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 p.9 #1 · Sigma 135mm f1.8 test shots | |
Good point. And the last time I looked, this was the Nikon Forum, not the Sigma Forum. 
What I think gets on people's goat is when over the top superlatives are used and comments like, "Blows the x lens away", or, "Blows it into the weeds". Err, sorry, it is a rare day where one modern lens blows another away unless we are talking about some kit lens zoom against a prime costing 10 times as much and even then I think it is an over the top expression - most kit lenses these days aren't all that bad.
For me, I just want to get one thing straight, this 135 f1.8 Art Sigma looks the goods, a damned superb lens from what I have seen so far from the test reports and the sample images. Is it for me? No, as 135 is a little long or short for my normal use - general street/walkaround photography and birds/wildlife etc. Tentatively I would say, if you need a 135mm f1.8, arguably, it looks like it could be the best 135 AF lens ever made. However, lets just get a bit of reality back into the discussion and forget the over the top superlatives and over the top biases from both sides. Yes, the Sigma does measure very superbly, but this is just at one camera to subject distance from one (so far) test site. But, lets also remember, at Lenstip, the Sigma 85 f1.4 Art also measured ever so slightly better than the 105E, but over at Photozone the opposite is true, the 105E did a little better than the 85 f1.4 Art and Photozone stated for the 105E that "Excellent. Period. Never had anything like this in the lab before.". In fact, the performance of the 105 is remarkable in that it has the *same* resolution for the centre, the edges and corners!!! This is due to field curvature that the 105 has and the fact that Photozone refocuses the lens as you from centre out to the edge. Lenstip does not do this. Neither way of testing is right or wrong, just a different way of testing. Does it make the 105E a better lens than the 85 Art? Not necessarily, as the 105E may not be the right focal length for you or it may not have the "right look" to the results for you. It also means you have to take into account many sites and not rely on one site as your only source and then hold that as the be-all-and-end-all for any argument. It just ain't that simple. So, hold all your "my lens is sharper than your lens" p1ss1ing contests, please.
Now, the Sigma 135 f1.8 again measures slightly better than the 105 over at Lenstip, but will it still measure up that way at Photozone? Who knows? But does a few minor resolution points at either site mean all that much? It doesn't seem so when you compare the 105E to the Sigma 85 f1.4 Art and it probably won't with the 135 either, apart from the fact that they are all different focal lengths which is very relevant when it comes to usage.
All these modern high end lenses are all bloody amazing and we are really all jut splitting hairs as really we cannot definitively say which one is actually sharper or overall better than the other. There is a little bit of subjectiveness in all this as well when we consider bokeh, colour rendering and overall IQ etc.
Now, for all those that have the Sigma 135 f1.8, kudos, it seems to be a stunning lens - (yes, over the top superlative). Will it give great results? Yes, in the right hands.
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