Be careful using those pics to sell your house (if you haven't sold it yet). Ultra-wide shots can lead to disappointment in buyers when they see the house for real. The photos will make a place look WAY larger than it really is. I took pics of my house with my Tokina 12-24 when I bought it, and even though it's crop camera and not nearly as wide as those, the first thing my parents said when they came over to see the new house was "wow, it's way smaller than it looks in the pictures."
I am in general a big wide angle fan, but I have never cared for 12mm rectilinear lenses on 35mm / full frame. The shots are just all foreground, the background is minimized, and the periphery is stretched. It works for some shots, but not many. Fisheye lenses and rotating swing-lens cameras (like the Noblex) preserve perspective much more naturally than rectilinear lenses if you're covering that angle of view.
Jman13 wrote:
Be careful using those pics to sell your house (if you haven't sold it yet). Ultra-wide shots can lead to disappointment in buyers when they see the house for real. The photos will make a place look WAY larger than it really is.
We actually had the opposite problem, we had people coming in and saying everything looked smaller in the pictures since it's a big house with high ceilings, but my 24mm equivalent was just not working for showing it off.
It's really unbelievable if you like UWA this is the ultimate setup IMHO.
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I know it's heresy to say, but Nikon has a 12-24 mm f/2.8 full frame coming. So a full frame D3 with that Nikkor puppy may topple the 5D / Sigma 12-24 combo.
But don't let that rain on your parade. Those UWA shots do look incredible.
DrPablo wrote:
I am in general a big wide angle fan, but I have never cared for 12mm rectilinear lenses on 35mm / full frame. The shots are just all foreground, the background is minimized, and the periphery is stretched. It works for some shots, but not many. Fisheye lenses and rotating swing-lens cameras (like the Noblex) preserve perspective much more naturally than rectilinear lenses if you're covering that angle of view.
While this is true of most prints...I find it's not, *if* you print big enough. At 12mm, the trick is to get the viewer to the "proper" viewing distance which is only half the height of the print. Think poster size...displayed in a hallway (and I don't mean on the end of one).
I had a Sigma 12-24 for my 300D. It was pretty decent. On my 5 D it was very soft, and I could often see my feet and tripod legs. I sold it and am happy with my 17-40.
Tim my first copy was ridiculously soft, this one is great even at pixel peeping sizes. It actually has made me a Sigma believer again after a long time as a skeptic due to soft copies and mis-focusing lenses.
I am truly impressed and that hard if anyone has seen how much glass I trade here
I put off buying this for a good while due to the reports of QC problems, but after several months of no reports of problems--and someone I know that is quite fussy about QC finding a very good one--I bit the bullet and ordered one (would have preferred to buy locally, but couldn't find one in all of NC). I got a very good one--and I checked it carefully in actual use and testing before deciding to keep it. I think Sigma got their act together in the last bit on this lens.
The other nice thing about this lens is that is ultrasonic, er, uh, Hypersonic. I'm used to USM and full time manual focusing. When I put my 50mm 1.8 on, it feels funny.
I have decided to keep this in my bag for interior house pictures. I tried it out in a new house the other day and it works well in big open rooms. I had a warehouse to shoot and it allowed me to get an entire wall when my 20-35 would've only got part of it.
I'll use my 20-35 outside because it has better flare control and I can use a polarizer. Yes, I know the skies will be uneven. That is why God invented CS3.
I have the Sig 12-24, and took it with my 24-105 and 70-300 DO, as well as a 50 f/1.4 to New Zealand for a great, light weight, versatile package. Throw in some extension tubes and maybe a flash, and you're covered for every shooting circumstance, really!
Grant808 wrote:
At 12mm, the trick is to get the viewer to the "proper" viewing distance which is only half the height of the print. Think poster size...displayed in a hallway (and I don't mean on the end of one).
The traditional "proper" (some would say "magic") viewing distance is the focal length multiplied by the enlargement factor. This has been espoused by Ansel Adams for gallery prints, among others. Because of this, the print size doesn't matter because you have to vary your viewing distance linearly with enlargement size.
have 2 bodies and just 2 lenses for those bodies (apart from speciality lenses like macros) and they are the 12-24 and a 28-300L IS. I have a 5d and a 30 (soon to be 40)D. I also use a kenko Pro 1.4x convertor.
I must have been lucky with my Sigma as mine seems to be quite good.
At any rate , on FF Im covered from 12mm- 420 and cropped from 17- 672 (f8)
as well as having a 1:3 macro on the 28-300 L and IS. Very versatile combo.
However the 12mm field of view is wonderful to take pics with , just about anything becomes interesting. I would LOVE live view and a tilt and twist type lcd with this lens for low shots etc. If you do interiors or exteriors , you can make things look a LOT bigger than they are , so I do recon you should be careful when doing presentations for house sales , but there is often no other way of showing a whole room or exterior to catch a prospective buyers eye?
I havent found flare to be a particular problem with the lens , I think its an amazing lens for FF. I don't like the exposed front element , but im careful.
AF seems good , it does get thrown once in a while.
I've never been a wide angle fan and usually find that I'm zooming in to frame my images in the camera, but this thread has convinced me there is actually a positive use for a wide angle zoom.
I'm definitely going to look for a Sigma 12-24 and give it a spin.
