The HOLY GRAIL Lens for Sony....Made by SIGMA?! transcript

Jared Polin froknowsphoto.com and this is a review of the Sigma 85 1.2 DG Art Lens. What is crazy about Sigma having an 85 1.2 for the E-mount is the fact that they beat Sony to an 85 1.2. Sony doesn't have an 85 1.2 and part of the reason is people in the past were like Sony can't make a 1.2 past 50 mm because of the mount size. They said that the E-mount was too small and that they can't handle a 1.2 lens. Well, Sigma said, "Hey, hold my non-alcoholic beer.

Oh, actually hold my sake." And then they did it. Oh, and it's also available for the >> [groaning] >> mount alliance alliance alliance, which means their mount is fully capable of it as well. Now, 85 mm is a really popular focal length these days. It's also what I would call a catch-all. Now, of course you're not getting the widest of the widest, but what I mean by catch-all is you can shoot portraits and weddings and photojournalism and concerts and action.

Now, a lot of sports shooters will use 85 1.2 these days because the cameras are capable of keeping up with the autofocus and nailing it 1.2 and it gives them such an incredible look that other people just don't get. In fact, 85 is also good for video and we're using a Canon 85 1.2 on the main angle right here to shoot this review. And on a quick side note, Sigma now has a 35 1.2, a 50 1.2, and an 85 1.2. Sony only has a 50 1.2 and their 50 1.2 is still marvelous.

So, what did I shoot with this lens? Well, I took it up to New York City. uh Mad Hatters and Mad Hatters in New York City. God, I love that song from Almost Famous. Boy, it's so good. Anyway, I photographed some portraits up there. Ben Folds was in town so I went and met up with him backstage to get some candids or some portraits backstage in a low-lit hallway. I also did some street photos while in New York City and back here in Philly in the park, I photographed a kid so I could get some running towards me to test it out but also some other candid moments in the park.

Now let's take a look at this lens. It is a small lens when you compare it to the other lenses on the market that are 85 1.2 from Canon and Nikon. I want to break those out in just a second but let's talk about weight. This weighs in at 2 lb or 905 g which is at least a half pound lighter than the competition. We've got Nikon's version right here. Massive. Look at that thing. I better be careful I don't break the counter top here.

And then we have Canon's 85 1.2. So you can see that it's a little similar to that of the can No, not even close to little similar. Look how much smaller this thing is than the others. Now I should mention that the Canon version is 7 years old at this point and I do think that they will come out with a version two that is smaller than the original. Nikon, I can guarantee you no time soon are they going to come out with another 85 1.2.

Just for size reference since we're there, Sigma also has an 85 1.4 and you can see they're not that much different when it comes to size. The 1.4 is a little bit smaller than the 85 1.2 but just for comparison's sake you can see it's not like looking at the Nikon or Canon which are super chody and super big. Sigma says that this is the world's lightest and smallest 85 1.2. And as you can see from our comparison with the other lenses that are available, they're right.

It is a nice feeling lens. Their art lenses generally are, and so are their sport and contemporary at this point, but this is considered their high-end version. Now, on it you have a lock switch for your aperture ring. You know that I personally always leave it on lock. You do have your click or de-click option as well. And you have two custom buttons and auto focus to manual focus, and this does not have IBIS in it, so there is no IS switch.

In terms of filters for this lens, you are looking at an 82 mm filter thread. That means 82 mm lens cap. This is different than the 1.4 from Sigma, which has a 77 mm filter thread. Let's travel up to New York City where I started off doing portraits of a friend who I know up there. And I also want to give some props to Tony Northrup, who I ran into while I was in New York City. We ended up shooting the same model, so we both shot some B-roll for each other, which was kind of fun to walk around with someone else in the city.

And you can probably check out his review and see whose photos are better, cuz they're going to be mine. Or [laughter and gasps] you could say that his were better. Doesn't matter. We had a great model to work with. I mean, just look at this portrait right here. I love how this looks. And we were pretty close to the green trees in the background, close to those leaves, and at 1.2 it just absolutely obliterates it, but it doesn't look terrible.

It looks nice and soft in the background, and a really nice looking bokeh, but beautiful sharpness on her eye. The skin tones look fantastic. In fact, I hit this with what's called Velvet Hammer, which is a new preset from FroPack 5, and it looks great. The reason I like the way it looks is it has a nice soft velvety look of the skin, but still hits it with the contrast hammer just a little bit. So, that is a fantastic portrait.

Since I mentioned FroPack 5 and that this preset is Velvet Hammer, FroPack 5 is available. So, let's move on to the next portrait of Petra right here. Just beautiful vertical, nice and soft the background. We don't have as much of it in there, but just a really nice composition and a soft beautiful look. Let me jump in here real quick because I want to show you our brand new custom Lightroom presets from FroPack 5 in action on this photo right here starting with Golden Hour followed by Old Faithful, Shipwreck, Wildwood, Daydream, Velvet Hammer, Nostalgia which looks awesome.

We've got Wes Anderson, Easy Breezy, Indiana Jones, Vintage Press, Morning Bliss, Punchy McPunchface, The Green Mile, Jolly Rancher, Ron Burgundy, and Bluegrass. So, look, if you want to speed up your raw workflow, give yourself a great starting point, or you just want presets that do not suck, we just came out with 17 all new custom Lightroom presets in FroPack 5. You can check them out right now at fronosfoto.com/fropack5.

