A lot of photographers, myself among them, spend a lot of time and money chasing bokeh – and the new Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art lens is, according to one of the internet's biggest bokeh fans, the new king of the hill.
In fact, the bokeh is so good that it makes this lens single-handedly worth choosing Sony or Panasonic cameras over Canon or Nikon bodies.
"This is the lens you want, if you want the ultimate bokeh," says photographer and YouTuber, Tony Northrup. "It's literally so good that it's a reason to invest in the L or the E mount, compared to the Nikon and Canon mounts".
There are obviously a lot of caveats in those statements, but Northrup is specifically talking about portraiture. And while there's no doubt that this is one of the very best lenses for portraits, he does point out that it's not going to be a good choice for sports photographers (given the way Sony throttles third-party lenses to a maximum of 15fps).
Still, for people pictures, there's never been a 135mm autofocus lens with this wide an aperture.
"[It's] The fastest 135mm AF lens that's ever been made – literally nothing can match this. And if you think you could get shots in focus with manual focus, wide open on a lens like this, you really can't. So this is the lens you want if you want the ultimate bokeh."
How incomparable is this lens? Its combination of speed and focal length delivers completely unique bokeh (the character of the out-of-focus areas of an image) can't be achieved even with a medium format camera.
"It creates results that I can't get with any other lens – I can't get this at all with my big expensive Hasselblad."
Northrup previously sought out 200mm lenses for portraiture, for the extra magnification (creating results that are often called compression) and background blur. And he admits that, previously, he might have been wowed by the recently announced Sigma 200mm f/2.
However, he believes that the bokeh and blur on the 135mm f/1.4 lens is actually identical to that of the 200mm f/2.
"Everyone's been calling the 200mm f/2 from Sigma the 'bokeh king', that no other lens can create bokeh like that. This lens has exactly the same bokeh, if you were to crop it to 200mm. But at 135mm it's relatively wider angle. You get the option of working closer and then cropping later if you want that extra perspective."
He also compared the Sigma 135mm f/1.4 to the fantastic Sony 135mm f/1.8 G Master, and found the results at f/1.8 to be virtually identical – though obviously Sigma's lens goes above and beyond with its faster aperture.
You should watch the full video (embedded above) for Northrup's full thoughts, which include AF performance (including a 25% hit rate thanks to the shallow depth of field) and handling, but he concludes thusly:
"I think I'm going to get one for myself. It's literally so good that it's a good reason to invest in either the L or the E mount, compared to the Nikon and Canon mounts which don't currently get this lens, or nearly as many third-party lenses.
"Sigma in particular is making really game-changing lenses to allow photographers and videographers to create looks that they could not with any other lens. And as we all are fighting AI and the smartphone takeover, those distinguishing factors become more and more important."
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Thinking of switching to E or L-Mount to make use of this lens? Check out the best Sony cameras and the best Panasonic Lumix cameras – and read my Sigma BF review, my Leica SL3 review and my Leica SL3-S review for more great L-Mount options.
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