Introduction

Released at the end of 2024, this Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora was Sirui’s first non-cine fullframe lens aimed at photographers. It is one of the most affordable and compact 85mm 1.4 lenses, but is that enough to pick it over the strong competition? Let’s try to find out in this review!

Sample Images

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

Specifications

This Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora has the following specifications:

• • Diameter: 80 mm
  • Field of view: 28.64° (diagonally)
  • Length: 95 mm
  • Weight: 539g (without hood [37g], without caps)
  • Filter Diameter: 67 mm
  • Number of Aperture Blades: 15 (rounded)
  • Elements/Groups: 14/9
    
  • Close Focusing Distance: 0.85 m
  • Maximum Magnification: 1:8.0 (measured)
  • Mount: Sony E, Nikon Z, Fuji X
  • Released: October 2024

buy from amazon.com | amazon.de | B&H | ebay.com | ebay.de (affiliate links) for $499

Disclosure

Our reader Moritz sent me this lens for a review. Thanks a lot!

Handling/Build quality

This is the first Sirui lens I am reviewing, so naturally we will be having a closer look here.

The focus ring is by-wire and has a linear coupling with a throw of 360°. For my taste that is a bit long, I would have personally preferred 180° here. When you turn your camera off the lens will remember the last focus position and will still be there when you turn the camera on again.

Despite being a rather affordable lens, we get an aperture ring which works the same as those on Sony’s GM lenses as well as Sigma’s E-mount lenses that feature one.

It doesn’t stop there, the lens also features an AF/MF switch, a lens button as well as a de-click lever on the other side.

At the bayonet there is also a USB-C socket to be found for potential firmware updates – very similar to Viltrox’ design.

A plasticky bayonet style lens hood is also part of the package and interestingly it features a small rubber ring for better grip.

This Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora is the most compact 85mm 1.4 lens for E-mount I have used so far. With its 67mm filter thread it is noticeably smaller than Sony’s second generation Sony FE 85mm 1.4 II. It is also around 100g lighter than the Sony MK II, but the Samyang AF 85mm 1.4 FE II is even a tiny bit lighter.

On the Nikon Zf I also tried it with three different E->Z adapters, the Megadap ETZ21, the Neewer ETZ and the Viltrox E to Z. It only worked well with the Megadap ETZ21pro.

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.

Compared to other recent 85mm 1.4 lenses, e.g. the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II, I found this Sirui to focus a bit slower and also that it takes a bit longer to acquire a target.

Vignetting

light falloff

I was a bit afraid the small front element may lead to higher vignetting figures, but that isn’t the case here. At f/1.4 this Sirui even shows a little less vignetting than the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II and the Sigma 85mm 1.4 Art DG DN. Not bad.

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 these lenses side by side, therefore the sizes of the circles are not directly comparable.

Most 85mm 1.4 lenses feature a 77mm filter thread, whereas this Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora comes with a much smaller 67mm thread. I was afraid that smaller diameter may lead to increased optical vignetting, but to my surprise that isn’t the case.

In fact, this Sirui 85mm 1.4 shows a surprisingly low amount of optical vignetting, easily on the same level as the first generation Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM.

Also the polishing of the aspherical element is really good, as I don’t see any onion ring structures here.

Sharpness

Focus Shift

Because this is an AF lens and at wider apertures the modern Sony bodies focus at working aperture anyway it hardly matters if there was any focus shift.

I still check with these AF lenses, too, and this Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora actually shows pretty strong focus shift. So if you are taking stopped pictures tripod based – where I usually focus manually at the maximum aperture – I would recommend to stop down to f/2.8 before focussing instead of doing that at f/1.4.

infinity (42mp Sony A7rII)

Generally this Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora shows a good performance here, but the corners surely benefit from stopping down. Peak performance across frame is reached at f/5.6.

The Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II and the Sigma 85mm 1.4 Art DG DN show an even more impressive performance here, as they all look really great across frame from f/2.0. It depends on the applications you have in mind for a lens like this, if you actually need that great across frame performance at wider apertures though.

portrait distance (2.0 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 2.0 m and the circle of the dollar bill is more or less the size of a human eye.

f/1.4 <————> f/2.0

Also here this Sirui shows a good, but not an excellent performance. Off center it is a bit softer at f/1.4 and it doesn’t have the crazy high resolution and contrast of the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II, that shows Moirè everywhere in the frame from f/1.4.

For portrait applications this performance is more than good enough, but if you are looking for an 85mm 1.4 lens with best in class resolution and contrast from f/1.4, the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II and the Sigma 85mm 1.4 Art DG DN are better choices.

close (0.8 m, 1:8.0, 42mp Sony A7rII)

I was a bit surprised here, as for a modern lens the performance at the minimum focus distance isn’t exactly something to write home about. To get really crisp results at here, stopping down to f/2.8 is advisable. All the other 85mm 1.4 E-mount lenses we have reviewed so far (e.g. both of Sony’s GM lenses and the Sigma 85mm 1.4 Art DG DN) show a better performance here.

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.

Fast tele lenses have rarely performed well in this category, but lately there have been a few positive surprises, will this Sirui follow that trend?

At f/1.4 we see a notable amount of veiling flare, some ghosts and the colors are generally affected.

Stopped down to f/11 I massive ghosts can be encountered and also here the contrast suffers a lot from veiling flare.

After having used this lens in the field I have to say I wouldn’t like to use it in backlit scenarios. In many cases the pictures come out unusable, even though the light source isn’t even in the frame.

