Jan 10/22/26 Jan 10/22/26

Sigma 65mm f2.0 DG DN Review and Sample Photos

This review isn’t sponsored. This is purely a review about a lens that I own and use regularly for my professional work, which consists of mostly of couple and family shoots, and weddings.

Choosing Lenses

When choosing lenses to use, it’s really important to me how they pair up with my other lenses and for them to form a cohesive line up. The most important lens that I own is my 35mm. Everything else is setup around that central lens.

I’ve been looking for a good pairing for a while now. After trying a 55mm, and a 75mm, I was lucky enough that Sigma came out with a 65mm lens. Lucky, because they are the only manufacturer that offer an autofocus lens with this focal length.

I always struggled to find a secondary lens to go along with my 35mm. One that suited me and for the type of photography I do. An 85mm lens would be the traditional way to go, but it always felt way too tight for couples and especially for family shoots. It made me feel so claustrophobic! A 75mm felt closer to what I wanted but it was still way too telephoto for me and I ended up having to use my feet way more than I wanted to. Always running back and forth. And it wasn’t just angle of view that was the issue, but also the look of the photos. When looking at a finished gallery from a shoot, I could tell immediately which photo had been taken with which lens in a really jarring way. With the 55mm I had the issue that it was a bit too wide and there wasn’t enough of a focal length difference to the 35mm. And using my 24-70mm as a secondary lens also never really clicked with me.

But thankfully that 65mm came out! It reminded me a lot of an old lens I had many years ago. When I was still photographing on an APS-C Nikon DSLR. I had a Sigma 50mm f1.4 ES DG HSM lens for it. Sigma lied about it and sold it as a 50mm when in reality it was a 45mm and noticeably wider. I loved that lens though and no wonder, in full frame terms that would be a 67.5mm lens. So essentially the exact same as this 65mm. I used it for so many of my favourite photos at the time.

The Positives

What I really love about the lens is how versatile it is. Because it’s such an in-between focal length, it sometimes behaves and looks like a 50mm and other times as an 85mm. So it’s great to use for some close up portraits in combination with a wider lens or to use it for headshots, where one would generally use a portrait lens for. And it saves me from getting two lenses. I’m a minimalist, so the less I can own, the happier I am.

I love the build quality and the aperture ring! Sigma always knock it out of the park in that regard but I especially love this whole ‘i’ series in general. If I wasn’t such a minimalist, I would gladly get almost every one of their ‘i’ lenses! I always appreciate great quality, reliable, compact lenses. This is my smallest lens which makes it great to throw in the camera bag, just in case, for shoots where I’m unsure if I’ll need it or not. In comparison, bringing the 70-200mm is always such a commitment!

As per usual with Sigma, it’s not just the build quality that’s great but also the autofocus! Fast enough to capture running kids and always accurate too.

The bokeh is also pleasing. My opinion on bokeh has shifted a lot over the last years. I used to really like the more swirly, old-school bokeh. I still do, but as a professional photographer I found that to be unsustainable. It’s great to have that in some photos but it doesn’t always work at every single location, lighting situation, subject, background etc. So I’ve learnt to appreciate the cleaner Sigma look over the years. And to be fair, I think these lenses could look way more clinical than they are, especially this one. It still has character and a bit of swirl without being overpowering. Also f2.0 is absolutely fast enough at this focal length for my liking. Enough bokeh and still compact enough, it’s the perfect balance.

The Negative(s)

The biggest negative for me is that compared to my other Sigma lenses, this has a magenta colour cast. In Lightroom it generally tends to be one click colder and two clicks more magenta. And sometimes, even after corrections, the colours in general aren’t quite as amazing as my Sigma 35mm f1.2 II. Although that is a real top performer in this regard. Usually this colour issue can be fixed, but every one in a thousand ends up being converted to black and white instead.

At first I thought the magnetic lens cap would be really cool feature, but since I use UV filters on all of my lenses, it makes the magnetic lens cap obsolete. Thankfully they do provide a regular lens cap too. So it’s not a big issue but worth mentioning.

Those are the only two (or one and half) negative points I have about this lens.

