Image of one of the current existing Sigma ART lenses
Sigma is releasing quite many excellent lenses lately. And more will come in 2014. It is rumored that one of the next ART lenses will be the 135mm f/2.0 lens. Would be nice don’t you think?
via CR.
77 Responses
Do these lenses have aperture rings?
Nope.
Umm… what am I missing? Looking at the larger version of this image, there are clearly aperture rings on every one of these lenses.
Would be nice if it comes with A-mount too.
Although it would need to compete against the best Sony Alpha lens – the mighty 135Z1.8
The Sony/Zeiss 135/1.8 is an awesome lens, what I don’t like in it is the screw-drive AF, it’s about time Sony adds an SSM motor!
I agree, SSM drive would be nice.
Same reason I constantly consider selling my 85mm Z… SSM should be in there.
It’d really need to be MUCH cheaper than Zeiss 135 f/1.8 for anyone to even consider it.
Zeiss is a jaw-dropping lens for relatively decent price – I can’t see what Sigma might possibly do to convince anyone into picking it over ZA glass. Perhaps 50% lower price would do it, but Sigma doesn’t really play in super-low prices recently, so I wouldn’t have high hopes.
One thing that would convince people would be the OS (optical image stab).
That’s not really a problem – we got in-body image stabilization, and 135mm is not really that long focal length to see any advantage of OS over IBIS.
If one shoots video, the Optical image stab is better. I think few will deny this, unless sony comes with a kind of 5-axis of their own…
Sure. Only Sony doesn’t have any camera that would be used to a video like 5D mk II/III was/is. So that market is nearly non-existent on A-mount.
I certainly hope note. Give me contrast, APO color, and macro please!
Sigma will be more interested in selling it to Canon and Nikon users, I imagine. But then it should be even cheaper.
Yes, certainly.
I’m just saying from a perspective of A-mount user 🙂 If Sigma wouldn’t be interested in selling it for A-mount they wouldn’t release it 😉
Other lens manufacturers have chosen to produce at least part of their lenses outside Japan. Sigma decided to just improve quality as long as they couldn’t find the resources to relocate.
Have they trully become much better with their newer lenses!?
I wouldn’t go so far as to say they did.
Sample variation is still there and quite might be(depending on everyones lick)a problem.
I’ve heard people complaining about how expensive ZA lenses are, that the huge price has no real justification over Sigmas.
Go buy Sigma, see what you can sell it for after a couple of years of owning it.
Zeiss lenses might seem a bit expensive at first, but the decision to buy one is in my humble opinion a smart one.
They retain their value very well. They are extremely well put together and the performance is stellar in each and every case.
The 85&135 are stil screw-driven. Is it a problem!? For still shooters it won’t be. The 16-35, 24, 24-70, 50 are perfect just the way they are.
They will hold their value over the years much better than Sigma lenses. And the performance will help your work.
There was not a moment of regret having bought the 24-70, 85, 135 and recently the 50 over the years. If i were to sell them i would get at least the amonut of cash i spent. The prices have seen an increase over the last couple of years or so. Did i get good quality out of them!? Of course i did.
Did i ever wanted to buy a Sigma!? Yes…i’ve considered the 50, checked it out, decided it is not worth it. I already had the 85 Zeiss, so the Sigma was redundant in that case.
I need a 35, a good one, so the Sigma had me raising my eyebrows. Had to check it for myself, but again, sample variation and focus issues.
In every case i have been interested in a Sigma or Tamron, the Sony proved to be the better choice. Money well spent.
What lens would i buy from Sigma? The macros. They have very good optical performers there! There are no significant issues or drawbacks with their macros.
Such a pitty that you have to be lucky to hit the right Sigma.
I agree with most of what you said. I had the 24-70 and 135 and even though I got them at a discount. I was still worried until I got them in my hands. I had to do less work to get them to look a certain way. I do think the 50mm price is nuts. A 50mm is probably the easiest and most made lens in history so why does it cost so much. The sigma 50mm I purchased used which seams to be the best way to get it because you can talk to the person and get samples or even try it out and in most cases they still have the receipt so you still get a warranty if anything goes wrong.
