I used to be a bit of a off-brand glass nut and owned Sigma, Tokina, Tamron, Zeiss, Nikkor, etc. Heck I even had a Sears manual lens in Nikon mount. The old manual lenses from Nikon and Zeiss seem to live on forever but 5 of my 6 EF Sigmas stopped working due to a lack of ROM updates for newer EOS cameras. Well, they work fine if you use a really old EOS otherwise trying to stopdown or AF locked up the camera. I recall really liking the Tokina 17mm and still have 3 old Nikkors I use from time to time for kicks.
A big stumbling block for those who make JPEGs and video is probably going to be the inabiity to load lens correction data into the camera using EOS Utility.
Even with the older bodies, the camera took hotspots into account when metering a lens it knew about, but not, e.g., my one Zeiss lens.
Yep, some rather stellar ones. Tokina's 16-28/2.8, Samyang's 14/2.8, and Sigma's 12-24 and 15-30 top the list. The full complement is actually closer to 20 or more if you're into manual focus. There are perhaps ten third party AF zooms, many intended to compete with Canon's 17-35. Manual lenses include every Nikkor, the Zeiss 15/2.8, and so on.
Used to have a number of canon, sigmas but sold most of them and kept the 2 lens that cover 99% of my needs. 24-70 for general stuff and the 100-400 for telephoto stuff. No regrets as it makes the decision about which lens to use much easier!.
Massimo Foti wrote:
I haven't heard any first hand account on Tokina 17-35, what has been your experience so far?
I bought it use with my 1DIV, and while I've really only made a few shots with the lens, it doesn't disappoint... sharp across the board, even wide open at f4. The lens though is quite heavy, and the zoom ring is heavily damped. Because of my previous good luck with Tokina, I didn't think twice about picking it up as opposed to the Canon 17-40...
I used two Sigmas (15-30 and 70-200) on my old Minolta 7D DSLR, then a Tokina 12-24 on EOS, and now have a Sigma 14mm on my 1D Mark II N body. All worked without issues. I enjoy the 14mm a lot.
I own a fair amount of canon glass and I have a few more on my list to acquire, but two 3rd party lenses in particular appeal to me.
1: the samyang tilt shift, why? I can't see myself doing a lot of it. By an large dependable auto focus has been the difficult part to third party lenses, and with a
Manual focus optic you eliminate that problem.
2: a third party 300 2.8, why? I don't shoot a lot of 300-420mm stuff so I cannot justify the price of the canon 3/400mm lenses. The days of the original 300 used for 1500 are
Gone, so giving into the fact that arguably the canon optics are better, I will save money on that and buy third party. My assignments on those would
Be few and far between. If I could get buy with 5.6, I'd stick
With canon, but 300f/4 to start is too "slow".
That's my 2 cents. For me they will e specialty lenses that I otherwise cannot
Justify.
Zooms appeal to me and the Sigma 120-300/2.8 is really tempting but I've read too many reviews of it stating inconsistent AF. A shame really. I wish Canon would release something like that.
I mostly use Canon glass on my Canon bodies, but I do use a couple of Zeiss & Contax lenses, plus a couple of Zuikos. Sig and Tam on Canon don't really appeal to me. I do have the Samyang 35/1.4 which is a fun lens, but I will probably sell it - I just have too much stuff ATM.
alexdi wrote:
Which lens maker do you work for? Because if you don't, you have no idea what you're talking about. As to the sourcing of lens, what difference? Are you proposing that a website with a close association with the manufacturer would have access to cherry-picked lenses? Wouldn't it be then all the more egregious to discover that they performed poorly?
Here's LensRentals testing Canon's 24-70/2.8L Mark I. Perhaps with your fine statistics background, you can tell me the number of samples for a given statistical significance. He's tested about a hundred. Is that enough for you?
Not sure what your point is with all your remarks. Regarding your graph, please elaborate - there is no axis description or what it is supposed to mean.
LensRentals is really the last review I believe in - it is a fully commercial company. The current "excellent" 24-70 test of LensRentals is in contradiction to many other tests out there which show a much smaller significance between both lens versions. But this is just my personal opinion, believe in whatever test you like most.