Verdict

I really appreciate what Sigma are doing. Their lenses are fantastic! Built well, reliable, great image quality and sold for a great price. I really appreciate the ease of mind I have with Sigma lenses when it comes to shooting a full wedding day. I know I won’t have any issues and they’ll work reliably all day! This lens is another great addition, not just to their line up but also to mine.

There seem to be rumblings that Sigma might make a faster 65mm lens soon. The faster aperture wouldn’t really interest me, but I would be interested to see if that ended up having a similar colour profile to my 35mm. If it did, I would possibly consider upgrading to it just for that reason.

See my review here for the Sigma 35mm f1.2 DG II.

And all my other gear reviews are here.

More Sample Photos

Jan 6/6/26 Jan 6/6/26

Samyang AF 75mm f1.8 Review Sony FE

I think this is a fantastic lens! That’s my summarized opinion. Why is it fantastic? Price and size!

Combo

I use my 35mm lens the most. I’ve made it no secret that that is my favourite focal length of all (like here, here and here)! And subsequently, I needed a secondary lens to compliment it. I’ve always felt like an 85mm is too tight and too big a gap to 35mm. I know I’m probably in the minority when it comes to that opinion, but it never felt comfortable to me. So in came the 75mm. Spoiler alert, it felt better but not perfect and I eventually replaced it with a lens that felt perfect for me.

But when I do a couple or family shoot, I’ll use a 35mm lens for 70-80% of the shots, and a more telephoto option for the rest. So this is truly a secondary lens. And for being a secondary lens, it’s nice and small, and lightweight. If it was my primary lens, I would look into getting the best and biggest 85mm lens, like I did with my 35mm, but not here.

The Good

For the price, it delivers fantastic image quality, and I do really like the bokeh too, with just a hint of swirl. It also gave you that typical, fast telephoto look and compression, that’s so iconic with 85mm lenses. Colours were good and matched the Samyang 35mm f1.8. It just works really well!

The size and weight
The price
Image quality

The Bad

The only criticism was that the autofocus was a bit slow so that I couldn’t use it for wedding days or events, the lens had no actual aperture ring, and the build quality was very plasticky. The latter made me worry how well the internals were built and how long the lens would last. A Sigma lens in comparison (different price range of course), does give you that confidence that it will be working perfectly during a wedding ceremony. This didn’t. Although I’d love to hear other people’s experiences with it though! And it was more than adequate for portraits. A really amazing little pocket rocket!

I also found the ‘fake’ aperture ring to be a gimmick, as well as the custom modes. I’d have preferred to have had a real aperture ring and no custom switch.

Autofocus
Build quality
No real aperture ring and pointless custom modes

Uncomfortable

As great as this lens was and as much as I enjoyed the extremely compact bang for buck nature of it, I just still never felt truly comfortable with the 35/75mm combo. Traditionally a very popular combo, but one that I struggled with. The difference in focal length was just too stark for me, not only during the shoot but also afterwards. When looking at a gallery, I could immediately tell which photo had been taken by which lens and I felt the difference was too jarring.

Would I recommend it?

I think this focal length issue is a very personal issue that I will probably not share with a lot of other photographers. So to those photographers I say, get this lens if it interests you and you don’t necessarily need the best of the best!

Sigma 35mm f1.2 DG II Review and Wedding Sample Photos

Sigma 35mm f1.2 DG II Review and sample portrait photos from family photo shoots and wedding couple shoots.

The Focal Length

The 35mm focal length is by far my favourite one! I love using it for couple and family shoots, as well as weddings. If I could only have one prime, this would be the one. I have written previous blog posts of my favourite 35mm-ish lenses at the time, the Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4, the tiny Samyang AF 35mm f1.8 and the APS-C Samyang 21mm f1.4.

Sigma 35mm f1.2 DG II @ f1.2 with an effect filter

Sigma 35mm f1.2 DG II Wedding Sample Photos

This is in general less of a review and more of an opportunity to showcase some sample photos to those who are unsure if they would like this lens. I live in Ireland where there aren’t really any camera and lens rentals, or big camera stores where we can try out unlimited amounts of gear. So I personally always appreciate having some sample photos to look at.