Might just be that the 50 is still very new on the market, it is insanely exepensive, but so are all the top lenses in its class(Canikon). It might get discounted in time, right now it’s just the way it is unfortunately. If it doesn’t sell well the price will surely drop, but i guess it’s a little early to ask for that right now. I waited years for this lens. I couldn’t wait any longer so it made a hole in my pocket, that’s sure. I love it. Optical performance is on par with the 85 more or less. Much more versatile than the 85.
Anywhay, you have a point. It’s to expensive. I am not sure how easy it is to build it or how easy it was to design it, 8 elements i think is just the same as the 85. They are similar in weight and size. Take the same filter size. One might say that they shrunk the 85 and put SSM inside :)) Is it worth it!? Depends on how bad you need it and how much you like to have the same color rendition with all your lenses. It’s also a more complicated issue with having the same color profile for prints.
That’s the reason i hope the 35 will also be a Zeiss.
This would be nice for me if it were a macro since there are no macros in this focal length.
I only use macros and long telephotos.
Macro 180 and 150 are already available….
I have 60,90,180mm macros and 70-300macro.
135Mm macro would fit nicely in between for me….especially if it were high quality.
And than you’ll start asking for 150mm, cause it fits between 135 and 180? Be reasonable, please. Macro lenses got all bases covered – short, standard, short-telephoto and telephoto lenses. There’s no real need to build macro lens in every single possible focal length.
Use your 90mm & crop a little from your future Gazallion MegaPixel sensor. 🙂 Lol…
You guys are probably rite about my not NEEDING it but it might be nice if it were higher guality than existing macro lenses.
Considering that macro primes are among the sherpest lenses available thats a tall order.
More practical however how about the 200-800 i described beloww…it would achieve f 5 at about 650mm.
The current 150_600 should achieve f 5 at about 480mm.
I definitely plan to get the tamron 150-600 to replace my sigma 50-500.
One thing might be nice
If tamron scaled up this desighn 1/3 they would have…
200-800mm f 5-6.3
125mm filter..8lb…13.5″ long..min focus 12’…price. $2000 us…max magnification 1/5.
Mayby even add barrell extension to decrease min focus and max magnification to 1/3?
That would be a dream lens for me and tamron basically has the desighn..just scale up this existing desighn…
What do yuo guys think?
Lens design doesn’t actually work that way. Larger glass pieces are not made of larger glass molecules. It requires more effort to scale up a lens in this range, it’s the reason the new Nikon 800mm lens is using such exotic glass.
Sure would be nice though.
Im not understanding why it should not work..
Scale up all dimmension by 1/3
All focal lengths of all elements increases 1/3
Aditional materiel savings could be achieved because the diameter of the elements closer to the camera would not need to be increased as much.
I dont know how practical the part about extending close focus would be because im not sure how that would impact the overall desighn…but basically i dont understand why it would not be a reletively simple desighn exersize?
You can scale lens designs some, but you do run into practical considerations after a certain amount of growth or shrinkage. One issue is lens weight, a 800mm lens segment weighs about twice the 600mm lens segment. The cost of the lenses also tend to increase as the square of the aperture size, so going from a 600mm f/5.6 to 800mm f/5.6 would increase costs about 80 percent.
You are correct about size/ wieght/ price
The specs I stated take that into account baded on scaling up the specs of the 150-600.
I actually counted on about double the wght/price but subtrated a small savings because the rear element diameters do not need to increase as much as the front ones.
Seems an odd choice since the canon 135 f2 *possibly* even sharper than the CZ135 (and only a tiny bit slower). I can’t imagine the Nikon 135 f2 is shabby either. Doesn’t seem to be too much room for another premium 135… Although, if it’s HSM, stabilised and a bit cheaper, then maybe.