You may also come across less obtrusive artefacts like in the picture above, which you will only notice later one.

I am afraid if you are looking for a good performance in this category, you may want to consider buying a different lens (e.g. the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II).

Coma

We can see some  Coma artefacts at f/1.4 and still a very small amount at f/2.0. For typical portrait applications this hardly matters, but if you are looking for a fast 85mm lens to be used for astro photography at wider apertures the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II and the Sigma 85mm 1.4 Art DG DN are better options.

Distortion

The Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora shows a comparably high amount of pincushion distortion. When I reviewed this lens there was no lens specific correction profile available in Lightroom The distortion is mostly uniform though, so easily corrected by dialing in -8 in Lightroom/Photoshop.

Bokeh

All the modern 85mm 1.4 lenses create a very appealing bokeh, but as usual let’s check how this lens performs at different distances.

Close distance

The bokeh is very smooth at coser distances, as we would expect from a lens with these parameters.

Mid distance

Also at mid distances it creaties a clean, smooth and unobtrusive background bokeh. Did you notice the slightly lower resolution and contrast at f/1.4 compared to some of the competitors here? I didn’t.

Long distance

At longer focus distances also these 85mm 1.4 lenses may show some issues with doubled edged structures when dealing with complex backgrounds, but that isn’t the case here, not even in the challenging backlit scenes.

The differences between all these modern 85mm 1.4 are pretty small. If you don’t manage to take nice portraits with any of them, it certainly ain’t the lens’ fault.

I still decided to do a small comparison to the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM , which we will have a look at now.

Compared to: Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM MK I

The Sirui is a bit wider than the Sony, so its pictures have cropped slightly.

Scene 1: Forest Close

Scene 2: Forest Mid

Scene 3: Forest Mid 

Scene 4: Forest Far

Scene 5: Forest Far

Scene 6: Forest Far

Observations

What can we learn from these comparisons?

As we have already seen in previous comparisons, the first generation Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM has some issues with veiling flare reducing the contrast. This is most obvious in Scene 4, where the light seems to have come from a rather unfortunate angle. When looking at the bokeh crops it does render the smoothest though, obliterating more structures than the others.

The Sirus 85mm 1.4 Aurora, at close distances shows even less optical vignetting than the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM and sometimes even shows higher contrast. Quite impressive for being the smallest lens in this comparison.

Don’t try to read too much into these tiny differences. To most people these lenses will look just the same and I wouldn’t mind shooting a wedding with either of them.

Sunstars

While many of the recent higher end 85mm lenses like the GM primes feature 11 rounded aperture blades, Sirui decided to go for 15 rounded here, which I am not sure I have seen in combination with an electronically controlled aperture diaphragm yet.

This high number of blades is good for keeping out of focus highlights perfectly round on stopping down, but it isn’t great news when it comes to sunstars. This lens creates frayed sunstars made of rays of uneven length, so it is not a particularly great choice if you are a sunstar lover. If you want to learn more about this topic have a look at this article.

Chromatic aberration

lateral

Such strong lateral CA are not something I come across often in a modern lens. As you can see it even pushes the digital correction to its limits, as some faint discoloration remains even after correction.

longitudinal

• background f/1.4
• f/2.0
• foreground f/1.4
• f/2.0

• 
• 
• 
• 

Sony A7rII | Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora | 50% crops

Considering its small size and low price the Sirui shows an impressive performance here, showing hardly any bokeh fringing. 

• f/1.4
• f/2.0

• 
• 

Sony A7rII | Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora | 100% crops

Also purple fringing is hardly existing.

Many 85mm 1.4 lenses would show some purple fringing in the scene above, but not this Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora. In this category its performance easily matches way more expensive lenses like the Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II.

Conclusion

good very nice bokeh good sharpness and contrast from f/1.4 at portrait distances and infinity CA correction handling size/weight

average Coma corerction vignetting AF performance

not good flare resistance distortion sharpness at closer distances at f/1.4 (focus shift)

When a reader approached me if I want to review his Sirui 85mm 1.4 Aurora, I was hesitant at first. Not only have I been reviewing a lot of 85mm 1.4 lenses lately, this is also Sirui’s first fullframe lens aimed at photographers and being noticeably smaller than most of the other modern 85mm 1.4 lenses, I didn’t have very high hopes here.

In fact, I noticed some compromises that had been made when reviewing this lens. But interestingly not in the categories I would have expected. There is some focus shift (which is irrelevant when relying on the AF), the distortion rather high (but easily corrected) and it doesn’t perform great at f/1.4 at its minimum focus distance.

However: vignetting is same as other 85mm 1.4 lenses. Optical vignetting (cat’s eyes) is actually surprisingly low. Sharpness is generally good – certainly more than good enough for portrait applications. And bokeh is really, really nice.

The only aspects I actually weren’t happy with were the AF speed and consistency as well as flare resistance. If you don’t need class leading autofocus and you are not shooting in backlight all the time, I don’t see a reason why you wouldn’t be happy with this lens though. Considering you can get this for 500 bucks new, it is quite the bargain actually.

buy from amazon.com | amazon.de | B&H | ebay.com | ebay.de (affiliate links) for $499

Sample Images

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

Further Reading

• Guide to 85-135mm portrait lenses for Sony FE cameras
• The best lenses for Brenizer/Bokehpanoramas
• Review: Laowa 15mm 2.0 FE
• Review: Sony FE 20mm 1.8 G
• Review: Laowa 35mm 0.95 – The World’s fastest 35mm lens
• Review: Sigma 105mm 1.4 Art

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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.

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