It's a resolution chart. The axes are vertical and horizontal resolution. The point is that significant performance variation exists even with L glass, even from an OEM make. It's not a matter of opinion.
alexdi wrote:
It's a resolution chart. The axes are vertical and horizontal resolution. The point is that significant performance variation exists even with L glass, even from an OEM make. It's not a matter of opinion.
And I totally agree with this! I have never said it wouldn't - it is just that severe outliers like visible decentering effects in lenses are more rare than other posts might pretend.
alexdi wrote:
It's a resolution chart. The axes are vertical and horizontal resolution. The point is that significant performance variation exists even with L glass, even from an OEM make. It's not a matter of opinion.
retrofocus wrote:
And I totally agree with this! I have never said it wouldn't - it is just that severe outliers like visible decentering effects in lenses are more rare than other posts might pretend.
I've had decentered lenses from both Canon (L) and Sigma.
I used a Sigma 50 1.4 on my 40D for some time; it had some focusing issues, but when I got the focus properly, it yielded excellent IQ, and really superior bokeh.
I have two Zeisses: 2/35 & 2/100, and they're both simply superb.
I have a Tokina 16-28 2.8, and the new Tamron 24-70 stabilized 2.8. I like them both.
I am not a pro, and do not need the robust build quality of Canon's best. That said, my third party lenses owned are: Tamron 28-75 (awesome), Sigma 50 1.4 (also awesome when it focused) and Tokina 12-24 (great in all respects). I still have the Tokina for landscapes and wideangle - it is sharp, focuses precisely and I love the colors and I've never missed the Canon equivalent. Likewise, I would have kept the 28-75 but for me the IS and zoom range of the Canon 24-105 mean more than the 2.8 and semi-macro capabilities of the Tammie. To be fair, the 24-105 also focuses faster, as well. To my mind, there is no third party alternative to the 24-105. The Sigma 50 1.4 is a truly great lens, when it works. I had it twice, needed to have Sigma calibrate both copies, and usually loved the results. I found it generally superior in pretty much all respects (except focus speed) to the Canon equivalent. But for me, it was a specialized tool that, in the end, I could not justify keeping around.
Over 100mm, however, third party offerings simply do not come close (e.g. Canon 135, 200, 300, 400 primes, 70-200 2.8, 100-400 zoom etc.)
Bottom line: So long as you stay below about 100mm, third party lenses can be great, less expensive alternatives to Canon OEM.
Here's LensRentals testing Canon's 24-70/2.8L Mark I. Perhaps with your fine statistics background, you can tell me the number of samples for a given statistical significance. He's tested about a hundred. Is that enough for you?
I realize you intend sarcasm here, but looking at the graph there appears to be a fair amount of variation. Of course the axis aren't labeled so I have no clue what is being measured thus this variation may not be significant.
As for the question of whether or not 100 individuals in a sampling group constitutes a valid sample it depends on whether or not the lenses were truly randomly selected. In the case of LensRentals, I would suspect that they buy lenses in batches thus this would be considered a non-random sample and the general applicability of the results could reasonably be questioned. Roger himself has commented about the batch to batch variation his company has seen on a variety of lenses.
OntheRez wrote:
I realize you intend sarcasm here, but looking at the graph there appears to be a fair amount of variation. Of course the axis aren't labeled so I have no clue what is being measured thus this variation may not be significant.
As for the question of whether or not 100 individuals in a sampling group constitutes a valid sample it depends on whether or not the lenses were truly randomly selected. In the case of LensRentals, I would suspect that they buy lenses in batches thus this would be considered a non-random sample and the general applicability of the results could reasonably be questioned. Roger himself has commented about the batch to batch variation his company has seen on a variety of lenses.
I love my Sigma 15 mm on crop sensor bodies. I did try a Tokina 80 - 400mm but it was a bit soft at the long end. I have plenty of Canon lenses - the new 40mm f2.8, 17 - 40mm f4, the nifty 50, 85mm f1.8, 35 - 105mm, 200mm f2.8 and 400mm f5.6 and love them all.
Picked up a brand new Sigma 70 - 300 f4.5 / f5.6 OS in a receivership auction (Cecil Jacobs, one of the UK's biggest photo retailers went bust in July) at a good price. I have not had a chance to try it out yet.