I wouldn’t bet so much on sharpness of that Canon 😉
Though we’re talking here on purely mathematical differences with very little value in real shooting, as all manufacturers of bright 135mm lenses got really razor-sharp lenses there.
Canon is quite mediocre. Even fake zeiss from Sony is significantly better, not to mention the APO-Sonnar from real Zeiss runs circles around it.
Interesting. I’ve not owned or used the Canon, but have read some rave reviews about it. I am tempted by the 135 STF, but I can’t really justify it for the relative outlay and how much use it’d get. Although, with the focus peaking on the a99 it does make it worth considering a little further…
My co-worker uses Canon 135/2 pretty frequently. From what I’ve seen its a very sharp lens. Bokeh is smooth on both of those lenses. The only thing that ZA seems to control better is Bokeh CA, but then it looses in AF, since Canon has USM, while ZA is screw driven.
Emacs – that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a while.
I OWN the Canon 135/f2, and it is a beast of a lens.
Focus is amazing, sharpness is amazing, bokeh is amazing.
It is good indeed. But all modern 135’s are even better. Noticeably better.
Well, analogue speaking, using APO-Sonnar 135 on 24×36 is like moving to 33×44 with the lens of the same FOV and resolution performance of 135L’s. It is just that good.
I rented the Nikon 135 F2 DC and it’s not a super sharp lens – even when you know how to use the DC properly. This Sigma will be highly anticipated by us Nikon shooters.
http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Carl-Zeiss-Apo-Sonnar-T-2-0-135-ZF.2-Nikon-mount-lens-review-Unsurpassed-Moderate-Telephoto/Zeiss-Apo-Sonnar-T-2-135-ZF.2-Nikon-versus-competition
Canon 135 f2 is supposed to be super sharp. Lensrentals compared it favorably to the MF Zeiss 135.
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/04/zeiss-ze-135mm-f2-vs-canon-135mm-f2l
Test charts of the Canon vs. the Nikon
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=646&Camera=614&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=108&CameraComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0
I would have agreed with you until Sigma surprised us all with the quality and price of the 35mm F1.4 ART. To be honest if sigma can pull off that kind of image quality, build quality and price on the 135mm they are right to go after Canon Nikon and Sony. I’m tired of paying $1-2k on all these primes.
To be honest I want sigma to have another stab at the 50mm F1.4, 24mm F1.4 and 85mm F1.4 and I will buy up their whole range.
24,35,50,85,135 are what I want, I have no doubt they’ll eventually come, but probably not all till 2015.
I imagine these would be half the price of the Sony Zeiss version. The 35/1.4 Art was abt half the price of the Canikon versions, and I heard it was a great lens.
It would be really great if they made one specific to full frame E mount. I’d buy it. I’d rather not have to use an adapter and lose the great contrast detect accuracy for a lens with such shallow DoF.
I am pretty sure Sigma stated they would not be making lenses for E-mount FF.Its not really a surprise,according to CIPA as of the end of Oct this year 83% of interchangeable lens cameras are DSLR’s.
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201310_e.pdf
The only difference between Canon and Nikon versions of the 35mm F1.4, a great performer on my D800 bodies is the just the mount the optical formula is identical.Adapting this to AF on an FE mount would be a more cumbersome process.
The whole mirrorless market { Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, Fuji, Nikon, Canon and Pentax] in its entirety accounts for only 17% of the market http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201310_e.pdf
The numbers I have come across { not necessarily 100% accurate} suggest that FF makes up 8% of DSLR sales. Assuming this can be matched with mirrorless sales that would give with current market share of mirrorless { 8% of 17% } would give a potential market share of only 1.36% of interchangeable lens cameras.
Marketshare probably isnt the main reason vs unknown demand for the FE system. They tested the crop E mount market and havent found enough reason to adapt their new lenses when you can buy an adapter yourself. But this may change if the FE system keep the momentum it recieved out the door.
