Introduction

The Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art was one of Sigma’s last flagship lenses designed for DSLRs and one of the few that hasn’t seen a successor designed for mirrorless cameras yet. If you read my review, you know it is an impressive lens, but I still had some reservations calling it the “Bokeh Master”. Now I get the feeling someone at Sigma read my comment and decided to take it as a challenge by designing this Sigma 135mm 1.4 DG Art – the actual “Bokeh Master”. To me, this is one of Sigma’s masterpieces, so let’s have a closer look!  

Sample Images

You can find many of the sample images in full resolution here.

Specifications

After the Zhong Yi 135mm 1.4 Speedmaster this Sigma 135mm 1.4 DG Art is only the second non-cine 135mm lens as fast as f/1.4 and the first one that comes with autofocus. It is available for E-mount and L-mount and the E-mount version I am reviewing here has the following specifications:

• • Diameter: 112 mm
  • Field of view: 18.2° (diagonally)
  • Length: 135 mm
  • Weight: 1316g (without hood[121g], without tripod collar[104g], without rubber cover[19g], without caps)
  • Filter Diameter: 105 mm
  • Number of Aperture Blades: 13 (rounded)
  • Elements/Groups: 17/13
    
    
  • Close Focusing Distance: 1.1 m
  • Maximum Magnification: 1:6.4 (measured)
  • Released: October 2025
  • Mount: E-Mount, L-Mount

buy from Amazon.com | Amazon.de | ebay.com | ebay.de | B&H (affiliate links) for $1899 

Handling/Build quality

In 2025 Sigma made some changes to the styling of their products and also their packaging. The outer casing (including the filter thread) still seems to be mostly made from high quality polycarbonate, but they changed the finish a bit. It is more structured now, which is best visible in the picture above near the bayonet. The rubber gasket close to the bayonet is also still there, but it is very thin now.

The manual focus is by wire and it takes about 220° from the minimum focus distance (1.1 m) to infinity. Personally I prefer the mechanical coupling and the physical distance scale of the Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art here, but these are not things you can find in today’s autofocus lenses anymore.

A huge lens hood that is made from the same type of high quality polycarbonate is also part of the package which can also be mounted reversed for transport. Sigma got rid of the locking screw found on the hood of the Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art, instead there is just a small release button like on the hood of the Sigma 35mm 1.2 DG DN Art. 

The lens comes with a removable tripod collar. What is really amazing: it features an Arca Swiss profile from the get go, so no need to buy a replacement collar.

If you don’t need the tripod collar you can attach a rubber ring instead, which is also a very thoughtful addition.

Considering its specifications, this lens is actually smaller than it should be. It is smaller and 200g lighter than the Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art despite having a 30% bigger entrance pupil and it is only 70g heavier than the Viltrox AF 135mm 1.8 FE LAB, which is hard to believe considering this Sigma is 2/3rds of a stop faster. A true engineering tour de force.

There is one more thing: Sigma’s new packaging introduced in 2025 is actually really nice. I find unboxing videos and fetishizing over packaging and boxes rather pathetic, but here I feel it is in fact worth mentioning. There is also a small booklet included talking about Sigma’s “Art of Engineering” which is a nice touch and certainly adds to the feel of having bought a premium product. A shoulder strap that can be attached to the tripod collar is one more accessory to be found in the box.

AF performance

I am not shooting sports or fast moving animals/humans so if you want to know if the lens is fast enough for this, or how it compares to other lenses in this segment, you may have to look for a different review with a more detailed assessment of this aspect.

The AF was always fast and accurate and completely silent. I also tried this lens with the Megadap ETZ21pro on my Nikon Zf and it generally performed well, in low light scenarios I saw some more hunting though. 

Vignetting

light falloff

In the previous section I just told you that this lens is smaller and lighter than I would have expected, so I was afraid we would see noticeably higher vignetting figures than from the Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art with its oversized front element (for a 105mm f/1.4 lens a front element diameter of 75mm is needed, yet it features a 92mm one).

As it turns out, that fear was uncalled for: this 135mm 1.4 shows the same vignetting figures at shared apertures as the Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art and the huge Zhong Yi 135mm 1.4 Speedmaster, making its size and weight all the more impressive.

It is recommended to have a look at this article first to get an idea how this brightness graph works.

optical vignetting

Fast lenses usually show a noticeable amount of optical vignetting. Without going too much into technical details optical vignetting leads to the truncation of light circles towards the borders of the frame.
In the center of the frame almost every lens will render a perfect circle, but only lenses with very low optical vignetting will keep this shape in the corners.
So in the following comparison we move from the center (left) to the extreme corner (right) and see how the shape of the light circle changes.

I did not shoot theses lenses side by side, so the sizes of the circles are not directly comparable.

