The Nikon F mount Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Lens is a fast standard-length prime designed to achieve high optical performance through the incorporation of both three Special Low Dispersion glass elements and one molded glass aspherical element. These elements, coupled with an advanced optical design, work to minimize sagittal coma flare and chromatic aberrations in order to provide high image sharpness and clarity. The lens' large diameter and floating system also help to correct for vignetting to ensure maintained peripheral brightness. A Super Multi Coating has been applied to lens elements, too, to reduce flare and ghosting for higher contrast and color fidelity.

A Hyper Sonic AF Motor, along with an optimized AF algorithm, produces quiet, smooth, and fast autofocus performance that benefits this lens' use in a wide variety of situations. This AF motor also permits full-time manual focusing control for refined precision by simply turning the focus ring at any time. This lens has been designed using an advanced optical structure to achieve both high resolution and sharpness along with an aesthetic out-of-focus quality for greater subject separation. A molded glass aspherical element corrects for sagittal coma flare and enables full use of the fast f/1.4 maximum aperture with maintained sharpness and clarity. This design also works to minimize vignetting, color blur, and other distortions help to produce natural and pleasing bokeh for selective focus and shallow depth of field techniques. By reducing these aberrations, this lens is also well-suited to astrophotography or other situations with point-light sources due to its ability to suppress blur near the edges of the frame. As part of the Art line within Sigma's Global Vision series, this lens' is designed to achieve truly notable optical performance and is ideally suited for creative and artistic applications.