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jimnms
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Registered: Mar 27, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 15
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Review Date: Oct 12, 2004
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $110.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Cheap, small, lightweight
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Cons:
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AF in low light, the MF and zoom rings are backwards from Canon lenses
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I bought this lens for my 10D for a cheap wide angle lens since I mostly shoot telephoto. It's served it's purpose well, and I'm about to replace it with a Canon 17-40 f/4L.
The AF motor is a little loud, but that doesn't bother me. It's not superfast AF, but it's not that slow either.
As some have already mentioned, you need to remember to switch to MF before attaching/detaching the lens to the camera so you don't accidentally turn the focus ring.
I think most of the people that give this lens a bad review are expecting way too much out of a ~$100 lens. 
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 Oct 12, 2004
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dfoto
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Registered: Sep 6, 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2
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Review Date: Sep 10, 2004
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $120.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Cheap and usable.
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Cons:
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See below.
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It is plastic, small, light, quite well built and has a metal mount. It can be difficult to mount it on the camera since you need to grab its base. The front rotates so you need to put it in MF mode to take off/put on the hood - since moving the focus ring can kill the AF motor. This also means that CPLs need to be adjusted when you refocus. The zoom ring is reasonably damped and the focus ring is easy to move but not loose.
The newspaper test results. Optically, the centre is always good to very good. It is edges and corners at the shortest focal length where this is bad. Sigma clearly intends it this way. At 18mm wide the edges and corners are terrible. They become usable by f8. At 24, 28,35 and 50 it is not atall that bad even wide open. But this is bought for the 18mm fl. Sadly, if they made it that good, then many would not buy the other much more expensive offerings...
That said, in the field it IS usable. I have many shots at 18mm which show this. Shooting RAW helps and not going for big prints. Flare is not an issue nor is CA. Distortion is a bit worse than a 15-30 EX or 17-40L.
Overall and for the money it is better than one might expect at this price. If you want good performance through the range, then you must pay a lot more.
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Sep 10, 2004
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atlantagreg
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Registered: Apr 26, 2003
Location: United States
Posts: 11
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Review Date: Sep 10, 2004
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $114.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Price. Reasonable images. Light weight.
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Cons:
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A little stiff and loud, but hey, it's not a thousand dollar lens!
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It's funny when I read some of the other comments on this lens in this thread. "Not good for professional use" is one - please tell me WHAT "professional" would buy a lens that costs barely over a hundred U.S. dollars, and expect it to perform to professional standards??
Let's lower our noses and come down from Mount Olympus to the real world, shall we? This is a plastic bodied, third party, barely over one hundred dollar lens. FOR THAT PRICE, you are getting a lot. The images may have very slight softening in the corners, and under the right condition you may see some CA (purple fringing), but I see this on cameras that cost nearly a thousand dollars in the consumer level of digicams! If you expect perfection from a $114 lens, you're being very very unrealistic.
For everyday and casual uses, the Sigma is just fine. I've done real estate pics that "wowed" the owners, and with some very minior tweaking the images are in the very good category for their intended uses. Since I don't try to take wide angle shots in completely dark rooms, I've not seen the AF problems I've read about. In "normal" lighting indoors and good lighting out, the AF is fine. If it's midnight and you're in a room with one lamp lit, yep, you'll need the camera's AF assist light, as you would with 98% of all other cameras out there.
So if you want "professional" quality, then you need to expect to pay as much for you lens as you did your camera. If you just need a decent lens to take everyday wide angles with, this lens is just fine.
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Sep 10, 2004
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piksi
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Registered: Aug 16, 2004
Location: Finland
Posts: 1
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Review Date: Aug 16, 2004
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $150.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Very cheap, great wide angle with 10D indoors, acceptable image quality for such price.
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Cons:
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Noisy and slow AF, rotating lens barrel, LOUSY lens hood!
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I bought this lens because i wanted cheap wide angle for my 10D and there were very few options on the market which came even close to 20mm with the 1.6x crop with a reasonable price. this lens felt unbelievable at first, i got ~20mm wide angle which had decent image quality! I like the zoom range, i'm happy with the image quality (for this incredibly cheap price) and the lens feels solid and not shaky.
The cons are incredibly slow af which rotates the front lens barrel, if not shot in very good light, the lens tends to miss focus completely. the AF motor is loudest i've ever heard. the front barrel rotates which makes using linear polarization filters very annoying. the M/AF switch is so tight that changing focus mode is sometimes a pain in the ass. the lens hood is tightened to the front lens barrel, and i've many times accidentally rotated the barrel when tightening the hood while the lens was on AF. it's really easy to break the AF motor if you need to play a lot with the lens hood.
ok, if you're looking for a 500-1500€ quality wide angle image, do NOT expect that this lens will deliver it! of course it won't, but for 150€ it will make you smile more than cry when in need for wide angle with 300D, 10D, D70 etc...
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Aug 16, 2004
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riokid
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Buy and Sell: On
Registered: Jun 24, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8368
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Review Date: Jul 23, 2004
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $93.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Cheap! Better option than chopping the EF-S. Delivers on a bind
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Cons:
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Not an "L"! What do you expect from your $93?