In this category the Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art with its oversized front element performed very well. To my surprise this Sigma 135mm 1.4 DG Art shows a similarly low amount of optical vignetting. Only at f/2.0 the 105mm’s defocused light circles located in the corners are slightly less truncated.

Despite the usage of two aspherical elements – one of them with a high diameter even – I do not see any onion ring structures in this Sigma’s out of focus highlights. Impressive.

Sharpness

MTF-Graphs

The MTF graphs promise an amazing image quality over most parts of the frame with only little astigmatism. Towards the corners we see a slight drop in image quality. Let’s see about the actual performance in the following sections.

Most MTF-Graphs show calculated values that do not take into account manufacturing tolerances and sample variation. Furthermore they are usually calculated for infinity, so in the field and shooting at different distances a noticeable variation may be visible.

Focus Shift

Modern mirrorless cameras usually focus at working aperture, so focus shift isn’t really a problem here anymore.

I still check for it and at close distances I noticed a low amount of focus shift on stopping down from f/2.0 to f/2.8. This is not enough for the subject to drop out of the focal plane, so nothing to worry about.

At this close distance we also see a low amount of bokeh fringing. 

infinity (42mp Sony A7rII)

Heat haze and vibrations can have a big influence here.

At infinity we see an impressive performance. Already at f/1.4 everything looks very good everywhere in the frame. If you like to split hairs, peak across frame performance is reached somewhere between f/4.0 and f/5.6. I certainly wouldn’t mind using this lens at f/1.4 at infinity if needed though.

portrait distance 3.0 m (42mp Sony A7rII)

For portraiture it isn’t so important how flat the field is, it is more interesting to see what the sharpness is like when focused at different parts of the frame to take field curvature out of the equation.

This is what I did here, I refocused for every shot and aperture to get the best possible result at different locations in the frame (center, inner midframe and outer midframe).
Focus distance was roughly 3.0 m and the circle of the dollar bill is more or less the size of a human eye.

f/1.4 <————> f/2.0

Comparing the performance here to the Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art we notice something interesting: while the 105mm already showed Moiré everywhere at f/1.4, this 135mm doesn’t, which means it might not offer as crazy resolution figures at f/1.4 as the 105mm lens. 

This is hardly a field relevant difference though and might even point at a more favourable (read: softer) rendering for potraits at f/1.4. 

Stopped down to f/2.0 we see crazy high resolution and contrast, easily outperforming the Samyang AF 135mm 1.8 FE and the Viltrox AF 135mm 1.8 FE LAB at f/1.8.

close 1.1 m, 1:6.4 (42mp Sony A7rII)

A disadvantage of this f/1.4 lens over its f/1.8 competitors is its worse minimum focus distance of 1.1 m and therefore worse maximum magnifcation of 1:6.4. The Sony FE 135mm 1.8 GM, Samyang AF 135mm 1.8 FE and Viltrox AF 135mm 1.8 FE LAB all offer a maximum magnification of 1:4.0.

From f/1.4 to f/2.0 this lens is a bit softer, so if you are looking for maximum image quality at the minimum focus distance you may want to stop down to f/2.8. That being said, in the field with three dimensional subjects I was perfectly happy with this lens’ performance at f/1.4 at close distances.

Flare resistance

As always evaluating flare is a complex matter since you can get any lens to look bad if you push it hard enough and a slight change of scenario can affect results a lot.

If you are a regular reader you are already aware: fast tele lenses rarely perform well in this category thanks to their huge front elements. Now I do know that Sigma puts a lot of effort during the design phase to mitigate flare and ghosting, so let’s have a closer look if they succeeded.

At f/1.4 ghosting hardly is a problem, with a strong light source outside the frame you may catch some veiling flare though.

Stopped down to f/8.0 we can actually spot some small and rather unobtrusive ghosts and we can still encounter veiling flare with strong light sources outside of the frame.

Comparing the Sigma 135mm 1.4 DG Art to all the other lenses with a ~100mm entrance pupil size I have reviewed, this is the best performance I encountered so far by quite some margin.

I also did several with and without hood comparisons and I found this lens to perform just as well without the hood. Not something I can say about a lot of tele lenses, but good news, as you will often be able to leave the huge hood at home.

Coma

There are only minor Coma artefacts visible, even at f/1.4. The Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art was specifically designed for astrophotography and again – despite its bigger entrance pupil – this 135mm 1.4 performs at least as well.

And also here it performs as least as good at f/1.4 than the slower f/1.8 lenses at their maximum aperture. 

Distortion

With the Sigma 85mm 1.4 DG DN Art, Sigma already accepted some residual distortion to realize a more compact lens. Here they chose the same approach, again leading to an unusually high amount of pincushion distortion for a 135mm lens. The distortion pattern is uniform though, so it is easily corrected by dialing in -7 in Lightroom/Photoshop.