As for marketshare, you can spin it any way you want. I can take your data and state in 3 years, the time mirrorless has been around, it’s eaten 17% of the dslr market. That’s pretty good considering slrs have had decades head start. Growth is just as big of a factor. Zeiss appreciates it enough to create new lenses for fuji and sony.
“But this may change if the FE system keep the momentum it recieved out the door. ” – but it doesn’t keep any momentum. We already know that. Just look at the sales stats.
Yes, what are those stats?
“”As for marketshare, you can spin it any way you want. I can take your data and state in 3 years, the time mirrorless has been around, it’s eaten 17% of the dslr market. That’s pretty good considering slrs have had decades head start. Growth is just as big of a factor. Zeiss appreciates it enough to create new lenses for fuji and sony.””
Firstly mirrorless has been around for 5yrs not 3 { Panasonic G1 Oct 2008] and its market share is actually in decline.I am sure that in the long term mirrorless is the future.I am not so sure about any of the current options dominating in the future. FF DSLR or mirrorless is only ever going to be a niche market.It is simply too expensive to be anything but a niche product.
All the exaggerated claims mostly from the Olympus mFT guys for some reason. Are simply not true,the market share has declined,the biggest players in mirrorless Olympus,Panasonic and Sony have imaging divisions that have lost money hand over fist. Zeiss is a low volume high price niche player their often extortionate prices allow for making money from small production runs. They do not need the numbers Sigma does , despite the fact that the Sigma 35mm F1.4 is better than the Zeiss alternative it is half the price.
The world doesn’t revolve around you, animalsbybaz. I have no idea why you feel the need to ask for macro capability in every lens that is rumoured on this site.
I’m convinced you are either trolling us all or you genuinely have issues compelling you to indulge in repetitive behaviour.
i actually find Barry’s “ranting” pretty entertaining. he became like a character on SAR.
Me too. Usually I hate that kind of stuff, but Barry’s OK, he’s not a dick. Plus he tries his hand at painting, which is something I like to see coming from someone with an interest in photography.
He’s so good, I can’t decide whether his quest for 1mm macro increments was genuine or not.
I do not need every focal length.
Since macro is very important to me I would be interested in a HIGHER QUALITY macro and that would be a good focal length to use instead of. The 90 or 180.
I would only be intersted if it was very good and well priced.
I dont know what the obsesive use of this term TROLL is about or even what it is sopposed to mean.
Like all of you I evaluate new produts on my own needs/preferrences/and opinions.
Fortanately those opinions differ from yours…this way we can look forward to hearing your opinion and will more intersting than having an exact duplicate of my opinion.
As for ” every lens being a macro” why not since a macro also functions alsa normal lens.
Since the term troll is often used on this site I would actually seriosly like to know what it means and how it relates to posting on sar…Im sure other people wonder the same thing but have not asked.
Troll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
Based on the definition you directed me to the word has two very differrentconnotations.
One is to direct conversations ti differrent topics..ti some degree i admit ti that and i consider it a good thing..without some redirection we cannot think outside the box.
The ither connotation is that of harrassment…that I do not do nor do I approve of it
Would be intrested if the price is ok. Currently i will have to do it with the minolta 135 mm f2.8. Considering the price paid (less then 200 eur) this lens rocks.
It is interesting how it will be compared to real Zeiss: APO-Sonnar 135/f2, not that only good by 20 year old standards fake zeiss from Sony, “Sonnar” 135/f1.8.
The 135mm f/1.8 is renowned as one of the finest DSLR lenses around.
Refer to it as a “fake Zeiss”, by all means, but that simply demonstrates that you are allowing your prejudices to cloud your judgement. You are almost becoming a parody of yourself.
I wished Sony would deliver a new 200mm APO/2.8 with floating elements in black … not in ugly white….
+1 What’s with that white color anyway?
The white is to shield florite elements in telephotos from heat, but since people found other ED alternatives with better heat stability, they’re turning some telephotos back into black.
Some are kept white mainly for styling reasons though.