I have shot a number of weddings and family shoots with it now, and spoiler alert, I think this is a great lens. I especially enjoyed photographing this wedding couple shoot with it.

Upgrading from the Sony Zeiss

I previously wrote a blog post about my previous lens, the Sony Zeiss 35mm 1.4. Although it wasn’t a very popular lens, I loved using it. But as time passed, there were two issues I was having with it:

The autofocus was very fast and accurate outdoors. Very reliable. But in any indoor environment, it was absolutely unusable as a professional photographer. It was both slow and inaccurate, telling me it had locked focus when it hadn’t.

2. It paired up really well with my Sony Zeiss 55mm 1.8, another characterful lens, but not with any of my other lenses.

3. I loved characterful lenses, but am now appreciating more neutral looking lenses.

I think the latter two points is more of an issue that I face specifically as a professional photographer. When I was an amateur photographer, my aim was to get a few great shots every couple of weeks. As a professional however, I need to be able to provide dozens of great shots every time I do a shoot. So I can’t have equipment letting me down by only working in specific scenarios, or complicating my shoot because I was only able to pair certain lenses together.

So along with getting this 35mm lens, I reduced my lens collection to the most important focal lengths for me. Choosing lenses where each lens can work in any environment (indoors/outdoors), any situation (fast/slow) and in any pairing.

Trying the Sony GM

So I began looking for a more suitable 35mm. Everyone seems to love the Sony 35mm 1.4 GM, so I bought that first. To me it honestly didn’t feel like a €1500 lens. The build quality was great but I felt like the lens should have been at most €1000. The look of the images was too boring for me as well, and even though it was also a f1.4, it rendered more like a f1.8 or even f2.0. I was definitely getting a shallower depth of field with my Sony Zeiss. So I sent it back and by pure coincidence, the new Sigma 35mm 1.2 DG II had just been put on sale.

I was also happy to upgrade to an f1.2 instead of sidestepping to another f1.4. I’d rather have more light and a shallower depth of field available to me and choose not to use it, than running out of light.

Choosing the Sigma 35mm f1.2 DG II

Immediately I loved the look of the photos from this lens. They are very neutral, not very characterful, but not boring like the GM. This is exactly what I was looking for. The Sony Zeiss was too characterful at times, and again, as stated before, when you’re a professional photographer and you have to capture dozens of great photos every time you shoot, this can become problematic.

Lens Pairing

This lens also pairs up really well with my Sigma 65mm f2 DG DN which I bought to replace the Sony Zeiss 55mm. I love the 65mm focal length, it really suits my way of shooting and I’m so grateful that Sigma made it. An 85mm or even 75mm always felt to close for me and I could never get used to it, no matter how hard I tried.

It also works really well with the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 DG DN OS that I also own. A great combo for weddings or even sports, like this game of golf that I photographed with this pair.

Previously, when I was using the Samyang AF 35mm (review here), I paired that up with the Samyang AF 75mm (review here). And that worked for a while. But I didn’t like about that combination was that the two focal lengths looked too different. The 75mm had so much compression, that when browsing through the photos of a photo shoot, I found it quite jarring going from one image to the next. I could, without fail, tell which image had been taken with which lens. This is a very personal complaint, as the 35/75 combo has traditionally been a very popular option.

The Sony Zeiss combo of the 35mm and 55mm worked really well too but here I had the opposite problem; the angle of view between the two was not quite big enough. So when I paired the Sigma 35mm with 65mm, I was in heaven, it was perfect for me! In the best way possible, the two lenses mesh into one and I can only tell half the time which lens is which while looking at the images. The shoot becomes way more cohesive and I love that!

The Positives

The autofocus is a huge improvement indoors and in less than ideal lighting conditions. That is the big one! I can now use a 35mm lens comfortably and reliably in any part of the wedding day. I have to say, it’s not as good as my Sigma 70-200mm 2.8 DG DN, but it’s 90% there. And I’m definitely getting more keepers even when the DOF is super shallow at f1.2!

