Up Close with the Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens

The Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens is an impressive addition to a line of lenses already synonymous with extremely sharp image rendering. The new offering serves as a much anticipated “Art”-ification of Sigma’s previous (and currently discontinued) 70mm f/2.8 macro lens. Available for Sigma SA and Canon EF-mounts, the Macro Art is also the first Sigma lens to be released with a Sony E-mount option that does not require an adapter. I took the new lens out for a springtime stroll around the city to see how well it performs.

Those familiar with existing Art lenses will be shocked—SHOCKED—by how compact and lightweight this lens is. Weighing just over a pound, it is less than half the weight of the 50mm Art, and one third the weight of the 85mm Art. More important than the chiropractor bills spared, its light weight reduces fatigue and increases stability when shooting without a tripod as I did for the images in this review. Build quality is on par with the rest of its Art brethren. Constructed of metal and Thermally Stable Composite material, it feels reassuring in the hands of the user.

Sharpness is the bread and butter of Sigma’s Art line, and this lens is no exception. I was impressed by the rigorous clarity of in-focus and organic transitions to out-of-focus areas. Offering 1:1 rendering of subjects and a minimum focusing distance of 10.16", the Macro Art can pull a ridiculous amount of detail from even the tiniest subjects. I found myself noticing details while reviewing images that had completely escaped detection while shooting. If you need to get even closer, the EF and SA-mount lenses are compatible with Sigma’s 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters. All the photographs in this article were created without additional magnification.

For maximum sharpness and minimal distortion, the lens consists of two FLD, two SLD, two aspherical, and one element with a high rate of anomalous partial dispersion and high index of refraction. Flare and ghosting are reduced via a Super Multi-Layer Coating. A nine-blade, rounded aperture produces smooth bokeh.

Sigma has updated its autofocus algorithm and uses a focus-by-wire system in the Macro Art lens. Autofocus is quick and quiet, while full-time manual focus is possible by rotating the focus ring at any point. The lens has a large angle of rotation, a characteristic that can be a gift or a curse. On one hand, this allows meticulous fine-tuning of focus. However, if you are jumping between subjects that are not close to each other, the effort required to refocus can become annoying. To make matters more manageable, there are three focus distance settings that can be adjusted on the side of the lens: 0.258-0.5m, 0.5m-Infinity, and Full.

When shooting wide open at close range, the lens offers an extremely narrow in-focus area with which to work. The rewards make the effort worthwhile, because the resulting images present a striking contrast between razor-sharp focus and non-distracting blur. When shooting near 1:1, I found this to continue to be the case up to about f/8-ish, when the background started to become more prominent in images.

As mentioned earlier, the Sony E-mount version of the lens attaches directly to compatible cameras, eliminating the need for the MC-11 adapter while adding functionality with Sony’s Continuous AF system. Photographers working across brands can still use the SA and EF-mount lenses on Sony E-mount cameras via the corresponding MC-11 adapters. Additionally, the EF-mount lens is compatible with Canon’s Lens Aberration Correction.

Along with sharpness, the Sigma Art line has a reputation for being wallet-friendly, and the macro is no exception. As one of the most attractively priced Art lenses, it serves as an appealing option for casual and serious macro shooters alike.