I thought you knew that.
Nope, I didn’t. Thanks for the explanation.
I hate white lenses. It is like saying, please rob me I am rich. I get that in most cases white lenses are special when compared to other lenses in the collection but it draws way too much attention.
Yep: “Look at me, i’ve got an expensive lens! And probably have a few more…”
Any news on the other art lenses? Iirc there’s supposed to be a 24/1.4 on the way and I’m really hoping for a 50/1.4 to go with my new ff body next year
+1
24mm and 50mm F1.4 ART lenses are on my wishlist.
I don’t see it happening because of the relatively small volume, but I’d love to see native e-mount versions of the Art lenses but tweaked so they didn’t need the extra barrel length and were CDAF optimized. They’d sell well but probably not enough compared to the hundreds of thousands sold to the large, established Canikon user base. Also sad because Sigma could have much better comparability on the e-mount.
I really hope sigma will release some groundbreaking new designs like a 24-70mm F2 or a 70-300mm F4
If it’s a Sony mount, chances are it will not have OS which is great for videos. I am so happy the 17-50/2.8 OS HSM, and the 70-200/2.8 OS HSM are available in Sony Alpha mount. In conjunction with the LA-EA2, these are the only two lenses I need for my NEX-VG10.
Most of the Sigma lenses for A-mount have build-in Optical Stabilization (OS).
There is a growing trend of Sigma dropping optical stabilization (OS) from the Sony lenses. The following lenses used to be offered with OS (in the old version) but are no longer offered with this feature (in the new, updated version)
-The 17-70 2.8-4
-18-200 3.5-6.3
-18-250 3.5-6.3
-17-50 2.8
Furthermore, the newly released 24-105 f/4 is offered with OS in all versions but Sony.
In addition, the 120-300 OS HSM has never been offered in Sony Alpha mount nor has the 50-150 OS HSM.
I’m just thankful that the 17-50 OS HSM (old version) and the 70-200 OS HSM are offered in Sony mount. It would be so sweet if the 120-300 OS HSM were offered in Sony mount but I doubt it will ever happen. I also doubt the 135 will be offered with OS given this trend of not offering OS.
Don’t see the point when you can pick up a 135mm 1.8 for about 1100-1300 slightly used. Amazing build and probably the best zeiss optic for FA. Then you also have the STF 2.8 which itself is a respectable lens. Adding HSM might sway some people, but only some.
I’d like to see the 50mm 1.4 ART. The reason being is Sigma would have a major price advantage over the rediculous 1500.00 zeiss. The sony 50mm still doesn’t have SSM and under 5.6 both the current sigma and zeiss are way above it in terms of quality.
Here’s another thought. The Zeiss and Sony, unlike canon and nikons 50mm 1.4, shoot best stopped down. However, this isn’t where most people want the sharpness- you buy a 1.4 to use it at that range up until maybe 5.6. If Sigma made an ART that focused on maximum sharpness at 1.4- 5.6 now you have the market.
Agree on ZA being upgraded with HSM. STF 2.8 will stay manual forever due to its apodization element.
If Sony Zeiss still no plan for update their 135mm, sure this will be my next tool…
Please release this in FE variant with decent focus on a7. This will be instant grab for me.
Given the current crop of newer sigma lenses, this should be a winner. That said, it’s gonna be tough to get rid of my 135 zeiss apo…
How long ago was the Sigma 70-200mm Replaced… I waited a while for the new Sony G2 but honestly it doesn’t seem like much of an improvement. That said I should wait till the reviews are in.
The Tamron right now seems like the sharpest on the market, but I’m gonna hold off to see if Sigma surprise us with a top notch new 70-200mm.
Wow where did all the comments go?
Anyway my hope is that Sigma will port this lens and may be the 85/1.4 and 50/1.4 to FE mount.
A mount is kind of ok but EA4 focus points are all in the center add the loss of light add the potential reflection issues with the translucent mirror..a native FE version will be nice.