rather than just price. Samyang’s first generation of autofocus lenses featured great optical performances that were often held back by the company’s inexperience with autofocus design. Samyang has wisely capitalized on the strength of those optical designs by releasing this lineup of Series II lenses that often take those optical formulas (with perhaps some minor tweaks) and release them in new lenses that showcase their progress in autofocus and feature design. The Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II is a perfect example of that philosophy. It is a much more complete lens than its predecessor despite being optically similar.
That’s not really a bad thing. This is a very strong lens optically, with great sharpness, good control of various aberrations, and lovely bokeh. It’s a very nice portrait lens that is aided by the improved autofocus accuracy and consistency.
At right under $800 USD this is an unquestionable value, and I see no reason why this lens should not become a favorite among portrait photographers who don’t want to spend well over a thousand dollars to get their portrait lens. This price point allows it to compete with the cheaper F1.8 options as well, as the AF 85II offers that F1.4 “look”, more features, and better weather sealing. Samyang is really hitting their stride as a lens maker, and their Series II lenses are “Exhibit A” as evidence.
Pros:
Nice construction complete with weather sealing
Well executed, smooth manual focus ring
Custom switch and focus hold button adds functionality
Smaller and lighter than competing lenses
Quiet, effective autofocus
Good center sharpness wide open
Excellent sharpness across the frame when stopped down
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Keywords: Samyang 85 II, Samyang 85 1.4, Samyang 85mm, II, Series II, MK II, AF, Samyang, Rokinon, Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II, F1.4II, Samyang AF, Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II Review, Review, Dustin Abbott, FE, Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN, FE, Sony 85mm F1.4 GM, Sony 85mm F1.8, Portrait, Sony a7IV, Sony a7III, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7C, Bokeh, Sharpness, Resolution, Video Test, Sample Images, Real World, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
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