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I purchased this lens for the occasional wide angle needs, especially at 24mm or wider indoors. Focusing in low light is an issue unless you have the AF assist light of the 550EX/420EX.
I did not expect much from a lens costing less than half as much as some of my filters. It has however delivered pictures I would otherwise have missed. On serious commisioned work requiring a wide field of view, I rent the exotic "L" series.
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Jul 23, 2004
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jma24
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Registered: Jun 27, 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 32
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Review Date: Jun 27, 2004
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 2
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Pros:
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Price, compact
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Cons:
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Everything else, especially autofocus
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Everything else. The worst thing about this lens is the autofocus. It's plain awful. Noisy, terrible unless you're in a bright surrounding, I mostly just set it in manual mode and save on battery power. It constantly hunts and usually gets it wrong.
Other than that, the image quality is OK, if lacking a bit in sharpness. The lens has a tendancy to look a bit two-dimensional, as someone else pointed out. Oh, and below 28, the lens tends to distort the image something rotten.
I went into a shop today and tried out the 28-70 EX variant, and since they offer a 30 day money back guarantee I will be returning this lens next week. The EX was so much better in focussing and image quality.
If you truely need the cheapest lens money can buy, it does have a metal mounting and it is fairly reasonably made. But you get what you pay for.
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Jun 27, 2004
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lotapixel
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Registered: Feb 29, 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 29
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Review Date: Jun 18, 2004
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $199.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Fairly sharp for the money. Consistant focus.
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Cons:
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Noisy AF motor.
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I bought this lens as an inexpensive improved replacement for the 300D kit lens. I did careful comparison tests between the two lenses and in every case found the Sigma to be slightly better, with the exception of noise. The Sigma was slightly sharper in the corners at almost any aperture. The focus speed was faster, and more consistant than the kit lens. All of the differences were subtle but worth spending a few dollars extra for.
Sure, it will not compare to an L lens. But what do you expect?
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Jun 18, 2004
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Tyler Brown
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Registered: Apr 5, 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 162
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Review Date: Jun 12, 2004
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: $120.00
| Rating: 2
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Pros:
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price
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Cons:
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sharpness, contrast, autofocus speed, autofocus accuracy, build quality
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This lens has no redeeming qualities, beyond its price.
It is slow to autofocus, and in anything beyond perfect light, hunts constantly. I have had occasional problems with front focussing. The sharpness, even when stopped down is horrible, and all images appear flat.
Do not under any circumstances consider purchasing this lens.
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Jun 12, 2004
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cmacclel
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Registered: Nov 14, 2003
Location: United States
Posts: 1208
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Review Date: Jun 2, 2004
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: $120.00
| Rating: 2
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Pros:
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When stopped down the images where very sharp
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Cons:
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Went through 2 both front focused unacceptably. The Focus motor is very noisy.
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This would be a great lens if it worked. I have a 10D and have had over 10 lenses that all worked properly. After 2 of these lenses front focusing horribly I wound up picking up the Canon EFS 18-55 and modifying it for use with the 10D.
Mac
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Jun 2, 2004
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KamiG
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Registered: Mar 10, 2004
Location: Italy
Posts: 2
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Review Date: May 14, 2004
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Recommend? no |
Price paid: $130.00
| Rating: 4
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Pros:
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Light and cheap.
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Cons:
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Not sharp as 18-55 and the AF is slow and loud.
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Canon EF-S 18-55 is better than this Sigma 
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May 14, 2004
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trsqr
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Registered: Dec 24, 2002
Location: Finland
Posts: 38
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Review Date: May 9, 2004
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $120.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Cheap, good focal range on DSLR-cameras, fair picture quality, AF motor speed is ok
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Cons:
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Not as sharp as some more expensive lenses are, lens hood is impossible to detach or attach without turning the AF motor (may damage the motor), loud AF
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For the price, this is an excellent lens. For a Canon user, this is a good replacement for the EF 18-55.
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May 9, 2004
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khkai
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Registered: Mar 1, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 38
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Review Date: May 1, 2004
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $106.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Light, Cheap, good wide angle coverage, relatively sharp
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Cons:
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light, rotating front while focusing, AC motor, limited camera compatiblity to 1.5x crop or higher.
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This is a pretty compact lens. If you don't want to pay or lug around a 17-40L, this is definitely a cheaper alternative. It produces images of similar and slightly better quality than the 18-55mm canon kit lens. The build quality is much better also. However, I found the AC motor to be very loud and seems like it might break over time. Especially when Sigma warns not to crank the focus ring while in AF mode, but when you put on the front cap, you inadvertantly twist the AC motor. So, potential for damage is higher than an internal focusing system. But overall, if stopped down to around f8, the images come out quite clear, constrasty, and relatively sharp. For a wide angle, this is hard to beat. Only other major concern is the 1.5x crop requirement. If placed on a 1.3x, it will vignette heavily. But at least it is compatible with all other 1.5x crop cameras whereas the kit lens is not. If you have a 10D and want the cheaper kit lens alternative, this is the obvious choice.
A very good lens for the price.
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May 1, 2004
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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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28
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100864
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Mar 29, 2009
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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61% of reviewers
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$124.65
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Build Quality Rating
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Price Rating
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Overall Rating
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5.93
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8.23
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5.5
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