With pincushion distortion you lose a bit of horizontal and vertical viewing angle due to the correction, keep that in mind and don’t frame your shots too tight.

Bokeh

If you are interested in this lens, there is a high likelihood it is because of its amazing bokeh capabilities made possible by that huge entrance pupil. Until now an entrance pupil size of 100mm is something you could only find in tele lenses starting at 200mm focal length and in the exotic Zhong Yi 135mm 1.4 Speedmaster. Let’s find out in this section, what the bokeh created by a lens like this looks like.

Close distance

At close distances – and this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise – this lens completely obliterates the backgrounds. As pointed out before, optical vignetting is surprisingly well behaved and defocused light circles in the corners still take on natural shapes.

Medium distance

In a 135mm lens, the difference between a maximum aperture of f/1.8 and f/1.4 is pretty huge, leading to noticeably and visibly stronger blur from the f/1.4 lens. 

I honestly cannot find any flaw with the bokeh rendering of this Sigma 135mm 1.4 DG Art. Next time I am shooting a wedding, this will certainly be one of my two main lenses, as it creates smooth undistracting backgrounds even in difficult scenarios.

Long distance

At longer focus distances this lens creates a look we would rather expect from longer tele lenses: you can make a subject stand out in a crowd and do so even with unfavourable distance relations between subject and background.

I know that many people who like to do Brenizer/Bokehpanoramas chose to use one of the 200mm 2.0 lenses, as they used to be the shortest lenses with such a big entrance pupil. With this 135mm lens featuring the same entrance pupil size, you can significantly reduce the number of pictures needed to create the viewing angle you are looking for.

Compared to: Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art

The focal length differs by about 30%, so direct comparisons are not exactly possible. You will find some scenes where I took pictures from the same position and cropped the 105mm 1.4 pictures to an 135mm 1.8 equivalent (which also tells you how it will compare to one of the slower 135mm 1.8 lenses) and there are also scenes where I got closer with the 105mm – to get a better idea what the rendering will be like with same object sizes – which is probably a more realistic and therefore useful comparison for most scenarios.

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Observations

First thing we notice is, there is definitely a visible difference between a 135mm 1.4 and a 135mm 1.8 lens (which equals the cropped 105mm 1.4 pictures) in terms of subject separation. 

If we move in a bit closer with the 105mm 1.4 to get the same subject size as with the 135mm, the change in viewing angle is probably more meaningful than the slight differences in blur.

In terms of bokeh rendering these two lenses are also very similar. The 135mm appears a tad smoother to me, but you need to look very closely for that. In Scene 5 the 135mm shows less artefacts around the point light sources though.

Compared to: Nikon AF-S 200mm 2.0G IF-ED VR

As said before a 200mm 2.0 lens has a very similar entrance pupil size as a 135mm 1.4 lens. This means, you can create the “same” (in terms of perspective and depth of field) picture when cropping a 135mm 1.4 picture to give the same framing as the 200mm 2.0 lens. 

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Observations

Generally, the bokeh created by these two lenses is extremely similar when you crop the 135mm 1.4 pictures to the 200mm 2.0 framing. Even in a direct comparison like this I would hardly be able to tell them apart. 

If looking very closely we see stronger vignetting from the 200mm lens – which was to be expected, as we cropped out the outer parts from the 135mm lens. We also see that the Nikon lens creates slightly bigger highlights in the central part of the frame. According to the patent the Nikon is a 195mm f/1.84 lens when set to infinity, according to its front element diameter the Sigma should be an f/1.45 lens, so that should account for these small difference.

In Scene 1 in the detail crops we can see quite well that the Nikon’s out of focus highlights are “longer” but also “thinner” towards the borders and corners. Longer because of the slightly bigger f/Stop, thinner because of stronger optical vignetting compared to the cropped 135mm picture. 

Understanding the physics involved, it was no surprise to me that the 135mm 1.4 cropped will look very similar to the 200mm 2.0, but then I did not expect them to be that close in terms of overall rendering of the bokeh.

Sunstars

I think this is the first lens I reviewed that features 13 aperture blades and generally the only lens I am aware of that features an automatic aperture diaphragm with such a high number of blades. This is generally great news for the bokeh rendering, as this really helps to keep those highlights nicely round when slightly stopped down. For sunstars though, it is not that great news as we can see here: even stopped down the sunstars are not well defined and made of rays of uneven length. 
If you want to learn more about this topic have a look at this article.

Chromatic aberration

lateral

Sigma didn’t use all these special glass elements for nothing, there are no lateral CA to be found here.

longitudinal

• f/1.4
• f/2.0
• f/2.8

• 
• 
• 

Sony A7rII | Sigma 135mm 1.4 DG Art | 33% crops

In the focus shift section we saw a low amount of bokeh fringing at close focus distances, at longer distances – as shown here – it is corrected pretty much perfectly though.

