I’ve been a big fan of Sigma’s Contemporary lens lineup for a while. So much so that I went out and bought the 35mm f/2 Contemporary after I reviewed it. So when I had the chance to review the 90mm f/2.8 Contemporary, I jumped at the chance.
But after spending a few weeks with the lens, I found myself scratching my head. Sure, the lens offers some great optics and is super small. It’s a great lens for beginners. But in a market with several lenses with similar focal lengths, I found myself asking … why?
Pros
- Compact and light
- Excellent sharpness
- Fast autofocus
- Partially weather sealed
Cons
- No option to de-click the aperture dial
- Magnetic hood is slick, but isn’t realistic with a lens hood
- Affordable, but other lenses beat it
Sigma 90mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary — Technical specifications
All technical specifications for the Sigma 90mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary have been taken from the B&H website:
- Design: 11 elements in 10 groups
- Angle of view: 27°
- Aperture range: f/2.8–f/22
- Min focusing distance: 1.6′ / 50 cm
- Filter size: 55mm
- Dimensions (diameter x length): 2.5 x 2.4″ / 64 x 59.7 mm
- Weight: 10.4 oz / 295 g
- Image stabilization: No
Sigma 90mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary — Ergonomics and build quality
If you’ve used a Sigma Contemporary lens in the past, the 90mm will feel right at home. It’s small and compact, making it perfect as a walk-around or travel lens. The all-metal body is impressive (though, it’ll definitely get cold in the winter!) and it’s a fun lens to use.
The aperture ring works well, and I found that it was a bit tighter than my 35mm, meaning it didn’t turn automatically when in a bag (which can result in an interesting surprise when you don’t realize that). It can’t be de-clicked, which is the biggest downside, especially for videographers.
Outside of that, you’ll find yourself with two lens cap — a standard plastic one, and a magnetic metal one. I love the idea of the magnetic metal cap, however, it’s virtually impossible to use when you have a lens hood on. It’s just not practical. So for me, I left it in the box, and stuck with the standard cap.
Sigma 90mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary — In the field
Sigma has always provided a great, reliable experience with using their E-mount lenses, and the 90mm Contemporary is no different. I used it to photograph some friends outside of their new house. Then I took it downtown at night with a friend, for a photowalk.
Finally, I brought it downtown to capture some nighttime art installations, in order to focus on autofocus and bokeh performance.
I tested the lens on both an a7 IV and a1 camera.
Sigma 90mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary — Autofocus performance
If there’s one place I was most impressed with the Sigma 90mm Contemporary, it was with its autofocusing capabilities. It was able to capture action well, including a squirmy infant being thrown up into the air and caught by his parents.
But at night is where it really impressed me. I took it out to the World of Winter Festival, which is held each winter in my hometown of Grand Rapids, MI. There’s several art installations here. The lens was able to grab on to the subjects with ease, even with contrasting elements that other lenses might have given priority to. As people moved throughout the scene, it kept its focus, and worked marvelously with Sony’s Eye AF capabilities.
Sigma 90mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary — Image quality
Sigma continues to shine with its image quality. The 90mm Contemporary is a sharp beast of a lens, with some effective bokeh and virtually no chromatic aberration, ghosting or flaring. With its tack-sharp optics and great autofocus performance, this lens gives pro-grade results without a steep price.
However, it still has some flaws that you should be aware of. I was surprised to see some distortion, and pretty strong vignetting, for instance. But the other characteristics this lens holds makes up for any negative aspects related to image quality, in my mind.
Distortion control and vignetting
Out of the box, there is some distortion present with the Sigma 90mm Contemporary. But that’s easily fixed, by enabling profile corrections in Lightroom Classic.
The lens also offers some pretty heavy vignetting in the corners. While that can be removed, it’s something to take note of. As someone who typically puts a vignette on their images anyway, it didn’t really bother me.
Sharpness
This lens is razor sharp, and can give a nice fall off when shooting wide-open at f/2.8. In the photo above of the camera being held, you can really see how sharp the main subject of the image is, with the background giving off a very soft depth. This helps to exaggerate the sharpness some, but in a good way, and really lets you draw in the viewer to what you want them to focus on.
Bokeh
The Sigma 90mm Contemporary produces bokeh fairly well, but there’s a lot of catseye shapes present. Not the end of the world, but if you’re all about that bokeh, this might not be the lens for you. It does offer a nice, soft depth of field though, similar to other Sigma Contemporary lenses. So your subjects should pop rather well.
Color rendition
Like most Sigma lenses, the colors do tend to lean a bit warmer. In certain situations, this can help the color balance with Sony cameras, which tend to be a bit green.
Considering you’re a food photographer I’m surprised you didn’t mention the close focusing abilities of this lens which compared to any 85mm f1.8 is radically different.
The f2.8 max aperture enables (amongst other things), the lens to match filter size with the 24 f3.5 and 45 f2.8 by Sigma.
This was a bold design choice by Sigma and should be applauded in my opinion.
The close focusing abilities of this lens combined with the 90mm focal length is one of the reasons I chose this lens over the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 dg dn and the Sony 85mm f/1.8 . I love shallow dof lenses like f/1.4s and I shoot mostly live music and closeup nature photography. Low light and low ISOs are a struggle in my world . I saw the image rendering of this lens and decided upon it over the fast lenses. I also have the Sigma 65mm f/2 i Series and besides the 65mm fov which I love . I love… Read more »
Thank you for your review.
This lens seems lovely on paper but I give up with quality control.
My first attempt had a big dust speck inside, should have kept this one.
Second one had unacceptable amount of internal dust even if the specks were smaller.
Third one still have some dust and more annoying, some weird decentering.
Never had such bad luck with a lens !
I’d suggest reaching out Sigma directly about this.
First I own this lens and love the bokeh. I don’t get why folks get bent up about cats eye . If anything it can give that swirly effect. Bokeh that is flat and perfect to me has a fake-ish looking separation without character. I shoot live music videos and photography. I like this lens and the Sigma 65mm I series lens over my Sony G and especially GM lenses for background stage lighting. Those lenses can have some very ugly lighting behind the subjects . And now the big question “YES WHY NOT f/2 ? “ This would have… Read more »