I am keen to see photo taken with Sigmna 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3DC OS HSM

[snowshine]

Hello there,
I have a kit lens [Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM]. I am not keen on this kit lens since I bought a
Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC.
I looked at prices for a zoom lens covering up to 200 mm.
1.Canon EF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS £389.00
and
2.Sigma 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM £339.00

Apart from a price difference £50.00, I am quite impressed with the Sigma 30mm for quality compared to my present kit lens when photos are taken at 30mm on each with the same f stop.. I hope you understand what am I trying to imply.That said a side, I wonder if any one from here have photos [experience] taken with an above mentioned Sigma zoom lens to tell me, if they are happy or not so happy...
[I have a chance to see few photos put on Amazon site by the way]

Thank you for your advice and suggestion....

Regards
Arun

[Karl]

I have that lens and use it all the time as my only lens - it does a good job.

Here are some examples:

With my 450D



With my 7D

[darknight]

only just joined this forum today, but was looking at getting the sigma 250mm, so was a great thread to see first,karl, that jetty photo is really lovely, where and how did you take it?

[jcuknz]

I am puzzled ... what on earth can one tell from a small photo posted here as to if a lens is superior or not?

[snowshine]

Hello jcuknz,

I am puzzled ... what on earth can one tell from a small photo posted here as to if a lens is superior or not?

I am sorry if my original post was not clear in what I am looking for. My intention was not to look at photos comparing Canon against Sigma. I just wanted to see photos taken with the above mentioned Sigma lens.
In the process of typing my original post, thoughts of my mind over took and has come across as it appers ....but I wish to see photos taken at different distances with the above Sigma lens...

Thank you Karl for your post and it is very much appreciated.

Regards

[blakemcguire]

Not being a Canon user, I can't make a for-sure statement, but for the relatively small difference, I'd go with the Canon one for the peace of mind in terms of compatibility. To my understanding it is higher optical quality, but I certainly haven't tested them against eachother.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Arun,

I had that lens on a Nikon mount for several months, but eventually I had to take it back to the shop and swap+pay the difference for the Nikon 18-200mm. The problem was consistent back focus - it focused behind where-ever the focus point was, as did a second sample, as did the same lens after being sent (with my camera) to Sigma for "calibration".

Look how far I had to focus in front of the heron to get it sharp;

The lower bit of red box is the single focus point selected!
Aiming at the bird resulted in soft bird and sharp reeds 99 times out of a 100.

Same thing at close range, note the span of sharpness is behind the key edge I focused on;


In some circumstances, it could do OK though;




Click on pictures to see fullsize in Lytebox.

Needless to say, the Nikon 18-200mm lens doesn't do that, it is also has better contrast and slightly better build quality.

Google research at the time suggested this was an endemic problem with Nikon cameras (micro adjust was rarer in 2009 than now). On Canons, there were less problems, but possibly the bias was to front focus instead.

The cause; camera manufacturer's do not share the technical spec. with the third party lens manufacturers, so they have to reverse engineer it - it also wouldn't surprise me if the camera people occasionally deliberately do things to the spec. to cause grief to the likes of Sigma, Tamron, etc. So now I buy only Nikon lenses.

My advice?
Go Canon.

Cheers,

[Karl]

only just joined this forum today, but was looking at getting the sigma 250mm, so was a great thread to see first,karl, that jetty photo is really lovely, where and how did you take it?

Thanks for that This photo was taken at Fisherman's Harbour, Fremantle, Western Australia about 06:40 am on Friday morning.

Canon 7D Sigma 18 - 250mm lens F10 @0.6 sec ISO 100.

Karl

[Karl]

I am puzzled ... what on earth can one tell from a small photo posted here as to if a lens is superior or not?

True - but all of the photos I have taken with this lens and printed at A3 and framed hanging on the walls in my house look good. As a good all rounder single travel type lens I highly recommend it.

Karl

[ajohnw]

I suspect Arun pixel peeks when he mentions a 30mm prime against an 18-85mm zoom at 30mm. Or he blows them up to see which looks worst first. If that's the case he is unlikely to be happy with an 18 to 200mm zoom. A rough rule of thumb is that if a zoom covers a range of 3 or maybe 4:1 it wont be far behind a prime lens in general performance. The 18-85mm is 5.7 : 1 which is pushing things. It's also a budget lens. 18 to 200mm ? Way too much. It's very likely to be noticeable soft throughout viewed in the same way,. If you doubt my comments about the ratio's look at the Canon L series for full frame. Pick from those and any that cover 30mm will probably match up to the 30mm prime or come very close to it. The need to go to this level of performance really depends on how big the images are going to be finally viewed at and also the detail/sharpness shown at that stage. Only problem may be that the 24-105 is a bread and butter wedding photographers lens. Max size that is intended for might be A4 but I doubt if Canon would do that, You will notice that wide angle zooms cover a more restricted range and same with telephoto other than the 100-400mm which is a lower aperture lens. They also do a 28-300mm. Probably a great lens but it comes with a tripod mount and weighs in at 1.67Kg,

One thing about buying the better lenses is that they can last a long long time if the owner resists temptation. I bought mine a long time ago for an aps camera even though the resolution of the sensor didn't need it at the time. Many would change them, 24-85mm and 70-300mm IS plus a sigma 170-500mm that I hardly ever use. Going up from 85 to 105 isn't worth it as a crop will take care of that. I always intended to get one of the wide angle zooms but never have and only very very occasionally find that it would have been nice to have around. I was tempted to upgrade and buy another lens as well very recently but decided to buy an Olympus Pen instead. A more convenient thing to carry around especially with long focal lengths. Not a step I would recommend in some ways as it has added complications over a conventional dslr. These cameras are also a bit of a mess functionally. The cool icon might better replaced with an really

John