Hot on the heels of his first look at Sigma 135mm f/1.8 lens, Manny Ortiz offers his first impressions of the recently released Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Sony E mount.

Sigma has done Sony a huge favor in the last year by adding dramatically to the range of lenses available for Sony’s full-frame cameras, and their reputation for producing pin-sharp results at huge apertures is well known. The Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens doesn’t seem to disappoint, and Ortiz is not shy in taking it out in some pretty harsh lighting conditions: hard sunlight and a backlit model — what he describes as a “nightmare scenario.” Watch the video to its conclusion to grab some bonus tips on how to manage the brightness of the background with the shadow in the foreground.

And another bonus tip for you: Ortiz draws out some great tones from the surrounding skyscrapers, but if he’d wanted to find some nice colors in the muddy, gray water, he could have chosen to paint in a different color temperature using the adjustment tool in Lightroom. Having stood in a few lakes in my time, it’s a simple trick to inject some blues, aquas, and greens to make the water look way more appealing.