REVIEWS | WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY WITH THE SIGMA 85mm F1.4 DG DN LENS
In this blog post, I discuss how I use the Sigma DG DN 85mm F1.4 Lens on a wedding day.
The release of the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art lens for Sony E Mount marked a significant moment for photographers and videographers using Sony's full-frame mirrorless cameras and wanting mirrorless specific designed Sigma glass.
Until the release of the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN lens, if you wanted the ‘Sigma look’, you had to buy the older 85mm F1.4 Art lens with the adapter bolted to the bottom.
With the Sony E Mount system at the time of the release of the Sigma DG DN 85 mm lens (August 2020), we had a fair few options when it came to the 85mm focal length. We had the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM lens, the 85mm F1.8 Sony lens, the Zeiss 85mm F1.8 lens (pretty sure it’s the same lens as the Sony), the older Sigma 85mm F1.4 Art lens, and further to that, over the last few years we have seen companies like Samyang, Viltox, and others release more 85mm lenses.
So, why would people choose the Sigma DG DN over the Sony 85mm lens offerings? Well, let’s take a look.
HOW I USE A 85mm LENS ON A WEDDING DAY
I’m going to put it out there: I’m not a massive fan of the 85mm focal length as a main lens to accompany, say, a 35mm lens in a two-lens combo.
I find that the 85mm focal length is just too long for the type of images I capture at weddings; the 50mm focal length is my longer lens for pretty much most of a wedding day (in a three-camera set-up, 20mm and 35mm being the other lenses).
When I used to shoot 35mm & 85mm as a combo, it would jar me when I would look at the images, as it would be a 35mm photo, 35mm photo, 35mm photo, then an 85mm photo, 85mm photo and then back to a 35mm photo and the focal distance between the two is very different. The wide, close, wide, close nature of the 35 & 85mm lens combo made it difficult for me to love the combo.
So, why am I writing a review of the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN lens? Well, I use it at most weddings for at least one part of the wedding day.
The Sigma 85mm lens comes out of my camera bag for speeches, Church weddings, and occasionally the couple’s formals, and I view the 85mm as a backup should my 50mm lens go down on a wedding day.
85mm LENS FOR SPEECHES
For speeches, if I have the space, the 85mm lens goes on my third camera body and replaces the 20mm lens; I will then have 35mm, 50mm and 85mm lenses on my cameras for speeches.
I only use the 85mm lens if I have the space, or if the room is long, and I feel that my 50mm lens on my A1 in crop mode (75mm ish reach) will not be long enough to grab images of certain people should I camp in the middle of the room or be close to the top table.
The 85mm is great for picking out people from a distance during speeches; it’s brilliant to have the reach to get reaction shots.
It has been good at giving me variety when it comes to speech photos, and because the lens is attached to a Sony A1, I can jump into APSC crop mode and get a reach of around 120mm and still have a 21mpx file.
85mm LENS FOR WEDDING CEREMONIES
Here in the UK, the 85mm lens can be a great choice for Church wedding photography, as we photographers are often banished to places inside Churches which are about as far from the wedding ceremony action as possible.
As with using the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN lens for speeches, I tend to swap out the 20mm lens for my 85mm lens just for the ceremonies (leaving me with 35mm, 50mm and 85mm lenses).
The 85mm is great at picking out people in the Church pews; it is really good for picking out the parents of the happy couple, and if you are permitted to move around inside the Church during the hymns or readings, it’s a great lens for capturing the little funny moments during a long Church wedding ceremony.
85mm LENS FOR COUPLES PORTRAITS
I would say that the 85mm focal length for couples portraits is probably one of the most flattering focal lengths that you can use.
It doesn’t distort people’s faces, or arms, and if you have distance between you, your couple and the background, the shallow depth of field can be very addictive.
I’m not a portrait photographer, I don’t really do many couples portraits on a wedding day, and if I do, I mostly reach for my 50mm F1.4 GM as I much prefer to be closer to the couple to get them to interact, I don’t have to shout at them like I feel I have to when using the 85mm lens as I’m that far away.
THE GOOD
Image Quality vs. The Competition
11 Aperture blades produces lovely bokeh blur
Sigma has always been well-regarded when it comes to the image quality of its prime lenses.
I have owned the older Sigma 35mm F1.4 Art for Sony, the Sigma 35mm F1.2 Art for Sony, the 28mm f1.4 Art lens for Sony, 24mm F1.4 DG DN and have had time with the Sigma 135mm F1.8 Art and all of these lenses have produced lovely feeling images.
The newer Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN follows in the footsteps of previous lenses and produces crisp, sharp, and warm-feeling images, with lens flare controlled and purple fringing only visible in rare situations.
The Sigma 85mm is a better lens than the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM, in terms of IQ and sharpness, and it should be, as the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM lens has been out since February 2016, a good 4.5 years before the Sigma.
The Sigma 85mm lens is better than the Sony FE 85mm F1.8 in all areas. Sony knew that the 85mm F1.8 was not good enough to be a GM lens; it’s not even a G lens, it’s just a Sony lens. The 85mm F1.8 lens has horrendous purple fringing in the simplest lighting conditions.
The Sigma 85mm F14 DG DN, is the best overall 85mm lens for the Sony system.
Autofocus
I have autofocus in the ‘Good’ and the ‘Not So Good Section’, as it can sometimes be inconsistent.
