Sigma 135 1.8 MTF charts at lens rentals

Altho I've only seen a limited sample size, it seems to me the bokeh isn't as pleasing as the Canon.

The Sigma 135 1.8 is very sharp but I feel like the rendering from focus to out of focus is so abrupt. The rendering isn't pleasing. It looks lilke paper cut out on a background. Oh well, I'm happy with my Sigma 85 1.4 Art.

The petapixel samples are flat

The author of that article shoots w/ Canon, yet had this to say:

"For me, the anticipation was high that this lens could fill a gap in the market place that had been vacant for some time."

What does he mean by "vacant"?

MatthewK wrote in post #18331836
The author of that article shoots w/ Canon, yet had this to say:

"For me, the anticipation was high that this lens could fill a gap in the market place that had been vacant for some time."

What does he mean by "vacant"?

Well, for years there has been a dearth of fast 135mm primes that cost more than the Canon 135L. Yeah! That's the ticket.

level5photog wrote in post #18331773
The Sigma 135 1.8 is very sharp but I feel like the rendering from focus to out of focus is so abrupt. The rendering isn't pleasing. It looks lilke paper cut out on a background. Oh well, I'm happy with my Sigma 85 1.4 Art.

It's all based on distance. Don't like that then move back a bit... Turn it into a full body lens and it'll product better results. Try shooting w/ the 200 F2 too close you get that same thing but full body looks great.

Bassat wrote in post #18331850
Well, for years there has been a dearth of fast 135mm primes that cost more than the Canon 135L.

He probably meant third-party autofocus 135mm lenses.
It should be noted that there have been some nice MF alternatives for a long while.

CheshireCat wrote in post #18331969


He probably meant third-party autofocus 135mm lenses.
It should be noted that there have been some nice MF alternatives for a long while.

Yes. I loved my Yashica 135mm f/2.8 MLc.

I'm not/haven't ran right out to buy this lens. This lens for me is a lens I'll pickup when you can get it on the used market sub 1k.

I just don't honestly need it right now. Need to dwindle what I got anyway. Keep it to a 35/85/200 trinity and maybe the 12-24A for the wide angle.

Bassat wrote in post #18330980
Gear head charts. Nice and all that, but not a photo in sight. I don't spend $1,000 on a lens to look at the charts it produces. This may strike some folks as odd, but the exact same lens can (and does) perform differently on various sensors. I picked up a worn out 28-135 at a garage sale or something. It was atrocious on my then 60D. Pop it on the 5Dc and it was a decent performer. I think the 17-40 is a really good lens for my 6D. I used it on my 80D body. Yuck. My $75 18-55STM performs better on the 80D. MTF charts may be a fair baseline comparison. They are not real results.

Assuming the issue wasn't MFA or other focusing related; remember that the image you see with an EF lens on a full frame body is taken from a projection of the whole image circle from rear of the lens (that is, the image circle projected by the rear of the lens [just] covers the whole of the sensor rectangle).

On a crop body, the lens projection is unchanged, but the sensor only "sees" a smaller region (from the middle) of the projected circle. I.e. the capture from the crop sensor has been taken from a smaller area of the image projected by the lens.

If, through focal length or camera-to-subject distance changes, you took an identically framed shot on a crop body and a FF body, the image taken on the crop will come from a smaller region of the lens' projected circle. That means an identically sized print from a crop body will require the physical lens projection captured by the smaller crop sensor to have been enlarged by ~1.6x more than the capture on the full frame camera.

If the FF print was just acceptable in terms of (lens limited) sharpness, then the crop print won't be acceptable - as you're looking at a 1.6x linear magnification vs the FF image.

Or to put it another way: a crop sensor will more readily stretch the ability of a lens to resolve detail; because you're asking for the whole image to be taken from a smaller area (and thus magnified more).

One flip side to that would be a lens with really good centre sharpness (so no problem on the crop) and really poor edge sharpness. On a FF body you'd notice the poor edges. On the crop body those poor edges would be projected outside the sensor region, so you'd never see them in your photos.

Talley wrote in post #18332306
I'm not/haven't ran right out to buy this lens. This lens for me is a lens I'll pickup when you can get it on the used market sub 1k.

I just don't honestly need it right now. Need to dwindle what I got anyway. Keep it to a 35/85/200 trinity and maybe the 12-24A for the wide angle.

I'm pretty happy with my Σ12-24II. Reviews say the 12-24A needs f/5.6 @ 24mm to be its best. My UWA stuff keeps me at f/8-11 for extreme DOF. I don't give a FFA about f/4. The II was 1/3 the price of the A.

My shop has this on the shelf. I put a down payment on it and put my 135L up for sale. I can't find the sample images for this lens. Does it exist yet? Anyone have a link?

Started a sample thread at:

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1479970

Put up a few--looking forward to seeing what others are doing with this lens!