This morning Sigma announced a new 105mm F/2.8 DG DN Art lens, their first full-frame macro lens exclusively for mirrorless cameras. The lens is available in E-mount or L-mount, and promises to be another great addition to Sigma’s Art line.
The lens offers an impressive macro performance, and with a 105mm focal length and wide F/2.8 aperture, it is also highly capable of portrait photography. We put the lens to the test by pairing it with a Sony a7 III and taking it for a spin in a local park. Here’s our Sigma 105mm F/2.8 DG DN Art lens review.
Macro photography is all about detail, and in order to capture detail, you need a powerful lens. The Sigma 105mm F/2.8 DG DN is a powerful lens, encased in a durable, weather-sealed metallic shell. The lens has a look and feel that matches its potency.
Built with a new optical design, this lens can produce exceptional, edge-to-edge sharp imagery. A switch on the side of the lens allows you to toggle between 3 different focal zones. This allows you to more easily find the right focus, depending on if you’re shooting close-up, portrait, or require the full focal range.
Additionally, the lens’ 9-blade rounded aperture enables it to produce deep, pleasant bokeh, which can really elevate your macro and close-up photography.
Another nice feature of this lens is that it has an aperture ring. When shooting with the lens, we appreciated being able to adjust the F-stop without having to click a button on the back of the camera. However, if you prefer to use the camera, you can rotate the ring to lock it in place and enable on-camera adjustment.
The aperture ring also has a click switch. When on, you can feel the ‘click’ each time you rotate the ring to a new third-of-a-stop. We liked using the click as it allowed for more precision when adjusting to find the right aperture. With the click switch off, the ring moves as smoothly as the focus.
Other features of the lens include a switch for shifting between auto and manual focus, as well as a programmable autofocus lock (AFL) button. When shooting portraits, this button could be well utilized with Sony’s Eye AF feature, allowing you to quickly set and lock focus to your subject while photographing them.
As promised by the lens’ powerful design, all our photos were free of color bleeding, lens flares, and ghosting. The lens also automatically corrects chromatic aberration in every image, saving you the trouble of having to correct this later in your editing software.
Overall, our Sigma 105mm F/2.8 DG DN Art lens review proved that Sigma’s new macro can deliver what it promises. The optical power of the lens helped us capture some really nice macro, close-up, and portrait photos, while features like the aperture ring and focus zone limiter made shooting easier. The Sigma 105mm F/2.8 DG DN Art lens is a powerful, high-functioning macro & portrait lens.