You can play with the sliders to see the before's and the after's. And if you decide to pick them up right now, they are currently on sale. Or, if you want to grab the entire All Star Bundle that includes 75 of our custom Lightroom presets, you can save even more. Thank you guys for all of your support, and I can't wait to see what you do with FroPack 5. Now, back to the video. When we move to one of the docks, they have a little beach there in New York where we were, you can see the Freedom Tower in the background.

Now, I did shoot this at 1.2 just because I wanted to shoot it at 1.2, but as a quick tip, if you are shooting somewhere like Paris or New York and you have the Empire State Building or the the Freedom Tower in this case, you might want to stop down a little bit to 1.4 or 1.8 or F2 just so that you can get a little more depth to to anchor the scene that you're in. But, in this case, I wanted to shoot everything at 1.2 just to show us that separation and I'm really happy with those results.

As I mentioned earlier, this isn't just for portraits because I walked through New York City looking for images. And normally, 85 might not be the walk-around lens that I choose, but if that's the lens that you have, you are capable of getting some amazing street scenes. And I came upon this building that had a walkway as I was walking from Chelsea Market and I was like, "Damn, that looks good And I also hit this with a new preset from FroPack 5 called Vintage Press, which is supposed to give you a cool black and white looking thing that will add a little bit of grain.

It's supposed to be a vintage black and white look, and I thought that looked fantastic. And the final shoot that I did in New York City while I was up there for a day and a half was going and seeing Ben Folds backstage. And he was gracious enough to just sit there and sit for some portraits. And I thought that the 85 1.2 might not been the best choice in the hallway, but since it is a long hallway and I had a chance to back up just a little bit, it it it really makes for a nice look.

It separates Ben from the background, and that's what you do with an 85. Even if you're not up close and personal, you can still do a full-body shot and see some separation from the background and the foreground. It just leads you into the frame. But, the greatest part is seeing that you nail your focus time [music] and time again. Now speaking of focus, you have dual HLA focus motors in this lens. Generally speaking, an 85 1.2 isn't supposed to be super fast, but I will tell you that with Canon's 85 1.2, I have no problem shooting sports because that one is super fast.

So to test this out here back in Philly, I had Asher run towards me in the park and it basically nailed the shots time and time again. It followed him, it tracked him as he was running towards the camera, which is generally the hardest part to do continuous focus, and I was able to bang out 15 frames a second on my Sony a9 III. Now you might be saying, "Jared, why can't you do more than 15 frames per second when that camera can do 120 frames per second with stills?" And the answer to that is Sony puts a limitation on third-party lenses, so you can only get 15 frames per second.

You also don't have to worry about the the zooming and focusing at the same time because this is a prime lens. It basically nailed all of the shots as he was running towards me, even to the point where it was at close focus >> [music] >> when he ran past me. And to wrap up the photos I did with the 85 1.2, I got some nice portraits of Asher and his brother. So this is Asher and his brother sitting on the ground here, and generally speaking, I wouldn't want to shoot this angle because well, that thing right in the middle in the back is a trash can.

Now if we weren't shooting at 1.2, it would be much more of a distraction. But you can see that we have Asher here on the left nice and in focus, and his brother, who is only about a foot behind him, is completely out. So if you are going to shoot multiple people at 1.2, you better make sure their heads are together and they are on the same plane. So then we switched angles and we have his baby brother right here standing, and that is a water feature in the background.

So, that is nice and out of focus, and he is super sharp, and the colors look great. In fact, from FroPack 5, I used a new preset that we call nostalgia, which gives you a vintage filmic look, and generally I wouldn't use something like this, but I thought it looked great in the park on these two images. Let me cut in here real quick and say, do you struggle getting sharp, crisp, and clear images like these in low-light situations?

Well, if you said yes, just look for this orange box over on fronosfoto.com, put your name, email address in it, hit send it, and I'm going to send you a free guide to capturing motion in low-light situations. Now, back to the video. Personally, I love 1.2s, whether it's a 35, a 50, an 85, I like the faster glass because there is just a three-dimensional look that you get out of it. The issue comes when you try to travel with 1.2s because I took the Canon 85 1.2 with me to Japan, and it was just way too heavy to carry around.

This is so much lighter and would be a great choice for people who are using Sony cameras. The 85 is a nice addition to like a 28-70 F2 because you just want to be able to carry it around. It's not too big, it's not too small, it's easy, and it is fantastic when it comes to portraits, action, sports, you name it, Sigma really nailed it with this lens. So, how much does it cost? Well, it comes in at $1,599. Sony's 1.4 version comes in at $1,948.

Sigma's 1.4 comes in at $1,200, and there is a manual option from a company named Mitakon, which is 499 bucks. I cannot recommend a $499.85 1.2 for anything that's moving. Maybe you want to use it for video, but the Sigma is very economically priced, especially when you compare it to Nikon and Canon's, which are 3,000 bucks, give or take. That's a lot of money, and this is half the price. But, the biggest questions of all, does it pass the sniff test and the wind tunnel test?

Let's start with the wind tunnel test. Flying colors. Absolutely passed the wind tunnel test. Let's give it a sniffy sniff. Oh. Oh, it has that smell of the New York City subway at 4:00 in the morning. So, at the end of the day, if you've been waiting for an 85 1.2 on the L-mount or E-mount, this is the only autofocus choice that you have at this time. I don't think you can go wrong for it if you're doing portraits, if you're doing travel, if you're doing any of the things that I've mentioned, even action.

Just know that you have that limitation of 15 frames per second and just about all of Sony's new cameras and their future cameras that come out are doing more than 15 frames per second. So, let me know if this is something that you would pick up. If you'd like to grab one, there are some links down below in the description, and I thank you guys very much for watching. Jared Polin from That Photo .com. See you.