Sigma 28-70 2.8

[john raasch]

Anyone with experience using Sigma's 28-70 f2.8. I am able to get a

pretty good deal on one and I am wondering about the quality. Thank

you for your responces.

[rob_malkin]

I have a few lenses, two are Sigma. I have a 28-70 f2.8 and a Sigma 17-35 f2.8-4. The 28-70 is pretty good. Its heavy and feels a little bit too big on my Nikon F80 (N80), its a lot better on my F100. The overall build is really good. I really like it, its focusing ring is really big and its really handy.

It is 77mm thread which is a little bit on the expensive side. Overall I am really happy with it. But,

I have noticed some really heavy distortion (barrel) at the 70mm end. I shoot wide open most of the time and have had some 10*15 prints. And i am happy. The edges are a little bit soft, but that has never bothered me.

Its a cheap lens and I think that its really good value. The only thing that lets it down is the fact that its pretty big and the distortion i mentioned. But i am sure that people will post after me telling you of the merrits of Nikkors and Canon's, but I am happy with it and use it 50% of the time.

 

I am sure you will be happy with it.

 

rob

ps.

as for the size thing I like big lenses. I cant stand using my Nikkor 50mm f1.8 on my Nikon F100 (with mb-15 grip). Its so small! Its too small to use it well. So I think you might even like the big size, I guess it will depend on your camera body.

[kaiyen]

There are a couple of versions of this lens - the DF (dual focus) model is supposedly quite a bit sharper than the non DF model. Just fyi.

allan

[jimstrutz]

The early version in the Canon EF mount has incompatability problems with some new bodies. I had one. It wasn't a bad lens at all, and the newer version is better.

[minh_thai]

I have the DF. Quite good optically, AF is slow and noisy comparing to USM equiped lenses though. This is the lens that lives on my Canon A2E. M

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

Here's an interesting comparison against the new tamron 28-75 XR lens

<BR>http://photography-on-the.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20941&highlight=

 

<br> besides what the others said-i recall there used to be two versions of that sigma lens,The normal f2.8 model then the better EX version.<BR>

That was a year ago...not sure where the DF fits in.Maybe the EX version has duel focus as one of it's features?

[yakim_peled1]

From what I read I understand that the best third party 28-70/2.8 is the new Tamron 28-75/2.8. A friend of mine tested it against the Canon 28-70/2.8 USM L and they were very close.

 

Happy shooting ,

Yakim.

[spencer_hahn]

There's the old Sigma that looked really ugly and was completely black. I have no experience with this one. The second one is the non-DF, EX version. I have this one and it's lovely. For $200 USD, it's a steal! The DF version (the current selling one), as I understand it, HAS THE SAME OPTICAL FORMULA AS THE SECOND ONE. Look at the chart at www.sigma-photo.com and compare the stats to the second version. They're all identical!!! And unlike AF-to-HSM, AF-to-DF doesn't require an optical design overhaul.