{"id":482879,"date":"2026-05-13T16:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/482879\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T16:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:50:11","slug":"sigma-135mm-f-1-4-art-dominates-portrait-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/482879\/","title":{"rendered":"Sigma 135mm f\/1.4 Art Dominates Portrait Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sigma 135mm f\/1.4 DG HSM Art<\/a> is one of the most optically ambitious lenses ever made for portrait work, and it exists almost entirely because Sigma wanted to prove it could be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coming to you from Mark McGee Photos<\/a>, this thorough real-world video puts the Sigma 135mm f\/1.4 DG HSM Art through its paces on the streets, testing it where it counts: in bright sunlight, with moving subjects, relying entirely on autofocus. McGee already owns the Sigma 24mm f\/1.4 DG HSM Art<\/a>, Sigma 50mm f\/1.4 DG HSM Art<\/a>, and Sigma 85mm f\/1.4 DG HSM Art<\/a>, so he’s not coming at this as a newcomer to the lineup. He bought the 135mm with his own money. One of the first things he addresses is depth of field at f\/1.4, which at this focal length is so thin that manual focus isn’t even a realistic option.<\/p>\n

The autofocus system uses Sigma’s HLA dual-motor design, driving two separate focus groups independently. McGee is upfront that he missed a few shots during testing, and he puts that on himself rather than the lens. Spot focus at f\/1.4 demands precision, and if you’re not exactly on target, the shallow depth of field punishes you fast. Eye-tracking autofocus fares much better, and McGee notes it’s quick, though not quite on the level of native Sony G Master<\/a> lenses. The tradeoff, as he points out, is that Sigma lenses run about a third less than their Sony equivalents.<\/p>\n

There’s also a practical issue shooting wide open in bright conditions. Even at 1\/8,000 sec, you may still be overexposed, which means a large-diameter ND filter becomes necessary. At 105mm filter thread, those aren’t cheap. The lens itself weighs 1,430 g, which McGee notes is 400 g more than the Sony 70-200mm f\/2.8 GM OSS<\/a>. It ships with a tripod collar and an Arca-Swiss compatible base plate specifically because the weight puts real stress on the camera’s E-mount. McGee makes a strong case for why 135mm sits in a sweet spot between 85mm and 200mm for portrait work: you get more background separation than the 85mm while staying close enough to the subject to maintain a natural working connection, something that becomes genuinely difficult at 200mm distances.<\/p>\n

Check out the video above for the full breakdown, including McGee’s sample images and his final verdict on whether the size and weight are worth what this lens delivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sigma 135mm f\/1.4 DG HSM Art is one of the most optically ambitious lenses ever made for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,366,18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-482879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116568301627326807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}