Unsurprisingly for a lens as complex as this also purple fringing around high contrast edges is nowhere to be found.

Conclusion

good amazing bokeh contrast and resolution at portrait distances and infinity CA correction  Coma correction Flare resistance build quality/handling size/weight (for a 135mm f/1.4 lens)

average vignetting

not good high uncorrected distortion

During the DSLR era Sigma released some impressive f/1.4 primes, the most impressive ones were probably the Sigma 40mm 1.4 DG HSM Art and the Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art. These lenses had one major disadvantage though: compared to lenses with similar specifications they were huge and heavy. 

Now, don’t get me wrong: a 135mm lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.4 can never be compact, as those specifications demand a front element diameter of almost 100mm. That being said: this Sigma 135mm 1.4 Art is surprisingly small and lightweight. The Zhong Yi 135mm 1.4 – currently the only other non-cine 135mm 1.4 lens – is almost double the weight and doesn’t even feature autofocus. The Viltrox AF 135mm 1.8 FE LAB is 2/3rds of a stop slower, yet it is only 70g lighter. The Sigma 105mm 1.4 DG HSM Art – a lens with similar optical performance – is actually heavier, despite being shorter.

We also have to talk about its price. At $1899 not many people will consider this lens being cheap or affordable, but actually it is. Ridiculously affordable even. A 135mm 1.4 lens is not only significantly harder and more costly to make than all the 135mm 1.8 lenses – that is obvious – it is also significantly harder and more costly to make than a 200mm 2.0 lens. Now Sigma released a 200mm 2.0 lens almost at the same time as this 135mm 1.4, so we can directly compare them. The 200mm 2.0 lens features a simpler optical design with less and cheaper special elements, only one focus group instead of two and also a simpler diaphragm construction. The only thing the 200mm has going for it in that comparison is the OSS. All this means: this 135mm 1.4 should actually be more expensive than the 200mm 2.0. The reality? Sigma sells this 135mm 1.4 for $1899 and the 200mm 2.0 for $3299. Sigma even decided to undercut the prices of the slower Sony FE 135mm 1.8 GM and the Nikon Z 135mm 1.8 S Plena. They didn’t have to do that, they wanted to do that and they did it solely to make a point. 

The lower price could be explained if Sigma released an f/1.4 lens with subpar performance here where they cheaped out on the optical design – similar to what Nikon did with the Nikon Z 35mm 1.4 and Nikon Z 50mm 1.4 lenses. But as I have shown in this review: that is not the case at all. This Sigma 135mm 1.4 DG Art performs at least as well as the best 135mm 1.8 lenses while being 2/3rds of a stop faster and yet it sells at a lower price. 

Because of its unique specifications this Sigma 135mm 1.4 DG Art is not only the actual Bokeh Master, it is one of Sigma’s true masterpieces.

buy from Amazon.com | Amazon.de | ebay.com | ebay.de | B&H (affiliate links) for $1899 

Sony FE 135mm 1.8 GM:
Sony’s own 135mm 1.8 is a great lens. Sharpness and AF are top level as is its AF speed. The difference in weight is 300g and the prices on the street are similar, so I would rather get this Sigma lens. If size and weight are most important to you, also have a look at the Samyang AF 135mm 1.8 FE.
buy from amazon.com | amazon.de | ebay.com | ebay.de | B&H (affiliate links) for $1599

Viltrox AF 135mm 1.8 LAB:
The Viltrox 135mm 1.8 LAB is generally a very good lens, but it is simply too heavy. It is often available at discounted prices and if the weight doesn’t bother you, it can still be a very good option.
buy from manufacturer’s shop | Pergear | Amazon.com | Amazon.de | ebay.com | ebay.de | B&H (affiliate links) for $899

Samyang AF 135mm 1.8 FE:
If you are looking for the lightest, smallest and most affordable 135mm 1.8 lens, the Samyang AF 135mm 1.8 FE is the lens you should have a look at. Its optical performance is not as outstanding as that of the two aforementioned lenses and this Sigma 135mm 1.4, but still very good.
buy from amazon.com | amazon.de | ebay.com | ebay.de | B&H (affiliate links) for $799

Sample Images

You can find many of the sample images in full resolution here.

Further Reading

• Guide to 85-135mm Portrait lenses
• Bokeh explained
• Review: Laowa 35mm 0.95 – The World’s fastest 35mm lens
• Review: Nikon Z 58mm 0.95 S Noct-Nikkor
• Review: Canon EF 200mm 1.8L USM
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BastianK

My name is Bastian and I am your expert here when it comes to ultra wide angle lenses, super fast portrait lenses (ranging from a 50mm f/0.95 to a 200mm f/1.8) and I also have reviewed way too many 35mm lenses. Don't ask me anything about macro or wildlife shooting though.

Latest posts by BastianK (see all)

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