The build quality is amazing, like all Sigmas, and I love their lens hood design with the button and I love that all their lenses have an aperture ring. I love using aperture rings! Especially compared to the Sony Zeiss that had a flimsy lens hood that often fell off and a loose aperture ring who’s clicks weren’t very confident.

I’m delighted that Sigma was able to reduce the weight by such a big amount. There was no way that I was going to carry a 35mm lens that weighed over a kilogram with me. The mkII is a bit bigger and heavier than the Sony Zeiss but it balances really well on camera.

And finally, the image quality is just out of this world! It’s such an upgrade in every way that even my non-photographer friends and family have remarked about how much better the images look, not knowing that I got a new lens. They asked me what I did differently because the photos looked noticeably better. And I totally agree.

Neutral Remarks

I know that everyone mentions that the lens has no CA. But what I have noticed is that sometimes when I see the images in the Lightroom library, it does show some photos to have purple fringing but when I open it in ‘Develop’, it disappears. So I wonder if it’s just digitally removed. I don’t really mind, as it’s removed so well that it’s never been an issue but I’m just curious what’s going on there.

Something else that I noticed and that I’ve never seen with any other lens before is that very rarely, when slightly stopped down, you can get these square bokeh balls in the corners of the image. Again, I don’t mind it, but it’s just odd, I’ve never seen that before. I’m assuming that when stopped down, the swirly bokeh makes the balls square.

The below example photo of this phenomenon is an extreme crop of the top left corner taken at f2.0. It was a Christmas tree in the background.

Square Bokeh

“…you can get these square bokeh balls in the corners of the image.”

This is a sharp lens. A very sharp lens. Just like with my 70-200mm when I do headshots for companies, I end up having to spend more time in post softening skin. I suppose this is one of those cases of ‘at least I can always soften an image, but I can’t make it sharper’.

A minor non-issue, but I do prefer Sigma’s previous sans-serif font. I think it looked more timeless.

And lastly, this lens does wash out more significantly in backlit situations than any of the lenses I have owned in the last 8 or so years. I’m not sure why they didn’t or couldn’t match this to their usual great flare resistance. However, I must say it’s not terrible, I actually think it makes the images look a bit more natural, which is why I didn’t put it down in the negatives but it’s something to be aware of.

Flaring

“…this lens does wash out more significantly in backlit situations…”

The Negatives

What I have noticed is that the AF does sometimes struggle on objects that are closer up, like about 70cm or less to the camera. It can just refuse to see the object. For the types of shots I use this for, this isn’t a deal breaker as I don’t miss any critical shots, it’s just a little bit annoying sometimes. I wonder if there might be a firmware update in the future to fix this issue?

And the only other negative I have, is that it makes my Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN mkI look like dogsh*t. Haha! I thought this was a high contrast and sharp lens when I got it initially. Turns out I was wrong.

Verdict

Sony has a weird 35mm line up. With so many lenses in their catalogue, from Sony themselves to numerous third party manufacturers, I am still a little surprised how packed yet empty the 35mm line up is. There are many entry level options and some great expensive options. But nothing in between for around €800 that is reliable and versatile. I think if the Sigma 35mm 1.4 would have been a newer lens with more reliable autofocus, that logically would have been the lens for me. Having said that, I am really happy I went with the more expensive lens with the most advanced autofocus. Yes, it’s not double as good for double the price but for someone like me who is using this lens regularly for paid gigs, it’s clearly made the difference.

Buying this lens was also a part of a greater project of simplifying my lens collection and making the lenses more compatible with each other. So I now have:

• Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 DG DN I

• Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 DG DN

• Sigma 35mm f1.2 DG II

• Sigma 65mm f2.0 DG DN

• Zeiss Batis 40mm f2.0

The Batis is the only outlier and I use that either on it’s own or with one of the two zooms. Otherwise I can pair any of the Sigma lenses together perfectly. They look well together and all have great autofocus so that I can use them in any situation. This has made my work life so much easier.

All the Sigmas also have much more similar colours to each other as well, simplifying the white balance settings in Lightroom as well. Mixing brands before was a bit of a mess, as some lenses were warmer than others or had more magenta that needed to toned down.

Hopefully this has helped you make a decision if this is the lens for you or see more of my gear reviews here.