Vivitar vs. Sigma for mid-range telephotos?

[paul_m._woods]

Can anyone advise me - for a 70mm-210mm lens, which brand would make

it more sense to buy (in general)? I've always thought Vivitar were

cheap, and Sigma were the classy lens choice - am I wrong? I've just

read a post about an *old* Sigma - have they become better than

Vivitar in the last decade or so?

 

Thanks in advance for the advice.

[douglas_green1]

Well, NO brand produces all good, or all bad, lenses, including Nikon and Canon, who make some cheap junk zooms as well as mostly excellent lenses.

 

However the different brands do tend to target certain spaces in the market. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Vivitar's Series-1 line was the top 3rd-party lens line out there, and they marketed some truly outstanding lenses (typically, the lenses were actually produced by Kiron or Tokina, and marketed under Vivitar's brand).

 

But in the mid-late 1980s Vivitar dropped their emphasis on leading edge high quality stuff, and focused mainly on low cost stuff. At the same time, Sigma took essentially the reverse path. So nowadays, Sigma's lenses tend to be better than Vivitar's, and also cost more. But 20 years ago, that was NOT the case at all.

[jimstrutz]

I've not heard of a new good Vivitar lens for years. the 100mm f/3.5 macro, and the 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5 are optically decent lenses for the low amount of money you have to pay to get one, but they feel cheap. If I was looking for a decent 70-210mm lens, I wouldn't be looking at Vivitar.

 

Sigma still makes some terrible lenses, but they also make some decent lenses, and a few really good lenses. Sigma's 70-200mm f/2.8 is one of those very good Sigma's.

[scott_lewis3]

The vivitar stuff is just rebadged cosina lenses. (Also distributed under the name phoenix, soligor, voiglander and maybe many more) they tend to be "ok" for the price. As was mentioned the 2 best lenses they have are the 100mm 3.5 and the 19-35mm 3.5-4.5. But generally if I had to make a choice I would go for the sigma. If you are on a budget try looking at some of the tokinia or tamron lenses (they tend to be better than vivitar but cheaper than sigma)

[brien_m]

Get the old vivitar series 1 70-210 with either the constant 3.5 aperture or the 2.8-4. They made 5 versions of these early lenses and they are all quite good. I'd say better than the sigma's. Do a web search and you should be able to find some good info.