When you use the lens, you will understand the situations the lens doesn’t like; bright(ish) light behind the subject is one of them.
If you are in a situation where you cannot move and make the bright light source not be behind your subject, you will need to fire off a lot more shots than you think and cross your fingers that it grabs focus.
I use Sony Alpha 1’s, and with my native Sony lenses - I can count on one hand the number of images from a wedding that will be slightly out of focus, but the Sigma has a poorer hit rate than the current generation of Sony GM Lenses.
A final point when it comes to autofocus is the lack of sound that comes from the lens when the lens is trying to focus; it’s a small point but one that anyone who has used the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM would appreciate.
Size & Build Quality
The lens is very well built, I have dropped it a few times when grabbing it out of my camera bag, and the lens has taken it.
With the rubber ring on the lens mount, the lens is weather sealed, which is an important part of a proffesional lens when it comes to build quality.
Rubber seal on the lens mount helps with weather sealing
With a 77mm filter thread, it’s the same size as the Sony 85mm GM lens, and at 625g the lens is almost 200g lighter than the Sony GM, but I believe that the weight saving has been made at the cost of some lens distortion, which I will cover in the ‘Not So Good’ section.
Overall, it’s a solid lens, which should mean years of good service.
Aperture Ring
I am a photographer who does use the aperture ring to change the aperture.
Some photographers prefer to use the rear or front dial on the camera body to change the aperture, but I have always struggled with this as I tend to grab my cameras via my holdfast, and I often knock or roll the dials on the front or back of the camera, this, if they were set to aperture, would mean I would always be changing the aperture by accident.
Every lens I own and use for weddings has an on-lens aperture ring; I have always loved this feature from my time with Fujifilm, and it’s been great that lens manufacturers like Sigma are adding aperture rings to their lenses.
On Lens Functions, Buttons & Locks
AF/ MF switch, Programable lens button and aperture ring click/ de-click switch
The Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG DN has more buttons, dials, and switches than most full-frame cameras; we have:
AF/ MF switch, which allows easy autofocus and manual focus switching.
A programmable button that can be assigned to many functions via the camera; I personally have this turned off as I am always banging the button when grabbing the camera.
An aperture click/ de-click switch, which allows you to turn off the aperture ring clicks, is useful for videographers who change the aperture on the fly and don’t want any shake or noise from the aperture ring click.
An aperture lock switch, allows you to lock the aperture dial to ‘A’, and change the aperture by using the front or rear dials on the camera; if you don’t lock the aperture ring, you run the risk of knocking the dial which then stops the dials from changing the aperture.
Price
As I write this article in October 2023, the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN is listed on Amazon for £899, and the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM is listed for £1,489, a whole £590 more than the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN.
Is the Sony worth the extra money? Nope, not even close, and I am someone who would always recommend a first-party lens over a third-party lens, but right now, until Sony releases an updated 85mm f1.4 GM lens, the Sigma is bang for the buck the best 85mm lens for the Sony E mount.
THE NOT SO GOOD
Autofocus
As mentioned above, I have the autofocus in the ‘Good’ and ‘The Not So Good’ sections as I do find the lens to be inconsistent, not to the point where it will miss and be so far out of focus you cannot tell what is in focus or what it's focused on, but it will miss.
The newer Sony GM lenses have spoiled us; they do not miss, and with GM lenses being made in conjunction with Sony bodies, it’s right to expect that Sony lenses should be as good as they are.
With the Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG DN, if you are firing off a series of 10 images, you can see the lens almost pulsing through the capture of the 10 images, and you will know that it has missed a few shots, again, not to the point where it is really out of focus, but enough that when you look at the images in the burst, a few will be softer than the others.
I find that the lens struggles more when the camera is set to tracking the subject rather than using a box to focus; again, the Sony lenses excel at both - but the Sony’s are the benchmark, and the Sigma misses (no pun intended).
FPS on High-End Sony Bodies
This might be a moot point for most photographers, but it is worth pointing out.
All third-party lenses are limited to a maximum of 15fps and so cannot make maximum use of the high FPS of the Sony A1 and any future Sony camera body releases.
I tend to use 10FPS on my Sony A1’s
The Lens Hood
The lens hood on the Sigma 85mm f1.4 is massive, like really big.
Does it really need to be this big?
Above, you can see the Sony 35mm GM, Sony 50mm GM, and the Sigma 85mm all lined up without the lens hoods; they are all pretty much the same height. You can see the same lenses with the lens hoods, and the oversized lens hood on the Sigma 85 DG DN is very noticeable.
This might not bother some photographers, but it bothers me as it will not fit into my camera bag when the lens hood is reversed, unlike all my other lenses.
Lens Distortion
This is where I think Sigma has cut corners to make the lens smaller and lighter.
If you want a lens to be optically perfect, you must accept that it will be big and heavy; if you want a lens to be light and small, you must make some compromises.
Sigma has decided to lean on the in-camera lens corrections built into the Sony camera bodies (similar to how LR corrects RAW Files). If you shoot with in-camera corrections turned on, you will not notice the pincushion distortion, but turn it off, and you will be met with an unusually high amount of pincushion distortion.
Will this affect you? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s worth noting, as not everyone likes the way the in-camera corrections are applied, some can go a little too far in correcting vignetting, colour fringing, and other optical defects.
SIGMA DG DN 85mm F1.4 LENS IMAGES
