Sigma 258101 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro Lens Canon DSLR Cameras, Black

Product Information

Three distinctive ranges are available – Art, Contemporary and Sports. These are created with different features to appeal to all experience levels and to capture any subject matter.

If macro photography is your primary use for this lens, MF is probably what you care about most and the poor AF performance may not be an issue for you. Of course, choosing a non-moving subject to begin with is probably wise! As you get more confident, you can try photographing insects and other small animals. This is the very best choice for macro on Minolta and Sony, except that these are less common and you can buy a used Canon 180mm f/3.5 L or Nikon 200mm f/4 AF-D and another body to go with it for the same price as this lens alone. As you can see, most “1:1” macro lenses can focus meaningfully closer than that. (In the image above, an exact 1:1 magnification lens would capture 36mm of the ruler.) The biggest surprise is the Nikon F 105mm f/2.8 VR, for which I measured a maximum magnification of 1.09×, AKA 1.09:1 magnification. You can also see the huge increase in magnification with a 2:1 macro lens like the Laowa. Best choice for macro on Minolta and Sony. There is no 200mm macro for Minolta or Sony, so this is the best there is, with flawless optics.Is the difference between 1.01× magnification (on the Tokina) and 1.09× magnification (on the Nikon) worth worrying about? Not particularly. It’s nice that the Nikon can focus a bit closer in a pinch, but the difference is small enough that you can crop the Tokina a bit to get a similar field of view as the Nikon. In practice, you’d have to crop a 24 megapixel image from the Tokina to about 20.5 megapixels to match the Nikon’s narrower field of view. The differences between the other lenses (excluding the Laowa) are even less. The Sigma 105 Macro's AF system is definitely not one of its strengths - AF is slow, noisy and delivered a well-above-average number of OOF (Out of Focus) shots. Metal 52mm filter thread, 11.2 oz./318g, 0.54 feet or 6.5" or 0.165 meters close focus, 2× double life-size maximum macro reproduction ratio lets us fill the frame with something only ½″ or 12mm across!!! Note that, above, the working distance for the Laowa 100mm f/2.8 is shown for 1:1 magnification, but this lens actually focuses all the way to 2:1 magnification. At 2:1 magnification, the working distance of the Laowa is 7.9 cm (which really isn’t much worse than at 1:1).

You are likely considering one of the other available Macro lenses if you are researching the Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro Lens.Park Cameras offers a comprehensive selection of Sigma glass for leading camera mounts, including Sigma E mount lenses such as the popular Sigma 24-70 F/2.8 DG DN Art lens for Sony. This design is carried over to the Leica L mount, with mirrorless designs appearing ever more frequently for Fujifilm, Sony and MFT cameras. Nikon AF-S DX 85mm f/3.5G VR Micro – a more affordable Nikon macro lens in comparison to the 105mm model, the 85mm F3.5 is designed for DX (crop sensor Nikon) models and gives excellent results Anyway, there’s a pretty substantial drop between the three sharpest lenses (the Tamron, Laowa, and Tokina) and the three blurriest (the Sigma, Nikon, and Irix). As was true before, though, even the blurriest of these images is still totally usable. Furthermore, when equipped with the TC-1411 (1.4x) or TC-2011 (2.0x), SIGMA’s latest models of teleconverters designed exclusively for the use with L-Mount lenses, it allows photographers to shoot macro at even higher macro magnifications while keeping the working distance.

The Sigma 105 Macro is available in Canon (reviewed), Nikon, Sigma, Sony/Minolta, Pentax and Four-Thirds mounts.The good news is that even the least sharp lenses above still look good considering that this is the maximum aperture in the far corner of the image. Since these are macro lenses, and this is a close focusing distance, that’s exactly what I want to see!

Good choice for macro on any Pentax camera 35mm or digital—but a 180mm or 200mm lens is much better for practical and perspective reasons.

Another similarity with most modern macro lenses is that the Sigma works well as a fast, short telephoto prime for general shooting. With a fast and near-silent stepping motor autofocus system, it’s good for shooting wildlife or sporting action, even under dull lighting conditions, where the f/2.8 aperture enables fairly fast shutter speeds without having to bump up your camera’s sensitivity settings too much. It’s equally adept at portraiture, where the f/2.8 aperture produces a fairly tight depth of field. Many of these look almost indistinguishable to my eye. I’d say that the Laowa, Tokina, Sigma, and Irix are tied for first, with a slight sharpness drop on the Tamron, and another slight drop on the Nikon. But all of them look excellent. Excellent choice for bargain macro, but still less working room than we'd like for the best perspective. The latest optical design of the 105mm F2.8 DG DN MACRO | Art ensures exceptional sharpness at all shooting distances from extreme close-up, which is crucial in macro shooting, all the way up to infinity. In addition, its aberration correction places a particular focus on longitudinal chromatic aberration which cannot be handled by the in-camera aberration correction. The superior optical design produces clear images with both delicate rendering and free of color bleeding.